Bill's Hunt for Silvers, October 7, 2011

It was well over a year when my friend Bill and I were hoping to make a fishing trip happen. He had fished with me for walleye and bass on Lake Erie last year and both times we hit one fish the entire day- sometimes it is true when the say it is called “Fishing not Catching”. Although we try, the results were simply not good enough so I promised Bill a better Lake Ontario trip and explained that we will work around each others schedule and set off when convenient.

With Aidan bundled up with a coat, the chill in the morning air was a sure sign we were near the end of the Lake Ontario trolling Season. This far into the season very few fisherman have been out, so information sharing was non-existent. We knew that our trip would mean a “hunt for silvers”.

We motored our way out from Foran’s Marine in Grimsby and scanned the shallows first then ran for a short distance and scanned 60 FOW and then 80, then 120 and then 150. It wasn’t until we got to 200 FOW that there were some signs of life on the SONAR. But the bait and fish were marking on the graph were deep. 80 to 130 feet down. We still scanned for some time until there were enough marks to decide we would slow to a troll. We were in 250 FOW and the screen filled with bait and hooks.

I came ill prepared to fish effectively in those types of depths with all lines. So I made the best of it with two downriggers and long stretches from 107 divers. I also only had Leadcore on board and that meant the best I could do was put out a 10 colour Leadcore and add 4 oz of weight to get it down a little further.

Only a few times in the season are you forced to fish 100 feet down. But when I do, there are a few things that have proven to be successful techniques to catch fish from those depths. One is running downrigger lines with short leads. Flashers in glow colours are also good and running cutbait or cutbait imitations like MC Rockets are the go to sets.

Today I ran both riggers with one 10” Spindoctor with cutbait and the other with a number 1 MC Rocket. Consistent was glow colours in all parts of the baits.

Bill and Aidan

From Photo_Gallery5

It was a short trip fishing until 11 am and at the end I had a few waypoints ready for tomorrows charter. Bill had 4 salmon to bring home with the biggest at 11 lbs. Aidan was also smiling after having the opportunity to drive the boat with the water being flat calm.

Shane Thombs
www.FINtasticSportfishing.com