Lake Ontario Olcott NY 7-21 - 7-23 Awesome

[Tim Bromund]

Had my Uncle, Cousin and their friend Marvin come in to town from Ohio to do some salmon fishing with us, so I took a few day off work and we fished Thursday, Friday and Saturday Morning.

7-21-11: Strong W/SW winds on Thursday morning with 2s building to 2-4s and then laying down in the afternoon. started inside in front of the red barn in 60 fow and trolled WNW, lots of steelhead in there but we couldn't find any kings that wanted to play. Temps were still high in the inside water and we had 42-44 deg down 40 feet in the morning. Watched the temp profile change and temp get pushed down as the day progressed with that strong SW wind.

Later in the morning with still no kings other than a couple skips we decided to head way inside and try for some browns, found the motherlode in 35 fow in front of the microwave and took a dozen brown in about an hour and a half including our boat's best brown ever of around 17 lbs, another in the 12-13 lb class and the rest mostly typical 6-8 lb cookie cutter footballs. All released except one bleeder that we had to box.

Ended the with 20+ trout (between the steelies and the browns) boated, but no kings.

Here's a pick of the big brown, sorry about the so so quality, taken on an older cell phone:

7-22-11: Friday was nice and flat and the Kings were active again. Temps were much deeper, but we fished the marks on the graph and the kings were feeding high and a little out of temp. high 50's to mid 60's) It was totally a spoon bite on riggers on Friday with the riggers parked at 40 and 50 feet. Old School NK Black and Purple continues to be a fish taker for us this season, particularly 1st thing in the morning, but once the sun came up, our better fish came on a 42 second stingray and had a big screamer on a NK 42 second that came unbuttoned 150 yds or so into it's initial run. Ended up with a 22 and a 24 in the box along with a bleeder steelhead and another bleeder brown. Fished til 12:30 and ended up the day again with over 20 bites.

7/23/11: Saturday was going to be a short day for us anyways. The marine forecast when last checked on friday evening called for light SW winds and waves 1 ft or less, but they were already 20 mph out of the NW with 2 footers and building. so I ran out to 50 fow in front of the microwave and we did an east troll with the waves. Fished 50-90 fow and again found active feeding fish up high. We fished one east pass till we reached the power plant, and in 2.5 hrs boated a dozen+ fish including 1 19 lb king and a couple 15-16 lb teenagers along with a number of skips and 2 browns. Unlike friday, all rigs were active and all six rods, both riggers (40 and 50 down),both wire divers (120 and 140 on a 2 setting), the 200 copper and 5 color core all took fish. NK Black and Purple again on the 50' diver took several shots as did the 42 second stingray on the 40' rigger, but the most action came on a white/green dot SD/Atommik Hammer Fly 120 back on the wire diver took the most shots. Albino Gator SD/White Ghost Siggs on the 200 copper took several shots as well.

All in all, fishing continues to be stellar out of Olcott.

Oh yeah, and ahhh, where have we seen THIS before

Tim

 

[Bill D.]

Dang Tim,
Those would make some fine sized bait fish for down here. <grin> Seriously, looks like great fun. What size tackle do use with your downriggers and do you you have a picture of the release clips you use. I didn't like the ones that came with my Cannon 'riggers and switched to a aftermarket brand (which I don't remember the name of).

 

[Tim Bromund]

Bill,

I use 8.5' medium action rods with Shimano Triton TR200G Reels spooled with 17 lb Trilene XT and then approx 100 feet of 30 lb trilene big game to deal with the spiny water fleas (a small crustacean/zooplankton with a long barbed tail that will collect on trolled lines, a foreign invasive critter introduced to the great lakes courtesy of some European ship captain's ballast water.... grrrrrrr) and then 6' of 20 lb fluorocarbon leader to the lure.

I use the Scotty Powergrip plus release. They are a pinchpad style sort of similar to the Cannon release but superior in every possible way. I can load the crap out of the rigger rods, (as you can see in that one pic above) never get a false release, yet with the long tether on them, still see small fish that can't pop the release clearly telegraphed to the rod tip so you aren't dragging little guys around. My riggers are also Scottys and I'm a big fan of their equipment.

http://www.scotty.com/fishing-gear-equipment/line-releases/powergrip-plus.htm

Tim

 

[LarryC]

Tim,
We are planning a trip up to Oak Orchard in three weeks. Our first two trips were not kind. Last Labor Day weekend we pulled our new to us Sportcraft 252 to Mexico Point and were greeted with 35 mph wind and 14’ seas and there was an 8’ high standing wave at the mouth of the Salmon River. Then this spring we came up to fish the Niagara Bar and the cooling system took a dump and once again I got to practice towing a 25’ boat nearly a thousand miles for nothing. We are hoping that three times is the charm. We took our first charter on Lake Ontario about 20 years ago and now would like to see if we can catch anything by applying what we have observed over the years. Still, this will be our third attempt at catching on our own and the next salmon we catch will be our first.

 

[Tim Bromund]

Larry,

Good luck, the Oak should still be cranking at that time and depending on when you come the Fall LOC Derby may be underway (starts Aug 18) so you should have plenty of company out there.

Keep an eye on the daily Oak Orchard reports on this site so get an idea for a starting point

http://www.attheoak.com/fishrpt.html

Tim

 

[LarryC]

I have been following attheoak and lakeontariounited for a couple of years now. Very informative. Our last trip to Oak Orchard was a couple of years ago and we went with Rich Hajecki and Bill Ruth. We had a great time and caught a lot of fish. We are bringing my 11 year old grandson - he's been on a couple of charters with us and really started to get onto the rod work this year. He has also has some practice on stripers in the Chesapeake. We will be up there from 8/17 - 8/21. Hoping for some good weather and a good running boat.