Sarah I am going to put an idea in your head. How about looking at moving the spring derby dates to start mid-may and end on Memorial Day? Fishing is better, no conflicts with Mothers Day, the weather is better, and more ports come on line for salmon. More opportunity means more people in the derby. Thank you for your consideration.
You just have to abide by the amount of legal hook points per line. You would be best served to hook up with a tackle store on the Detroit River. I saw an under water video of how many untouched walleyes live below the Peace Bridge on upper Niagara. Would be tailor made for s chugging iron and pencil plugs
Yes there are kings in Lake Ontario. Must be in Niagara county for Pro/am at a secret location. Of course the 25 knot East wind tomorrow will change everything.
Garrymny, as others has said, the downspeed and temp unit give information. Experience tells you what to do with it. You still have to use your eyeballs esp. in the spring! This morning out of Olcott before the winds picked up you might have noticed a slick line in the water at about 50'. That slick line is a "current tell". Usually there is debris in those slicks. Fish will collect along those current lines just like the debris found there. If you paid attention to the weather the day before, you would have seen there was an East wind which blows in cold water and pushes fish to the West towards the warm Niagara flow. As the wind picked up, you might have noticed that there was brown water coming in at 75-100' but the green water was persistent inside that line. Did you see many seagulls today floating around? Why not? If you were trolling towards Wilson and paying attention to your fishhawk, you were trolling into the Niagara current and against a stiff westerly. Your gps speed would tell you that you were barely moving, yet heading into the current as displayed by your fishhawk should have told you that despite not covering much ground, the current against your lure was keeping your lures working correctly. As you gain experience you will learn to trust your downspeed unit and find the units true worth, especially as the season progresses and you begin to fish deeper in the water column to find the thermocline.
Protrolls are little more noisy than spin docs. They have a metal grommet where the rear swivel is plus the clicking of the Echip. When kings start getting more aggressive in late July the protrolls come out. Because they are a little more noisy I will run longer leaders 30-35" mostly. Spin docs on my rods now.
Lots of sewage recently flushed out in lake. Add East winds in previous days rolling bottom in from the East. Add no wind or waves today. Add no current noticed based on your observations that down speed matched closely to SOG gps speed. Add it all up and you probably have low O2 levels keeping fish negative to neutral. If you had wave action from a west wind you probably would have killed them. Trout and salmon have higher O2 needs than most fish. If you have ever tried to release a farm pond rainbow you will usually find them floating the next morning. Last night I was night trolling for walleyes in a calm East wind. The fish were there but the water had zero movement so the fish were neutral. We landed two but lost 15 or so. They were just nipping.
Agreed with what has been said so far. I would add that when the DEC wants to net Lake Erie Lake Trout to study, they go out of Dunkirk, hit 90' and head west. When I am two-timing i.e.. putting out baits that a walleye OR Laker would bite, I will run a silver-leaf spoon with a bait-holder style single hook tipped with a piece of nightcrawler.
Huge whale sighted off Niagara Bar
This could be Moby Dick .....looks huge.
https://coastwatch.glerl.noaa.gov/modis/modis.php?region=o&page=1&template=sub&image=a1.17128.1748.LakeOntario.143.250m.jpg
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2017/04/27/whos-to-blame-for-high-water/100895910/
When liberal naturalists get too much power, this is what happens. The water level act of 2014 was a stroke of genius!