Spring is Finally Here

This past week has been great for fishing. I have been hitting the creek almost everyday and have had great results on all the trips. I have been fishing mot of the time with spinners because I am low on eggs, but the browns don't seem to care. I have also caught some nice steelhead on spinners but am sure I would be more successful on steelhead if I fished eggs more. The creek has been a little off color form the rain and the temperature has ranged from 38-42 degrees. We have caught fish from a wide variety of locations with the best action coming from the middle sections of the creek before the crowds came out on the weekend. This upcoming week I hope to get out on the small boat and fish the mouth of the creek and also check out the ponds for perch and crappie. Here is a small sample of some of the fish from last week.

When Will the Snow Melt?

Carolynne, Sully, and I took a drive around today to see what the status of the creek and the lake are. The bad news is that the creek is still frozen and the lake has a ton of ice on it. The good news is that there should be good water for the creeks, and in turn good-colored water trolling. Hopefully I will be fishing the creeks in a couple of weeks and then on the lake shortly after. I can only hope that there is good water and more typical brown fishing in close to shore this spring. Trolling the mudlines for trout as soon as the ice is gone is one of my favorite things to do. Until the weather breaks, I am trying to get the boats ready for the spring and organizing tackle for the upcoming year. Before we know it, we will be hitting the creeks, trolling for browns, loading up on perch in the ponds, filling the freezer with crappie, heading west for the LOC, hitting the bass and pike in Silver...

Favorite Lures

The weather has finallyturned for the worse. The creek fishing has shut down, the River is flooded, and I have not ventured to the Salmon River or the Niagara River. I for one have not done much since the begining of January. The creeks are frozen and I have not been ice fishing yet. Since there isn't much to report I decided to share four of my favorite lures and invite others to share their favorites. Here they are: 1. Blue Husky Jerk- My favorite early spring pike and smallmouth lure. Also, very effective for pre-spawn salmon and trout.2. Black and Silver Torpedo- Hands down my favorite lure to catch bass on. It might not be the most effective but nothing beats a topwater bass hit. 3. Fire Tiger Little Cleo- Unbelievable for catching trout and salmon. 4. Vibrax Spinner- If I could only have one lure for all fish this would be it.

Short Trip With Rick

Rick and I hit the creek today, and I was disappointed to see the color of the water after the rain last night. The flow was good, but the color had become stained from yesterday. We stuck it out for a little while and were rewarded with two browns and a nice steelhead. The weekend looks good for those who are interested.

Productive Scouting Trip

Today, I stopped at the creek to check the conditions after the high off-color water of last weekend. The water actually was lower than I expected but still a little off-color. I decided to make a few drifts before it got dark and was rewarded with a beautiful fresh steelhead. The fish faught hard despite the cold water and weighed in around nine pounds. The pictures do not do this beautiful fish justice, but look at it next to my float rod. It should be good for the next few days if anyone is interested.

Christmas Week Update

Well, the previous week has been busy, but I have been able to get out on the streams a few times and the weather and fishing continue to be great for this time of year. The same spots I have been fishing all fall continue to produce fish. I have even found a few different spots that are holding good numbers of fish. We have caught fish on both spinners and eggs with eggs being the most consistent for both numbers and size. The highlights the week included: getting my brother Mike out to catch some quality fish, getting Joe out of the tree stand and back into the creek, persuading Carolynne to hold her own fish, watching Bruce land a hard-fighting steelhead that broke his St. Croix noodle rod, and me landing a 15.6 pound, (36inch long by 18 inch girth) dime-bright steelhead on a day nobody wanted to fish with me. I might need to get a reproduction done of that fish since the pictures suck. Since it is New Years Eve, I will sum up my fishing over the past three months. Looking at my journals I found that over the thirteen week period, I averaged four trips a week, with an average of 5 fish a trip. You do the math!

Mid-December Fishing

The fishing and weather continue to be great for this time of year. In a usual year we are covered in snow and the creeks are frozen. This year we have had little snow and the creeks are still open and fishable, but they are deopping quickly and need rain badly. I have continued to fish hard and the fish are still cooperating. The cold water has caused the fish to become less active and I have had to fish harder for the fish I have been catching. But by putting in time and fishing various locations I have been able to keep the bite going. One lesson I have learned recently is to change tactics when the bite slows down or to simple change the length from my float to the hook if the fish are not biting. I look forward to the tiem off over the next week. Anyone who is interested in fishing let me know.

Weekend Update

The fishing continues to be good and the weather is amazing for the middle of December. I was able to get out a few different times this weekend in between trips to the stores. The water is clear and much lower than it has been all fall, but the fish are aggressive and fight very hard in the warmer water. We have been catching steelhead and browns, and most of th efish are average 5- 8 pound fish. However, both Carolynne and I lost fish that would have been much bigger than that. We have been hitting the usual spots but I ventured to a few different spots today and each one held fish. The key has been finding unpressured fish and drifting eggs to them. Lets hope the weather stays nice and the fish keep biting.

Beautiful December Day

Today was one of those days that all I thought about at work was how I would love to be on the water fishing. Middle of December and the temperature was in the mid 50's. I hit the creek after work, but since it gets dark around 5:00 I only had about forty-five minutes. The creek was low but I managed to catch one brown and a beautiful female steelhead. Both fish hit eggs and fought very hard. A beautiful, but short trip. The rest of the week looks good if anyone is interested. I hear the big perch are still active in Irondequoit Bay.

Finally in

Ice out should occur, went by Maxwell on Sunday afternoon. Still crowded and no ice. Only steelhead, no brownies. All fly fishing.

Weekend Update

Well the weather has been cold and the creeks have been getting lower and lower. The combination of low water and cold weather caused the creek to begin to freeze over in some of the slow water sections. Check out the picture below.

The cold weather slowed the fish down and in order to catch fish you had to fish the pools and when we did hook up the fish stayed deep. In the few hours that I fished on a couple of different days I was able to land some nice browns and a few small raiinbows. Unfortunately, since I was by myself most of the time (the cold weather scares away most people) I did not take many pictures and the ones I did take were not very good. The weather looks great for the next week or so. If anyone is interested in hitting the water let me know. I think I am heading to one of the bigger streams or rivers some time next weekend.

Cold High Creeks/ Derby Invitation

Well, the rain and snow the last few days have made the creeks high and off color. Hopefully, they should back in fishable shape by the end of the week. In the mean time I have begun to think about the LOC derbies for the upcoming year. I know it is a long ways off, but it is never to early to put a crew together. As far as the spring derby goes, I plan on fishing from Oak Orchard west to the Niagara River. I will most likely get a motel room near Wilson or the Niagara River for part of the derby as the fishing there is usually very good. I would love to have anyone who wants to fish hard and have some fun aboard. Let me know if you are interested. Here is some basic information.

2007 DERBY DATES

SPRING DERBY - MAY 4TH - MAY 13TH

SUMMER DERBY - MAY 26TH - JULY 15 TH

FALL DERBY - AUGUST 17TH - SEPTEMBER 3RD

Prize structure for 2007 Derbies

Spring 2007 LOC

Five divisions, Salmon, Rainbow/Steelhead, Brown, Lake, and Walleye

Grand Prize - $10,000

First $1000 Second $400 Third $300 Fourth $200 Fifth place $100 Sixth – 10th $75 11th – 15th $50 16th – 20th $25

$100 Daily award for the largest fish in each Division

Summer 2007 LOC

Five divisions, Salmon, Rainbow/Steelhead, Brown, Lake, and Walleye

Grand Prize - $5,000

First $1000 Second $400 Third $300 Fourth $200 Fifth place $100 Sixth – 10th $75 11th – 15th $50 16th – 20th $25

Fall 2007 LOC

Four divisions, Salmon, Rainbow/Steelhead, Brown, and Lake Trout

Grand Prize - $20,000

First $2500 Second $1000 Third $550 Fourth $450 Fifth place $300 Sixth – 10th $200 11th – 15th $100 16th – 20th $50

$100 Daily award for the largest fish in each Division

Looking Back (Early Fall Salmon)

Here it is December 1st, and it feels like just yesterday it was summer. As always, the fall went by too fast and the weather is starting to get bad. Today, the temperature is in the 30's, the wind is blowing up to 60 miles an hour, and it has been raining hard all day. I got thinking about trolling in the fall and the great time we had. We were lucky enough to get onto a pod of fish and get a program working that allowed us to put a lot of nice kings in the boat in a short period of time. The key, as always, was to find the green water and troll there early in the morning or in the evening (the evening bite was especially good for us). We averaged 4-6 fish a night in the couple hours we usually fished. The numbers were there but that is not the important thing to remember. The memories of fishing in the dense fog, hand lining a king when a tangled line caused a birds nest with 100 feet of line out and an angry salmon on the end, fish catching us off guard when we are "relieving ourselves", and Carolynne hooking a king that spent more time in the air than in the water are the memories that will stay with me. The lures that were very hot were silver j plugs and purple thunder spoons. These are just a few of the many fish we were lucky enough to catch.