New York Fishing

Thanks to a writers’ trip put on by Cabela’s, I got a chance to experience the smallmouth, walleye and steelhead fishing on Lake Ontario and Lake Erie and the Niagara River.
Fishing the big waters can be challenging, especially when the wind blows as it did the first day of our trip on Lake Ontario. Despite the rough waters, our guide Terry Jones set up the right drift as we caught several quality smallmouth including caught by Chuck Smock of Cabela’s that weighed 6 pounds, 7 ounces according to Terry’s handheld scale. We caught a few fish dragging tubes but our most productive tactic was to drift a drop shot rig with a Yum Houdini worm and constantly shake the rig as it bounced along the bottom.
The next day I fished with guide Frank Campbell and since I needed some walleye photos for my file, we started out trolling nightcrawlers on spinner rigs which produced a couple of walleyes for photos. Frank caught the best photo fish, a 5-pounder. After getting the walleye shots we tried fro some smallmouth in the shallows with spinnerbaits and jerkbaits and managed to catch a few 2-pounders and missed a few. Moving on to deeper water we added a 4-pounder and a few 3-pounders while drifting tubes and drop shot Houdini worms.
Our second adventure for the day was a charter boat excursion for king salmon and steelhead. Although we never hooked up with any salmon, we got plenty of action from the steelhead with our largest catch weighing around 12 pounds.
If you plan on visiting the Buffalo area and want to experience the great fishing at Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Niagara River, call either Jones (who specializes in bass) at First Class Bass Charters, 716-875-4946; or Campbell for smallmouth, walleye and trout, salmon and muskie, 716-284-8546.