The record cold winter we had instilled memories of the 2014 spring and summer fishing that was, in general, tough fishing. Like starting an old outboard motor on a cold spring day, it might take a few pulls of the cord and full choke, before it runs smoothly. It was assumed this spring we would follow the same pattern of tough fishing as seen in 2014. It was not the same at all. Calm seas, warm sunny temperatures played in our favour as the month of April unfolded.
Easter fell on the first weekend in April this year and it was this that also marked the first boats on the lake trying for shallow water brown trout. On Good Friday only two boat ramps were free of ice, Port Dalhousie’s St Catharines Game and Fish ramp and Hamilton Harbour’s Fisherman’s Pier ramp. Reports from boats that had their boats ready to fish over the long 4 day weekend witnessed excellent Brown Trout fishing. Over 10 fish per boat trolling shallow in parts close to the old Charles Daily Park and Jordan Harbour. Also on the internet a picture of a giant brown caught in front of the Lake House at Jordan Harbour went viral as the massive brown trout drooped a belly between cradling hands of a very happy angler. To this day the anglers describe the catch with estimates of its size ranging from 20 to 36 lbs. Big fish indeed and plenty of browns around to get the adrenaline flowing spurring me on to get FINtastic Sportfishing.
The boat was pulled out of the barn on Good Friday and cleaned up, batteries in while my phone beeped with reports from the lake. Frustrating to say the least, but working on the boat is better than wishing to see the boat again. It would be ready to splash down the following weekend.
Easter fell on weekend between 14 and week 15 of the epoch week calendar. I use week numbers to aggregate my fishing notes and look for weather and fishing patterns that follow week numbers. It makes it easier looking at my records that would otherwise be kept using individual days of a month. Week 15 (after Easter) we saw 3 days of high East winds that pounded waves onto the Southwestern shoreline from Niagara to Hamilton and heavy rain that swelled the creeks to overrun their banks. Warm water from the outlets of those creeks would be warmer than the main lake, but the rest of the shoreline that had water temperatures in the 42 deg f dropped to 37 to 39 along most parts of the shoreline due to the mixing effect of the large waves rolling in from the icy core main lake waters.
Often a little colour to the water can help brown trout fishing along the shore, but these conditions come the next weekend meant we would need to find water that allowed the fish to see our baits but also was warm enough to make them comfortable staying there and to feed.
 |
| From Photo_Gallery15 |
Linda, Paul and Brian planned to see what fishing shallow would be like on Lake Ontario. We departed from the recently cleared of ice boat ramp at Foran’s Marina in Grimsby. Unknown to where to start fishing since this was literately the first few boats to launch from this part of the lake with no reports to feed information from. Like breaking the ice, but not really as the channel was clear of ice out to the lake even though other parts of the marina had plenty of ice in the corners and in boat slips.
Before setting off I coordinated with a friend Rob to go separate directions out of the harbour. We would go West and he would go East. Coming out of the harbour the creek was flowing brown water in the 47 deg temps and although the temps were right the visibility was less than 4 inches and simply not fishable. So we set lines and trolled west around past Murrey Park with water temps around 37 degrees F until where we noticed the water colour improved to a point where I can just begin to see the shadow of outboard motor’s cavitation plate.
Our selections of baits were big and were with bright colours. A firetiger coloured J 13 setback 35 feet behind the inline planerboard on mono line was pulled back by a fish merely minutes after setting it out and it produced our first 2015 FINtastic Sportfishing fish in the boat. Paul brought in the fish and we had a snap shot before he put it in the cooler.
 |
| From Photo_Gallery15 |
The fishing was slow and we worked hard to figure out what might be the better water and what baits can be seen or heard by the illusive brown water brown Trout. Once we trolled all the way to Fifty Point we turned to troll back when we caught our first coho salmon. Another bite followed, but we were closing in on the end of our trip. Then Rob phoned us and said he found the fish. Q. Where? A. Vineland. Too far and too late to make a move. The first trip of the year is always a success when the boat runs nice and the weather cooperates but the water was too Brown even for Brown Trout.
After dropping off Linda, Paul and Brian I wanted to run the big motor for a bit and it also gave me an excuse to see what the water looked like East of the Marina. I ran the boat down to Beamsville and noticed the water colour was much better. I was finally able to see the prop and the water temperature was up to 42 degrees. Rob said he found it go up to 43 in a spot along the shoreline at Vineland as well. Although I didn’t have time to fish much, I set 2 flat lines for 30 minutes and managed one coho and lost another fish minutes later.
That Sunday we had rough water and I had to cancel my trip. For the rest of Week 16 the weather was with strong winds from the south (off shore) but it warm and sunny and for those that managed to get out during the work week, they started seeing Chinook salmon show up around the old Charles Dailey Park and Jordan Harbour. On Friday evening after work I launched the boat from Grimsby and noticed right away that the brown water was blown out away from the shoreline and the water clarity showed the bottom easily down to 16 feet. We trolled around Beamsville and managed a small brown trout, and we decided to run to Jordan Harbour and take a look for the last hour to fish. As we powered down another friend was coming into Jordan Harbour and yelled out he caught kings just west of Dalhousie around the Greenhouses. It was too late to fish for them so we called it an evening and I knew what my game plan would be in the morning.
Saturday morning John, his son Johnny and his grandson Mitchell boarded the boat at Port Dalhousie. We literately only motored out at 11 mph as I watched the temperature of the water climb from 39’F to 45’F and then I pulled the throttle back and started fishing. We had hits right away but they were short. Then we hooked up on our first fish. Johnny reeled in this beauty Brown Trout that came on a Shallow Banana Rainbow Smelt coloured LiveTarget.
 |
| From Photo_Gallery15 |
I set the line and minutes later the same bait hits another fish but this time the fish pulls drag swooshes the water violently 80 feet behind the board and pulls drag. My call out “KINGER” as it was typical salmon behaviour, but about 5 minutes into the fight the hooks pull out. Not bent, not broken, just came out. We trolled in shallower when the boat traffic seemed to get a lttle too busy in the same stretch of water we were fishing. As soon as we did, we came into coho and brown trout on a jointed smelt jerkbait from LiveTarget and a few other stick baits like the Ripplin Redfin and Bomber long A.
They managed a number of fish to bring home and John was happy to see Mitchell and Johnny get into some early spring salmon and trout action.
Week 17 was met with more warm sunny skies and calm water for the entire week. The water in the main lake was extremely clear and you can see bottom in 60 FOW looking over the side of the boat. Additionally the shoreline waters cleared right up as well and our approach to catching Brown Trout would no longer materialize since we haven’t seen rain to fill our creeks with warm coloured water as a point source. Instead, the only point source to add coloured water into the clear main lake would be Port Dalhousie and Port Weller (Welland Canal). When we launched from Port Dalhousie the water temperature was 39’F and still too cold. John and his brother Bill joins us as we motored to Port Weller and noticed that the temperature on the surface, went up to 42’F and later 44’F on the east side of the plume of coloured water coming out of the canal.
We set lines in 27 FOW off the Pierhead and trolled across Weller with boards and stickbaits and short 2 and 3 colour leadcores with stickbaits and spoons. Remembering a similar situation many years ago, I trolled flatlined deep diving body baits and caught kings that way. So I wanted to try that again. 12 lbs test mono with DeepDiving Banana Baits Green/silver LiveTarget on one and Smelt coloured on the other side of the boat.
 |
| From Photo_Gallery15 |
 |
| From Photo_Gallery15 |
Only one other salmon we caught came on another rod set in the rigger down 20 with a Yeck 88 spoon only 10 feet back off the ball. We mixed in a number of coho and smaller kings on the stickbaits and spoons on short cores off the planerboards.
 |
| From Photo_Gallery15 |
On the Sunday I decided to scope out new water by fishing Grimsby for salmon with the oncoming King of the Lake Tournament planned for the first weekend of May. I launched from Grimsby with Rob and my son Aidan for a fish close to home. The water was green out front but quickly went clear as you trolled any distance from the outlet of Forty Mile Creek. Temperatures were 44 ‘F on the surface. We ran similar fatlines of a Deep Diving Banana bait in rainbow smelt colour LiveTarget, but to keep from diving too deep, the lead was set out to 100 feet of the mono 12 lbs test line. We trolled East first and the water temperature dropped to 41’F and we began turning back to the west when the flat lined bait takes a strike and Aidan is handed the rod. The fish clears the water three times and pulls a bit of drag. After the initial few moments in the fight the fish was relaxed and I thought it might be a 5 or 6 lbs coho. When the fish came to the back of the boat my jaw dropped while I scooped it and brought it aboard. Aidan caught his first Atlantic Salmon.
 |
| From Photo_Gallery15 |
We set the bait out again and a few trolling passes infront of Forty Mile Creek in 27 feet of water produced a Lake Trout and then at 9:30 am the same flatlined DeepDiving Banana Bait from LiveTarget gets crushed and the reel sings. Aidan was put to the task again and he cracks away like a champ on this king salmon.
 |
| From Photo_Gallery15 |
April started off with Brown Trout in brown water, then for the rest of the month we were looking for coloured water to find fish. It started out with coloured water caused by onshore winds. Then run-off water from the local point source of local creeks like 40 Mile Creek, 15 and 16 mile creek with warmer outflows of coloured water and when we didn’t see rain for an extended time we found Lake Erie water effluent from the Welland canal out of Port Weller be the point source to attract the fish.
April required many changes in locations, running the right baits – Thanks to LiveTarget -using techniques that were tried and true in the past. The results were nothing short of fabulous fishing throughout the month. April was a month of LiveTargets. Targeting the right location for Lively biting fish, and running the right LiveTarget Baits to get bit. The cold winter was a distant memory, and May was looking like it was going to start out better than May in 2014.
No comments:
Post a Comment