2020 LOTSA Salmon School

[Instigator]

LOTSA 2020 Salmon School

The Lake Ontario Trout & Salmon Association (LOTSA) is proud to (once again) host its well-known in-depth Salmon School on Saturday January 18, 2020. This highly acclaimed school, now in its 13th year, has become the premier Salmon School anywhere in the Great Lakes. What started out as a local event 12 years ago now sees many diehard salmon anglers from across the Great Lakes and Canada attending.

New for this year will be a “State of Lake Ontario” session put on by the DEC on Friday evening. This will offer the opportunity for Anglers who aren’t able to attend this session held on week nights during the winter, to receive this valuable information. It will be held just prior to the Salmon School “Meet & Greet” 7 pm Friday session where the Salmon School presenters along with the top DEC Fishery managers including Fishery Bureau Chief Steve Hurst will be available to discuss fishing in a casual setting. On Saturday, during the Salmon School lunch break. The DEC will be hosting an “Open House” providing the opportunity for additional 1 on 1 time with the key DEC Fishery decision makers and DEC Law Enforcement officers. Additional free Salmon seminars by well-known Salmon anglers including Bob Songin and Vince Pierleoni among others will be offered on Sunday. The School, coupled with all of the trout and salmon exhibitors, $69 Hotel rooms and additional education offerings at the Greater Niagara Fishing and Outdoor Expo (January 17 – 19), makes this a “must attend” three-day winter event for many.

Each year the class is enhanced based upon the survey input provided by those that attended the previous School. Based upon that input, Pete Alex, Andy Bliss and Matt Yablonsky will return to take the class to the next level. They will do a much deeper dive into the specific tools and techniques they utilize that they didn’t have time to cover in their previous school. The focus will be on the 3 main Lake Ontario Salmon fishing months (May, July and August) and dive into the more technical aspects for each of these months relating to location, the “right” water, deep king tactics, locating and catching offshore Kings and on fishing “meat” among many others. The presentation will be geared toward experienced Salmon Recreational Anglers fishing from a 20 – 24 ft boat. The instruction will include some detailed video footage taken during the 2019 season which should help the learning process. Pete will cover the West End and North Shore fisheries, Andy will focus on the Eastern End fishery and Matt will focus on the Niagara Bar fishery. In addition, guest instructors Karl Chmilnitzky, who is a well-known highly successful recreational Canadian tournament fisherman, will cover north and south shore Canadian locations and King catching techniques for the “weekend warriors. Marine Electronics guru, Lance Valentine, will also make a guest appearance focusing on using your Sonar/GPS to put more kings in the boat. For those that attended the school in 2019, consider this the next step. For those desiring a deeper detailed presentation, you will want to be with us in 2020.

Salmon School Details

The School consists of six hours of detailed Salmon catching instruction. The registration price of $85 includes free admission to the Greater Niagara Fishing and Outdoor Expo for all 3 days, your 2020 LOTSA Membership, a hot buffet lunch (or alternative for dietary needs) on Saturday with beverages available throughout the class, a “goodie” bag consisting of the “go to” baits of the instructors and free door prizes. Also included this year is a Friday night “Meet & Greet” with the instructors that includes free drinks and food. The class (and Expo) is held at the Conference and Event Center Niagara Falls in a “state of the art” conference room with a large screen, stage, good seating with tables and a good sound system that all make for a comfortable venue throughout the day for everyone attending. Given the quality of what you will be taught, coupled with the lunch, “goodie bag”, door prizes and free Show admissions, it is a terrific value and a great way to start your 2020 season. Doors open at 7 a.m. for check in and the class runs from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Additional time will be available at 9am Sunday morning with the instructors for any questions that you have that weren’t answered during the class.

The Salmon School is not meant for novices to the Lake Ontario fishery. It is a “hard core” salmon class targeted toward providing the “experienced weekend warrior” with additional insights and details to improve their catch in the limited time they have on the water. As the Great Lakes continue to change and become a much more challenging fishery, knowledge is often the difference between having a couple of bites or having steady bites throughout the day.

This is a custom class built from the input from the attendees on what is most important to them to cover. It is not an “off the shelf” class for the masses. Each attendee when they register, will have the opportunity to submit their most important questions/ topics that they want covered in the class. The instructors will then use this input to customize the curriculum to cover these particular areas. This will allow the instructors to limit the questions during the School and make sure that they cover all of the details that they have prepared.

The instructors have a huge amount of on-the-water experience trolling for trout and salmon along with a proven tournament track record of high placement in the most prestigious tournaments over many years. They are a much diversified set of instructors and will provide a class full of insights and details that no one single instructor would be able to provide. They are all skilled communicators and very well known for sharing their fishing knowledge and daily fishing trips with anglers to help them to be more successful fishing the lake. Each brings their own unique set of trolling skills, techniques and knowledge to the class. Given the depth of the knowledge base of these instructors and their proven ability to educate anglers, we expect this school to be another high quality, comprehensive, in-depth, information-packed event that our attendees have come to expect from this annual day-long instruction.

The School sells out every year as many of the attendees come back year after year – which is the ultimate testimony to the value of attending the school. To sign up for the class and submit your questions go to the LOTSA web site www.LOTSA1.Org. Early signups are encouraged to give the instructors enough time to build the curriculum for the desired topics

Captain Pete Alex

Captain Pete is a 54 year old salmon and trout fishing addict and reached his 31st year as a licensed charter captain in 2019. Pete has always had a passion for fishing and especially tournament fishing which helps feed his competitive side. He has accumulated fishing experience on Lakes Ontario, Erie, Michigan and Huron.

Captain Pete and his Vision Quest Fishing Teams have won over 20 events on Lake Ontario and Lake Erie and have amassed over 100 Top 10 finishes since 2006. He ended the 2017 and 2018 seasons by winning the 2017 Fall King of The Lake event, then both the FishUSA Overall Championship and the annual Lake Ontario Championship Series back to back. He feels that tournament fishing helps him fish harder and think outside the box.

Pete enjoys doing seminars, educating and helping other anglers improve their fish catching ability. He believes he is a very diverse angler and can consistently catch both salmon and trout species by applying what he has learned over the years.

He regularly fishes Lake Ontario from the end of April to third week of June then returns occasionally to fish throughout the remainder of the season. He really considers himself a part time angler on Lake Ontario because of that and must figure things out each time he returns. He believes that there are reasons some anglers locate and catch fish consistently, while some do not. He hopes he can provide some of that knowledge to you at this year’s Salmon School.

Pete represents these companies: FishUSA, Team Dreamweaver, Shark Cannonballs, Silver Horde, Fish Hawk, A-TOM-MIK Trolling Flies, Costa Sunglasses, Big Jon Sports, GAMMA Fishing Line, Pautzke and Atlas Mike’s, AFTCO and Shimano.

Captain Andy Bliss

Capt. Andy first fished Lake Ontario in 1987 at the age of 7. He was hooked salmon fishing ever since! Since his early start he was able to work on many charters from Sodus Bay and Oswego learning many different styles and techniques from a variety of Captains. In ‘99 he started fishing full time aboard the Cold Steel out of Oswego with Capt. Tom Burke. Since then they have competed in many tournaments from the East end to the West end of the lake.

With over 20 first place finishes and numerous Top Ten finishes, they know what it takes to be the best! They have won the Lake Ontario Challenge Cup 5 times and they were runner up another 5 times! This experience has taught them how to fish in many different conditions and produce results.

Capt. Andy love fishing the open waters of Lake Ontario and typically compares it to a chess match. He enjoys teaching the techniques to become successful at catching these special fish to anyone who is willing to learn.

Capt. Andy represents these companies: Michigan Stinger, A-TOM-MIK, Pautzke Bait Co., Atlas Mikes , Pro-Troll, Cannon Downriggers, Humminbird electronics, BayRats Lures, Shark Cannonballs

Captain Matt Yablonsky

Captain Matt has been a charter captain for 12 years and has have been fishing the Niagara Region for 18 years. He has been a full time charter captain for the last 6 years. On average he’s on the water 250 days a year. He runs charters on Lake Erie, Lake Ontario and the Lower Niagara River. A lot of people refer to him as “the small boat guy.” He has been operating his business out of a 21-foot Lund boat since he started chartering. It has allowed him to operate charters on both lakes and the Niagara River comfortably and safely. On Lake Erie he fishes for smallmouth bass, walleye and perch. On Lake Ontario he trolls for all species of trout and salmon. He also fishes the Lower Niagara River from September through May for trout and salmon.

Captain Matt fishes many tournaments and derbies throughout the year including the Lake Ontario Pro-Am series, LOC Derby, Lower Niagara Sport Fishing Challenge, Niagara Basseye and Reeling for a Cure. In the LOC Derby alone he has 40 top 20 places since 2009, of which 2 are grand prize, 6 are first place and 4 are second place. He was on the winning team for the Niagara Pro-Am in 2006 and won the Trophy division of the Niagara Pro-Am in 2012 as a captain. He has had the grand champion team 3 times and grand champion angler 4 times in the as had multiple articles written about his derby wins and techniques of fishing the various bodies of water in the Erie-Niagara region. You can find these articles in the Great Lakes Angler, Lake Ontario Outdoors, The Fisherman magazine, Salmon-Trout-Steelheader magazine and New York Outdoor News.

Captain Matt has provided footage for various television shows. One of the shows was filmed on the Lower Niagara River for Illinois Outdoors. Other television shows were filmed on Lake Ontario for CRCS OUTDOORS. So far he has filmed 6 episodes for CRCS Outdoors.

Matt represents these companies: Yakima Bait Co., A-TOM-MIK Trolling flies Silver Streak spoons, Torpedo, Tuf-Line and Shimano.

So, signup early so that you are guaranteed a seat to avoid being left out in the cold. If you love to fish the Great Lakes for Kings, this is a great way to “Kick Off” your 2020 Season. Where else would you want to be in the Great Lakes on a Saturday in January than learning how to increase your catch from 3 expert Captains along with Karl and Lance, sitting in a comfortable venue talking salmon fishing with a room full of individuals with the same common interest that you have? Tickets are pre-sale only and have sold out every year (early December sellout for the 2019 School).