Lake Ontario Salmon Fishing – Rated as The Best Ever

By: Kevin Davis

This year has been the best king salmon fishing ever on Lake Ontario. We are catching all year classes and some large salmon. There’s big numbers this year. It’s real good. These fish are anywhere from three pounds to 25 pounds. Doubles and triples are everyday occurrences. This is lake wide, too, not just by us in Oswego.

I go out every morning and unless there’s a bad wind I know I’m going to catch them. For fishing to be this good there must have been a great survival rate the last few years from the stocking. We are catching more than we’ve ever caught during my lifetime here. And, these fish are healthy. We see lots of bait and tons of fish. Normally this time of year we have to target browns because you don’t crush the kings in May or June, but there’s so many kings we don’t have to fish for the browns. It’s crazy.

The fish were high in the water column in May and most of June and it was a spoon bite. Now that the salmon are starting to drop deeper the meat bite is picking up. It’s getting real good. I’m running half spoons and half meat. The spoons work first light, but the meat bite has been wicked all day. I’ve been using Natural Fire Brine most of the time because we’ve had our limit before it gets bright. However, if it gets bright out I’ll switch to Chartreuse Fire Brine. When there is sun on the water chartreuse cut bait is best. I haven’t run much Blue Fire Brine yet, but it will be effective in July and August.

Right now we start trolling in 90 feet of water and are fishing 40-80 feet down. We troll out to 200 feet of water and then back. All the salmon have been in 200 feet of water or less. In the next few weeks the salmon should start moving out deeper. This year we don’t know what to expect because there’s so many salmon that they could be anywhere.

I’ve been running 20-pound main line and a 15-pound fluorocarbon leader for spoons. I don’t run a leader for meat. When running meat I’ll use Pro Chips and Spin Doctors in front of the bait with A-Tom-Mik Twinkie Style meat rigs with Fire Brine cut bait in them.

Editor’s Note: Kevin Davis operates Catch the Drift. For more info on his Lake Ontario salmon trips please visit https://www.facebook.com/catchthedrift1.