lake Ontario eyes

[Chas0218]

Anyone have a good guess when the walleyes will be in the lake and out of the streams. My buddies and I are planning a trip for the opener.

[Xxx]

I fished the Black River basin since the early 80's, and the way this year is going, I will be drifting worm harnesses off of bottom bouncers, I use 2oz bottom bouncers with the green and orange beetle spin rigs, with 3 hooks, make sure that you hook the worm as close to the tip of the crawler as possible, this make the crawler as strait as possible, if no luck there, troll up the river on the left side, stay in the deep area at the first set of bouys , then go up the left side there is a shelf about 20 yards off shore work that shelf up to the weeping willow tree, than repeat by going out to the last set of green and red bouys. I have better luck on the green side of the bouys, there are holes used to be 8 to 10 feet deep on the side and they hang in those deep holes when the boat traffic is heavy. Hope this helps a little, been successful their for years, if no luck there, troll down the north shore towards Chaumont bay or try Chaumont bay, after the Black River Basin.

[Chas0218]

I fished the Black River basin since the early 80's, and the way this year is going, I will be drifting worm harnesses off of bottom bouncers, I use 2oz bottom bouncers with the green and orange beetle spin rigs, with 3 hooks, make sure that you hook the worm as close to the tip of the crawler as possible, this make the crawler as strait as possible, if no luck there, troll up the river on the left side, stay in the deep area at the first set of bouys , then go up the left side there is a shelf about 20 yards off shore work that shelf up to the weeping willow tree, than repeat by going out to the last set of green and red bouys. I have better luck on the green side of the bouys, there are holes used to be 8 to 10 feet deep on the side and they hang in those deep holes when the boat traffic is heavy. Hope this helps a little, been successful their for years, if no luck there, troll down the north shore towards Chaumont bay or try Chaumont bay, after the Black River Basin.

My father-in-laws camp is right in chaumont across from 3 mile bay.  I was going to try the shoals and see what was on those then work in towards Chaumont river mouth.  If we don't start to hook up with fish then I was planning on heading towards to Black river bay.

 

Thanks for the suggestions I will definitely keep them in mind. Are you going to be up that way for the opener?

[Little Crappie]

Last year was awesome in in black river

[tugger]

All

 

  I made an "electronics only" scouting run Saturday to BRB and Sunday to Chaumont/Guffin bay. Regarding Chaumont/Guffin, no baitfish schools to be found at all, and therefore very little fish to be found. Regarding BRB there were "Very few" baitfish schools found and very few fish as well. Most of the fish must be in either less than 8FOW, in the rivers or still out in the main lake. I spent 7 hours each day looking with Side Imaging 2D sonar and Marcum camera. Chaumont search was done from Shangri La and inshore. Black River Bay search was done from Everliegh/Horse island and inshore. Not much going on out there yet as of this past weekend!  Also, the bugs were absolutely terrible.

 

Surface temps 51 deg., temp at 50FOW 43 deg.

Edited May 1, 2013 by tugger

[Xxx]

All

 

  I made an "electronics only" scouting run Saturday to BRB and Sunday to Chaumont/Guffin bay. Regarding Chaumont/Guffin, no baitfish schools to be found at all, and therefore very little fish to be found. Regarding BRB there were "Very few" baitfish schools found and very few fish as well. Most of the fish must be in either less than 8FOW, in the rivers or still out in the main lake. I spent 7 hours each day looking with Side Imaging 2D sonar and Marcum camera. Chaumont search was done from Shangri La and inshore. Black River Bay search was done from Everliegh/Horse island and inshore. Not much going on out there yet as of this past weekend!  Also, the bugs were absolutely terrible.

 

Surface temps 51 deg., temp at 50FOW 43 deg.

Thanks Tugger for the walleye report, now I don't feel bad for missing the first day, got a late start on the last to do list for the boat. With all this cold weather, maybe in 2 weeks it should be good, and I will be up in time to hit them good. Again thanks for the WALLEYE report PAP.

[Chas0218]

Great report.  Looking forward to this season. Last season started really early so with these temps I was guessing they will start a little later. Hopefully we can hook a few this weekend.

[pro-fish-n-c]

Excellent informative post. Thank you.

[Sluggo / NY]

Tugger.. Thanks for the report! Not sure yet, but I may be heading up this weekend but will be a bit further up, out of Mud Bay. Maybe they all headed that way! Good Fishing, Sluggo (Chris)

[Little Crappie]

Idk... We went from 50's to straight 75-80 and will stay that way till at least Saturday. I'll be interested to see how the weekend rolls out

[tugger]

Idk... We went from 50's to straight 75-80 and will stay that way till at least Saturday. I'll be interested to see how the weekend rolls out

LC

 

  True, things can change fast. The situation I posted from last weekend could potentially be reversed 100% this weekend. Just posted what I witnessed and that was pretty much a sterile situation. We will see!

[Little Crappie]

Yea... I'm hoping it doesn't push the browns too far... Guess its time to buy a temp probe /:(

[Xxx]

Yea... I'm hoping it doesn't push the browns too far... Guess its time to buy a temp probe /:(

I  wouldn't jump to a purchase just yet, if you have a surface temp on your depth finder that's all you need in the shallows of the Black River basin, let the finder do the work. Try drifting around the bouys and see if anything shows up on the finder, try to stay outside the pack of boats, my personal preference is the north side that would be the green bouy side, watch for a pile of rocks about at the last green bouy you will bottom up beware been there and it's not fun. Don't get discussed right away as I have caught them in the middle of the day 1or 2 Oclock pm. more than once!! And also I have caught them over Memorial Day weekend in the middle of the day. The best fishing conditions are when the wind comes strait up the bouys towards the river, I guess the that would be south west, when you wind drift up to where the river current stops you then go back out to the last bouy and pick a different pass, a good drift takes about 1/2 hour drifting at 1.5 or less I use # 5 Colorado deep dish blades for they don't take much speed to turn them, in hammered copper was always my best harness with ruby red beads and 3 red drop shot hooks, and hook the worm with the first hook as close to the nose as possible, learned that from a charter captain he said that was very important  cause live bait that swims don't swim with their head bent, it works we tried both ways and the worm that was the most strait did the best. In the mid 80s, the water was a emerald green and you didn't need to be so stealth like, but now it's different I use 8# fluro. Hope all this helps you and good luck Saturday. I already to two man tickets the first day, with 8 to 6# fish they are there, just have to be patient, that's the name of the game PAP.

[tugger]

All

 

  Fished BRB today. Surface temp was 58 on south side, 64 on north side. Strong thermocline at 11 ft with temperature dropping to 49 from that point down to bottom.  Trolled north side from about half way out of the bay to Everleigh at various depths and only picked up one Northern. There is a little bit of bait showing up here and there in 50FOW but still not much. Also, there were a few decent marks starting to show on the graph at various depths (20-40). Probably needs another week or so. ???

[Chas0218]

We fished CB Saturday and Sunday went 5 for 6 on walleye all weekend.  Had various other fish. Sat. we marked tons of bait and had lures running right through the bait clouds and didn't have a single hit.  We went shallower and saw some action.  We ran 12 lines between the 4 of us and only 1 tangle when it was 10pm (pitch black with no moon) after that we decided to pull lines and head in for some dinner.

[tugger]

Solo fished BRB late morning till 6pm Sunday and got a big fat "0". Water temp is 58-60 on the north side of the bay. The Alewives are there in full force now, bait all over the place in the Northern half of the bay. I trolled Deep Taildancer 11's, Trolls-To 15's and 20's and deep Reef runners varying speeds from 1-2.5mph. I figured the bite would be pretty good with the great cloud cover and a little chop but I figured wrong. I couldn't start till 10am though, perhaps they were cooperative early morning.

 

 

[walleyemagic]

No the morning bite was not any better we fished from 6am to 2pm in the same area.

 

[tugger]

WM

 

  Thanks for the Info.

[FleetTracker]

I'm headed up to BRB this weekend for the first time, and can cruise around the bays as needed to find fish... haven't seen much for reports up that way.  How has the fishing been lately?  Looks windy this weekend... 

[devoknevo]

There's a good walleye bite going on in Irondeqoit bay right now. We've been doing pretty good trolling stick baits and even picked up a nice brown this evening.

Thank you Vets for our freedoms, Happy Memorial Day !

Edited May 26, 2013 by devoknevo

[jassatt]

If it weren't for the vets, instead of "walleyes", we'd be calling them "zander".

[tugger]

Tried fishing BRB on Sunday. Wind was too much for my boat but I did manage to get to the north side for about a 1/2 hour troll before the west winds forced me back off. Water temp dropped like crazy with the north winds and mid 30's nightly temps. North side of the bay was 50 deg and South was 52. Crossing fingers for this weekend but looks like its warming up good tomorrow -Sunday.

Edited May 29, 2013 by tugger