Lake Ontario Salmon

[JimW]

Hello I have been spending most of my fishing times lately searching for big Lake Ontario salmon, I am still on the hunt for a 30 pounder, but we have been doing pretty well catching a few along the way. My boat is only 17.5 feet, so I have to pick my fishing days carefully and cancelling a couple recent trips due to potential high winds, it sucks when you drive 3 hours in the middle of the night only to find it too rough to fish.

We have fished several locations on Lake Ontario in the last 2 weeks, we have so far been able to find most of our fish in under 100 feet of water, so not too far from shore and the early morning bite 5:30 to 7:00 am has been the best the last few times out, we usually only fish until about 11 am. Running cutbait herring strips on 3 fly twinkie rigs on wire line dipsey set ups have caught most of our fish, with spoons or flasker/fly combos off the dowriggers or 10 leadcore taking some fish as well. For colours we have been running greens and whites.

The last 2 trips in my boat we caught landed 22 fish and lost another 7 fish, with 2 guys running a 4 rod spread (2 dipseys, 1 rigger rod and 1 leadcore). Out with my buddy and my daughters on his boat we landed 15 fish and lost another 6 or so running a 6 rod spread (2 dipseys, 2 riggers, 1 leadcore and 1 copper line). Of the 37 fish landed the last 3 trips we have caught 1 nice sized Atlantic salmon, 1 rainbow and 35 chinook salmon (5 fish under 5 pounds and the rest between 15 and 22 pounds).

So no huge fish yet, but definitely some fun times. Hopefully back out on the water chasing silver on Tuesday. If you have never fished Lake Ontario salmon I highly suggest you give it a try. If you do not have a boat or proper gear, there are some great guides that will put you on fish.

A few photos from our last 3 outings...

My daughter's Atlantic salmon...



Kid's double header...



A great way to start any day...



I wish I was working... lol







Fire up the smoker!!!

[Wally]

Very nice report ,i'm sure those are nice to catch ,if you have a empty seat drop me a line .Wally

[FLOATFISHIN]

Beauty "Tic" for your daughter bro!!! Looks like some great times indeed, and glad your getting the best out of calm waters! Heard further west has been pretty hot too. Great to see ya enjoying it to the fullest bud!!!

F.F

[plowjock]

Hey Jim, Glad to see you are having much success and lots of fun fighting those finned friends of the deep.
Keep up the catching and the eating.
Ya, it's a bummer driving 3 hours and a no go, but when it's right, you're in your glory.
Enjoy.

[CCLad]

With respect to your comment, about not having fished/caught a salmon to give it a try - I couldn't agree more! I had a trailer on West lake near Wellington and we spent many, many years fishing the Big "O". What an incredible fishery. To echo Jim's comments - If you have never been out and caught a big Chinook, do so! The best description I can give you to relate the experience of landing one would be - Catching a 30lbs small mouth bass that has super endurance in 200 feet of water! It's game time

Thanks for the note Jim, brings back lots of great memories!
CCLadd

[zippyfx]

Nice fishing report! Would like to see more like it.

Smiley of the kids fish says it all.

Tight lines!

[JimW]

Thanks for the great comments. I have definitely enjoyed salmon fishing so far this year, especially since I had not been fishing much and had not had my boat in the water for over a year, waiting for double bypass heart surgery, which I finally had in February.

Went out for another shot at a 30 pounder yesterday, after cancelling plans on Friday and Saturday, a few days of wind and storms and was not hearing of tons of fish caught but we decided to give it a shot.

Arrived at boat launch about 5 am, already a bunch of boats getting ready to launch, we dump the boat in the water and off we go. We get the 1st rod set on the downrigger by 5:30 am, then put out second bait on the dipsey diver. As I get ready to let out the 2nd dipsey driver the downrigger rod goes off!! Fish on!! Just as I am about to net my buddy's 20 pound chinook, the dispey diver rod takes a hit but fish is gone. We reset the downrigger rod and I replace the herring strip on the dipsey rod and reset it. As I am letting out the 2nd dipsey rod, the downrigger rod takes a hit, I grab the rod and fish on!!! We quickly land a 5 pound chinook, not a big fosh, but better than nothing. So it is just before 6 am and we have caught 2 salmon and had a 3rd one hit, so off to a pretty good start in less than 30 minutes of fishing.

We reset and finally get our 4 rod spread out ..... spoons off both downriggers and herring strips on twinkie rigs on both dipsey set ups.... and get ready for some more action!!!

6:30 am then 7 am .... then 8 am .... then 9, 10 ..... at 11 am we pull our gear and head back to the launch. Not another single bite since the smaller fish just before 6 am. We changed are tried various spoons, meat rigs and flasher/fly combos, but no taker, marker a few fish but not much bait.

Oh well that's fishing, at least we did not get skunked. Maybe try again this weekend.

JimW

[scarkner]

I have landed a couple salmon in my Kayak... they pull you all over the place before you can finally get them in the boat! An absolute blast!

I have never caught an Atlantic though, that's on my bucket list! I am also still looking for the 30lber, biggest so far was 26lbs. Hard to find much bigger as they tend to spawn out and die before they hit 30!

[JimW]

I have landed a couple salmon in my Kayak... they pull you all over the place before you can finally get them in the boat! An absolute blast!

I have never caught an Atlantic though, that's on my bucket list! I am also still looking for the 30lber, biggest so far was 26lbs. Hard to find much bigger as they tend to spawn out and die before they hit 30!

Nice job.... a big Chinook out of a kayak would definitely be an experience. Yes definitely harder to find a 30 pounder, my personal biggest is 28 pounds. But there are 30-35 pounders out there, the winning fish in the weekly summer derbies are always over 30 pounds. I personally have not caught a 30 but on the high school salmon trips I organize over the years my students have caught 8 chinooks over 30 pounds.

[CCLad]

Years back when I chartered out of Wellington, my personal biggest was 36lbs (Won the week in the Toronto star Great salmon hunt.) The biggest we ever got in our boat was 42lbs! - 1 week after the salmon derby ended
CCLad.

[Hawkeyes]

If you want to win the derby just go catch a 65lb King in BC and hop on the next flight back to TO or send the fish overnight Fedex to your buddy for the weigh in. Do they still run the Salmon Derby? 34yrs ago I remember catching our limit by 11am... doubt the fishing is like that anymore.

[CCLad]

Cant attest to the fishing these days as I haven't been out in too long but form the posts I read I would wager to say its still great. The shipping the fish idea isnt a good one lol. Years back there was a derby in, I think it was Owen Sound on lake Huron. As an FYI - For what ever reason the Chinooks in lake O grow bigger and faster than any of the other great lakes. So buddy catches a king in Lake O, enters it into the Owen sound derby - Boom Winner... But they then test the contaminants in the fish, confirm it was from Lake O and off to jail buddy went for fraud....

[Hawkeyes]

Dont know if this is true but I heard way back when some guy put lead weights in his Chinook and got caught. All these little scammers out there.

Fishing would definitely have been better then than now... those Zebra mussels were not as prevalent as today and no Gobies and less Cormorants either.

[CCLad]

I read about the led thing too. Zebra muscles did not really effect the salmon fishery. They just went deeper. used to set the riggers between 50 - 75 feet, once the lake cleared up because of the mussel's, we were down 100 plus. They still hit though...