By: Chris Shaffer For more than 15 years I’ve been hoping to fish the Niagara Bar. Meanwhile, the one-to-two times a year we’re able to fish the Lower Niagara River conditions haven’t been right. In fact, our local pros joke about how I bring the worst weather possible with me every time I fly in. […]
By: Chris Shaffer After the first two drifts Ted Kessler looked worried. His energy level fell from excited to perplexed. Following a month of world-class brown trout fishing, Kessler expected the Niagara River browns to bite on our first drift. They didn’t. Unfortunately, they didn’t on our second drift, either. “I’m not marking anything,” Kessler, […]
By: Ted Kessler The salmon run started slow on the Niagara River, but it’s at par right now. We are seeing the same success we had last season, which is good. The last week or so has been really good. We are hooking roughly six to eight salmon per trip. Some days it’s even better. […]
By: Ted Kessler Even though our March was slower than normal due to Arctic like weather we are looking forward to good spring fishing as weather patterns stabilize and the river gradually warms. I’d say our steelhead run on the Niagara River this year has been average, which is good. Given the current conditions I […]
By: Frank Campbell We’ve had the best salmon fishing in about 10 years. The number fish in the Niagara River has been as good as it’s been in more than a decade. That doesn’t mean we are going to knock it out of the park daily, but you are going to have opportunities that we […]
By: Chris Shaffer In Buffalo to film Lake Erie smallmouth bass fishing with live Fire Dye minnows I got a call from Frank Campbell of Niagara Region Charter Service Monday asking me if I wanted to go fishing. He said there were still plenty of steelhead and lake trout in the Lower Niagara River and […]
By: Ted Kessler It’s been one of the toughest steelhead seasons I’ve seen in at least 20 years on the Lower Niagara River. We need ice on Lake Erie for our season to be good and this is the second season in a row we haven’t had ice. If there’s ice on Erie, Lake Erie […]
By: Frank Campbell The Niagara River salmon run started slow due to record warm water coming from Lake Erie, which led to a delay in the salmon looking to return to our river. The beginning of our run took a hit because of record warm temperatures. However, at the end of the September we got […]
By: Ted Kessler My go-to egg curing method hasn’t changed in a few years. More than 85 percent of the salmon we catch come on what I call the Niagara River Brine. I mix plain borax and blend three colors of Fire Cure and it gives us an egg the salmon key in on. More […]
By: Chris Shaffer Frank Campbell’s rod was bent almost in half and I scurried to grab the video camera as line continued to peel off the reel. Floating down the middle of the Niagara River the way this fish was fighting and taking us into heavy, turbulent current I was sure this was going to […]
