IS THIS A NORMAL CYCLE?

[ray koziatek]

After fishing lake Ontario for 5 years I really have no long term cycle occurance of the fish. Maybe its me but this year has been really tuff for the most part for for kings and basicly non existent for cohos. I still havent hooked into a big salmon yet(20plus lb) and if i recall right i think i got 1 coho maybe 2.If it wernt for the steelhead rebound some of my trips to the pond would of been pretty dismal. A day like yesterday with the 3ft salmon chop should of put 10 to15 nice kings in the boat .Maybe i need a new boat ....................honey..............can i buy.............no ok.

[Fishtails]

Ray.....waz just talking bout this with some captain's in Sodus Yesterday. I....like you, don't have the years of lake time that many have. I'm interested in hearing some opinions on what's up ? Almost everyone I speak with is struggling more days than not to find any numbers of fish, unless they are fishing out of Olcott.

We have been fortunate to have had several very good days this season, but when I do I'm always fishing deep (250-600 fow). In general it's just been a really hard summer to find consistant fish. No coho's since May for us either. Are the bulk of the kings still out west? If so, what would the reasoning be? There hasn't been a lack of bait.....marked some of the largest bait pods I've personally ever seen this summer.

[turp]

Can't wait to hear some of the responses on this topic. Up until the last month we have done really well on the bigger kings but latley it has been a struggle. We went to the Oak sat. hoping to get into some kings but ended up getting steelies...(which i'm not complaining about). We left there and hit sandy on our way home. At 340FOW we started banging more steelies but at about 270down there were huge marks everywhere. Could we have found the mother load of mature kings??? If so I might have to get 600' of rigger wire!!!!!!! :shock: :shock:

[xdbcx]

I was starting to wonder this myself. The first year I got into trolling was 06 and it almost seemed easy that year. 25 plus pound fish being taken almost every trip. That was the year a 38.14 won the derby. This year started off with a 23 fish day on April 27th out of the Niagara River. The biggest being 24lbs. The following weekends for the spring derby were spent in Niagara with good numbers also. Since then I have barely had any luck with the matures in the Rochester area.

[FISHINMAN]

Not sure what your talking about Ray :? :?:

Are these the things you are having trouble with :?:

Just messing with ya my friend. Not only are the big guys few and far between at times but how's about all the dinks and 5lbers too!

[CBish]

The big Kings have been scattered. We are getting them every day, but it the days with more than 3 big guys have been far and few between. FWIW all 5 mature kings in my last 3 trips have all been on the same lure. Different depths and different presentations but same bait.

The kings are on the north shore -- most likely.

Fellow captain got into cohos last weekend out at the 34N line I think he boxed 3 that day. This is rather normal, you find one coho you find several. I remember years in the '80's that you would not see coho all year except for April and September.

CC

[Gill-T]

I was shocked at the Oswego, and Sodus events by the lack of people even trying for Kings. One observation I can say, going back to last year.....there was a lot of bait around the west end of the lake from the second week of June on through the fall. Having a slip on the Niagara the last two years made it was convienient to fish every weekend off the bar. Other than ESLO dates, I had the place to myself and caught Kings every time out. There were times when skippies were so thick you could not get to the big guys, but there was always action. Maybe, with the cleaning waters, the Niagara plume will be a stronger draw going foward. If I was a new charter captain looking where to start up a business......it would be Niagara County.

[GAMBLER]

I think with all the wind it has the lake really screwed up. The thermalcline is changing depth drastically every day. A lot of the big kings are probally out in the blue zone in the more stable water. When I had my boat in Irondequoit, we would be fishing out in 500 fow around this time and doing really good on Kings and Steelhead.

[Gill-T]

For the Sodus event, we found a nice spot around 515' FOW that we had to ourselves. Plenty of bait, some hooks also. We caught steelhead, but did loose a screamer that was a mature king. I saw enough big hooks on the graph to make me think that is where the majority of east end kings are now.

[REELJERKS]

Gambler:

Funny you should say that. I was there yesterday.

[GAMBLER]

How was it Mark? I know some of the river charter captains have been doing ok out there.

[Tim Bromund]

This summer is shaping up much like 2002 was. That summer, the constant screwy winds (mostly NE that year) had the lake tore up all year and it never really set up properly. The kings spent the entire summer on the north shore that year and that seems to be the case agian this year. Look at the GOSD results and there is no shortage of big adult kings up north, especiallty out of ports that don't normally see great king action this time of year.

It's almost August, very very soon, the homing instinct will start to take over, and the staging kings will start showing up in front of their home ports, regardless of water temps.

Tim

[REELJERKS]

Cold Water is on the north shore

[motoman]

had plenty of cold water on the south shore this sping and the brown fishing sucked too ,nothing but small kings so for this year for us here in rochester , cought them out west but notta in rochester 15lb coho was best so far for 08, on the better side of things the steelie fishing has ben good but thats about it !

[Penn yan 88]

I was talking to a guy in Michigan yesterday and he was saying they are having the same problem in Lake Michigan the fishing has not been good this year due to the winds and the flooding they have had. The water is just starting to clear up from the flooding and the debris is bad, a charter boat out there hit a garage door floating in the water and had to be towed in, he was out and almost hit a 6 ft propane tank. At least we don't have that stuff going on in lake ontario.

A week before the wayne pro am we were pre fishing Sodus and port bay and saw a lot of bait and were catching a good # of fish of decent size. I just think mother nature has caused these fish to scatter, seems like everytime I see the weather report the wind is s/sw or w/sw. Can't remember the last time we had a NW wind. trying my luck again this weekend will post report if any

[Billy V]

Our brown fishing in Fair Haven stunk this spring because the winds were out of the South all spring and that fractured the temperature gradient. That South wind blew our temp break right out into the lake. We had cold water all over the place on shore and no temp breaks for most of April & May and the fish were scattered.

The good news is that we've had NW wind for the past couple of days out of Fair Haven (3-5's this morning). Let's hope Mother nature decides to stick with a sustained weather pattern and we get NW winds the rest of the season. I think that'll help. Like Penn Yan 88 said, seems like almost every time I've been out the wind has been out of the South. Makes for a nice smooth boat ride, but I'd happily get bumped around in 3 footers in exchange for some doggone Kings!

[fosterm22]

We had the same situation about 6 years ago. The only way to consistanly catch good kings was to make the run out deep where the water was stable. Now- with gas prices on the water at $5 per gallon- it is an expensive quessing game.

I saw on At the Oak the Bucaroo caught a 31 lb king yesturday- so the big guys are out there. We won the Orleans Derby last year with a fish that was only 30 lbs and change. There is somthing to be said about being in the right place at the right time.

So far this summer, I do not think we have had 2 consecutive days of similar wind conditions. The temp and currents have been terrible- the lake never really had a chance to "set up".

It will make for a VERY interesting Orleans Derby and Fall LOC derby

[Fishstix]

We havent wacked the fish hard this year either.Havent been doing many reports because theirs nothing to report. A good point above was made [all on one spoon]. There seems to be a good class of 9.5 rainbows Ive basically given up on brn trout fishing.

The big boys we've caught have been high and out of temp. We are not marking them up there either. In less than 150FOW.

I put a fish in the spring derby ,summer derby, hopefully going to put one in the fall derby.2.1 seems to be best speed this year last year was 2.4.

Ive been trying to get one of the guys at camp to give er a try at say 3am. No one wants to get up.[ neither do I either]

Glow stuff works, purple is awalys good,Green for me the last few yrs has rotted in the water.Except for the monkeypuke. I can not catch a fish on copper and orange this year.

The fish are there we just havent figured them out.