After a couple of days off, I was out again yesterday looking for a few new walleye areas to fish for upcoming clients. Fortunately, before the electrical storms sent us running for the ramp, I located one that was great for the client coming today. We managed to get into 2 nice walleye and a couple of good smallies up to 3.5 pounds in only a couple of hours giving me the confidence to refine this area in the morning. Stuart and his son, Stuart Jr. were to fish with me today in hopes of catching a few walleye for the table tonight. I was pretty sure after yesterday that this wouldn’t be a problem and we ran to the area right away. Winds were out of the west at 5 to 10 knots and a mix of sun & cloud were what we were faced with. Air temps were below 60 degrees at the start and barely in the 70’s by the end. Water temps were around 72.5 degrees in most areas we fished as we began our troll. The first rod didn’t take too long to fire but it wasn’t a walleye but rather a 4-pound smallie and Stuart Jr. battled it to the boat and right into the livewell it went for future pics later. A short while after, 2 of the rods fired and we were into a double header with both fish also being smallmouth bass. Jr. landed another fish in the 4-pound class while his father released one of 2.5 pounds at the same time too. The next double wasn’t bass but rather walleye as we managed to get them both on board & into the livewell for dinner tonight. It was difficult trolling this area with all the floating vegetation, but we managed nonetheless! Soon after this double header had happened, another double walleye happened but we were only able to land one as the other shook the hooks free almost at the boat. A couple of other smallies and we went searching for more active fish elsewhere. This was to prove to be the wrong decision as we only had a couple of short rips on the reel and nothing to reel in after. I thought we might have better luck trolling for muskie and decided to try our luck at this for an hour or so. Unfortunately, this also didn’t pan out and we went back to the original area in hopes of catching a few more walleye or at least some more smallies. The weeds had really floated in and were twice as bad as they were in the morning making my life living hell, as I had to clear the lines constantly. Add a stronger wind to the mix and we had the perfect match for disaster! We did have several short strikes and even a smallie on for a short time, but it went to the air and threw the lure as well. I had to try another area due to all the weeds and never had another taker before we called it a day. It started out great, but as the wind switched and intensified, the fish really shut down. I was still marking them in certain areas, but wasn’t able to get them active enough to eat. I hope the weather stabilizes and the fish go back on the feed once again, really soon!!

I was back on the water today with Darren & his dad Al, for another shot at some multi species. We shot across to our first location to begin a troll for pike & walleye in a west wind of 5 to 10 knots & 1 to 2 foot chop. Air temps were in the low 60’s due to the overnight chill and clouds were surrounding us all the while. It didn’t take too long after we set the rods for the first reel to go off & Al was into a nice pike of 4 pounds. For the next couple of hours of trolling we managed to get into many more pike and miss several others along with a walleye and even a sunfish on a spinnerbait! Add to it a largemouth and a smallie and we’ve really got a mixed bag! Once the sun began to shine sometime after lunch, we decided to give it a try for strictly smallmouth bass. Senko’s were the hot ticket once more as we boated plenty of smallies, but they were mostly on the smaller side today. We did manage to see several larger ones just cruising around and Al had a shot at an honest 4 plus, but failed to close the sale! Somewhere around 3:30 P.M. we dropped Darren’s dad off at the ramp and headed back out to try & see if we might be able to hook into a muskie. Unfortunately, this was not to be as we trolled different areas trying to find one willing to take our offerings. With the late arrival of summer, the weeds are still not set up in the better areas and neither are the fish. I have had to make adjustments almost daily in order to get into the smallies that I should be hitting everywhere. Most of my better zones don’t even show any signs of holding fish as of yet and I don’t know if they even will this season. With all the high water I have been fishing areas that I normally wouldn’t and that’s where I have been finding the fish. Still with all this, we have managed to have success each & every day out and that’s all that counts! We ended the day around 5:30 P.M. today after washing several lures looking for that elusive creature know as the fish of 10,000 casts, without success. I will be back!!

Today I fished with Sydney and his grandson Oliver as well as one of their friends, Beryl for a mixed bag day. We began the day wondering if we were going to get dumped on with rain as we made our way across the lake to troll. The sky looked terrible with heavy dark clouds looming all around, but no rain fell. Air temps were in the mid 60’s soon to climb into the upper 70’s and the water temps were barely 72 degrees in most areas we fished. The winds were from the N at 10 knots or so and eventually died completely only to start again from the N/E and blow 10 to 15 knots with the approaching storms. We trolled for a while catching a few fish here & there but had to work pretty hard with the cooler waters to scratch up the fish we did. Oliver was the one catching the fish and managed to land several pike up to 7 pounds or so, but only one walleye later along. Her also caught a couple of smallies with one of them being over 3 pounds while trolling. As we made our way along to new areas, the reel fired and Oliver was into a big pike that would have definitely been over 10 pounds if we were ever able to land it. As bad luck would have it, the fish had 2 of our lures in its mouth and thrashed around at the boat throwing one and cutting the other off completely. Bye, bye pike!! Eventually, we opted to try our luck at bass and managed to get into a few smallies and a couple of largies, all on senko’s. Oliver hooked and landed a few smallmouth and caught a decent largie over 3 pounds as well. At another location, we hit several fish before the storms approached up to 5 pounds. Unfortunately with all the dark skies around us, we had to pack it in and head back to the ramp by 4:00 P.M. It wasn’t one of the greatest days on the water, but despite all the terrible weather lately I think we fended quite well. By the time it was all over, there had to be close to 25 fish landed with a pretty good mix of species as well as size. We all had a blast too!!

I had a couple of days off, so I headed to Lake Ontario in hot pursuit of “Cromage” with a buddy of mine at midnight. We arrived at the lake around 6:30 A.M. after a late departure, but were on the water a short while afterwards. Another friend of mine, Craig also joined us for a day of trolling for king salmon. We were very fortunate as the winds weren’t too strong, allowing me to try out my boat, finally equipped with downriggers and wire lines and all the necessary items needed to catch salmon. We managed to get several smaller kings into the upper teens along with a couple of steelhead up to 10 pounds during most of the day, but nothing giant. By the time Craig had to leave in the late afternoon, Marc & I decided to give it a try on our own. Craig was from the area and fishes the lake on a regular basis, fending real well but we wanted to see if we could catch a few salmon after he left and headed back out to try. There was a weather system approaching and we knew this might just trigger the fish into feeding before it hit. As luck would have it, we managed to catch 4 salmon and lose a big one near the boat before we had to run for cover with the nearing storm. Most of these fish were in the high teens with the largest going 23 pounds. Overall throughout the day we managed to catch 12 fish and only lose 2 others! Quality bites from some big cromers! After the storm had settled overnight, we headed back out in the morning hoping that at least some of the fish were still in the area. I don’t think we had the lines in the water for more than 10 minutes and the wire rod started to scream. We were to eventually land a 20-pound, chrome salmon that was to go home with Marc after we were through. Soon after, the rigger rod went off and another nice fish was being fought, only to be lost right beside the boat. We trolled around, marking hooks and baitfish all over the place and had another wire rod go off not long after the last one fired. I was to eventually land the largest salmon of the trip at 25 pounds. We got one other smaller one of around 10 pounds and had another get off before it all came to an abrupt stop. The show was officially over and we washed lures for over an hour or so before we decided to pack it in and head back to Montreal. It turned out to be a great trip with many fish fought and landed in my boat and now I know that I have all the tools needed to fish Lake Ontario for the big kings, whenever I want. I will be back next week for another go at the silver salmon of the great lakes again!!

Today I fished with Denis & Tony for another mixed bag kind of day. We headed out just after 7:00 A.M. and raced across the lake in hot pursuit of some walleye and northerns! Tony had never caught either of them and I planned on getting him into both species. The weather was a little overcast with a slight breeze from the N/W cooling the air slightly to 63 degrees. Eventually, sunshine would overtake this and raise the air temps to an unbearable 80 degrees with no wind, but at least we had the cool morning air to begin with. I had noticed that the overnight monsoon that we had, dropped the water temps by almost 3 degrees and slowed the bite for a while. We eventually got into some fish with a slower troll and had success by doing so. It wasn’t fast & furious, but we managed to get into some quality walleye up to almost 6 pounds and some decent northerns as well. Somewhere late in the morning I decided that the trolling pattern we had been doing was slowing down even more and opted for casting to smallies with senko’s. This was definitely the right choice as Tony landed a nice 4-pound bass almost immediately. Nice starter fish!! Denis wasn’t too far behind with a few of his own and we were off to the races! After that, we were all into fish on a regular basis and things were looking up. Senko’s were catching bass in the 2 to 4 pound range regularly and everyone was having action. We hit several other places and had the same success with fish off and on. By the time we were ready to leave, there had to be at least 15 or 20 bass landed and plenty of pike too. They even got to take home a few walleye for dinner as well! All in all a pretty good day with close to 40 fish landed.