Newbie seeking info about Lake Ontario in the Clayton area..

[Curt7234]

Hi all, I'm going to be fishing lake Ontario, we are coming up next week and staying in the clayton Area We are looking to fish around mud Bay, Chaumont Bay, Grenadier island, Fox Island, Guffin Bay and Henderson Bay....We are staying for a week, in past years we mainly fished the St lawrence and did well with Northern Pike, smallmouth and a few Largemouth Bass. We would love to catch all those and perhaps a muskie or Wallye, perhaps a brown trout? Any advice?

This year we want to fish more of the Lake. We fish all artificial, with a 17 ft Tracker Deep V....any recommendations, tips or info would be much appreciated. Thanks, and best of luck to all on a great fishing season.

[Kevin J Legg]

Remember that bass and Muskie season isn't open till June 19th. If your after pike ,browns and walleyes you might try Black River Bay, Chaumont, Three mile Bay, Guffins and Mud Bay areas. Running boards and riggers in 20-40' of water with deep cranks, spinner and worm, or even spoons. May need snap weights to get deep enough.

Walleyes may also be taken in the river with jigs tipped with worms or leeches, jigging spoons and deep diving cranks trolled slowly into the current. Fish the drop off of shoals in 20-50' of water and best bit is early morning or evening. Pike along deep weed beds with jigs, spoons, spinners or minnows.

Make sure you check the weather as the lake can kick up in a hurry.

[bandit 49]

try for walleye in front of fox and grenadier at the 20' drop off trolling stick baits 1-2 mph. Great bass fishing all along this area but season isn't open yet. Look for browns off the north side of galloo island in the 15-36' depth. Use planer boards or in line boards 150'-200' back for both the walleyes and trout. 5am isn't too early to leave port as the bite has been best at low light levels.

[Curt7234]

Good stuff guys...much appreciated....As far as the Walleyes go, we fish alot for Wallyes here in PA at Lake Wallenpaupack, we seem to have a lot of luck with Deep diving Rattlin Rogues and Shad raps....I'd imagine it should be much the same there.

Any recommendations on Shallower water fishing 10 -15 feet?

Also you guys mentioned Trout fishing, do they move into the shallows up there at all or is everything down deep much like the Salmon? As you can tell we are pretty clueless when it comes to fishing a lake of the magnitude of Ontario. The lakes we fish here in Pennsylvania mostly aren't anymore then 50 feet deep. We do have planer boards and cannonballs however we do not have down riggers.

Any info is very much appreciated guys, thanks so much.

[HeavyA]

I'm assuming that you don't mind trailering your boat to different ramps since it is 17 feet long. If so and you want to get into some browns, I'd recommend putting in at the Stony Creek launch. After motoring out to the lake, go left and fish in front of the sand dunes. We did ok there last weekend for browns, but the bite has been tough and we had to work for them. Best luck was in 15-40 fow, with both spoons off downriggers and stickbaits off in-line boards. Like others have said, start early. You can pick at them all day if there is a chop or it is overcast, but the first hour or two in the morning is best. Good luck.

[kingslamon22]

thers a few browns right in the river in clayton, ive caught a few there but yeah...stony point = browns. you might even get into an all out battle with a titan sheepshead there too!

[Curt7234]

I never even seen a Sheepshead and I've been fishing the St Lawrence river for the last couple years...One week vacations only but we fished pretty hard.....We have caught tons of smallmouth bass in previous years even when we weren't fishing for them, we have caught some nice Pike biggest being around 8 pounds, perchand rock bass. Outside of that we haven't caught any other species of fish. I hear stories of Monster Musky, trout etc, but we just don't know enough of the area.

[jpm60]

Any recent updates on Chaumont or Henderson for Smallies? I will be up that way next week- any information would be appreciated- Thanx