Trolling for browns

[Dan M]

After my 3rd skunk in a row on Conesus, I'm ready to switch it for a bit!

Last year around this time we took the boat (16' Duranatic ) and casted for a bit just to see what was out there and to my surprise found a bunch of browns and landed one.

I have never fished Lake ontario on my boat besides that one time, and it's not setup for kings out deep - I can run two dipsys on my musky/pike rods for now though.

For anyone that fishes for them, what depths should I be looking for them?

Any suggestions on what to use? I know we caught the last one on a RatlTrap and had lots of follows on spinners. - I've yet to use my Dipsys seriously though - only tried it once on Conesus to check it out.

[Hawkeye50]

You can usually find browns this time of the year where the thermocline intersects the bottom,approx 60'-80' fow.Find bait on your locator and troll just off the bottom,we have had luck trolling medium sized Michigan stinger spoons in natural alewives 

( black silver) uv black tuxedo,among others.Hope this helps.

[Dan M]

Just now, Hawkeye50 said:

You can usually find browns this time of the year where the thermocline intersects the bottom,approx 60'-80' fow.Find bait on your locator and troll just off the bottom,we have had luck trolling medium sized Michigan stinger spoons in natural alewives 

( black silver) uv black tuxedo,among others.Hope this helps.

Thanks - I have a mini, and size 0 diver now - the setups I was going to use (since I dont have a designated trolling setup yet) was my 13fishing A3 and 8' Musky H 1-8oz rod, and 13fishing Concept C with an 7'3 1oz MH rod. Not sure how that will be with dipsys. I think the smaller rod could handle the mini diver fine, and the bigger rod, probably ok with the size 0 (50# braid on the larger one - 30 on the smaller) - but I don't know if I should push it with a larger dipsy to get deeper. Thoughts?

[FishingFool34]

Where 60* meets the bottom is usually the ticket for this time of year. Even if that happens to be 60-80 fow you don't need to fish super deep to catch them. We do well for browns on short to med leadcore setups (3-7 colors), with stickbaits and spoons. You can run clip-on or inline weights to get these down deeper too. 

[GAMBLER]

Find the area where 62* water meets the bottom and fish inside and outside of that zone. Black and silver spoons in stingray and smaller sizes ( mags do have their days). Riggers, divers and lead cores are best. Skim the bottom with a rigger or two. Cheaters take a lot of browns especially the later in the summer you get.


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[Dan M]

10 minutes ago, GAMBLER said:

Find the area where 62* water meets the bottom and fish inside and outside of that zone. Black and silver spoons in stingray and smaller sizes ( mags do have their days). Riggers, divers and lead cores are best. Skim the bottom with a rigger or two. Cheaters take a lot of browns especially the later in the summer you get.


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Unfortunately I don't have a FishHawk for the temp - I am going to try with a couple dipsys this week with my musky setup(s) - bought a few spoons from F&S today to give it a shot

[Dan M]

Well, we took the boat out this morning as the marine forecast looked good and I wanted to try trolling dipsys. Got out to 100 FOW and it was a bit too rough out there for my little boat. Going out was fine, running along the coast, or going back against the wind, not great. Water seemed fine around 40 -50 FOW, its getting out farther the wind seemed to pick up, didn't feel too comfortable. For anyone that was out today, how was that condition of the water to you guys? I think my boat should be a bit bigger before going that far out again. What I didn't even think about was how much gas I ended up going through out there, went out to 100 FOW, spent maybe 45 min out on the lake, and then tooled around in Bradocks for some bass for a bit and ended up using 3/4 of a 6gallon tank.

[Fishnut]

My little boat (17 footer) has a 15 gallon tank and I carry a 5 gallon spare when I fish big water.


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[Chowdaire]

I’ve been out off Oswego all morning in my 22’. It was not small craft friendly. Got thrown into the side a few times. Even wore my pfd!

Calming down a bit now but still a little lumpy out in 400fow


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[Crestliner1850]

On 8/2/2019 at 3:41 PM, GAMBLER said:

Find the area where 62* water meets the bottom and fish inside and outside of that zone. Black and silver spoons in stingray and smaller sizes ( mags do have their days). Riggers, divers and lead cores are best. Skim the bottom with a rigger or two. Cheaters take a lot of browns especially the later in the summer you get.


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Hi Brian, just curius about your average speed when you fish for Brown?

[FishingFool34]

On 8/2/2019 at 3:52 PM, Dan M said:

Unfortunately I don't have a FishHawk for the temp - I am going to try with a couple dipsys this week with my musky setup(s) - bought a few spoons from F&S today to give it a shot

You can prolly figure out where the temp is for them by the other boats out there. We had a tough time finding salmon Sat so we moved in shallow looking for browns. Saw a couple boats in 80fow and figured that was where the temp was for them. Dropped my probe in 75fow and sure enough 60* right on bottom. Anyone inside of 100fow right now is most likely looking for browns.

[Dan M]

8 minutes ago, FishingFool34 said:

You can prolly figure out where the temp is for them by the other boats out there. We had a tough time finding salmon Sat so we moved in shallow looking for browns. Saw a couple boats in 80fow and figured that was where the temp was for them. Dropped my probe in 75fow and sure enough 60* right on bottom. Anyone inside of 100fow right now is most likely looking for browns.

thanks - I'll probably have to wait til they get a bit closer then, 80 fow was still a little rough for my boat, doable, but I didn't feel great about it.

[92xerNY]

You should try using the Windfinder app, it definitely helps me a lot trying to figure out which days arent so bad with chop.