I have always wanted to drift fish the Niagara River since I first talk with one of my clients,
John Field, about 20 years ago. He introduced me to
Captain John Oravec who has been guiding on Lake Ontario now for 40 some years now, and his tales of the Niagara River fishery got me interested in floating it with him.
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| First fish of the day, spawned out female. |
Well, after years of thinking about this trip but never being able to find the time to do it, I finally set the date, dropped the deposit on it and told my son-in-laws that we were going fishing. Weather, that is a factor related to any fishing trip here in the Great Lakes, and weather in March is as unpredictable as it gets. We all kept an eye on the forecast in the week leading up to the trip and it seemed as though we'd have temps in the 40's and rain. We planned for rain and cool temps. Turned out to be dry and some sun in the afternoon moved temps into the low 50's, couldn't have been a better day weather wise.
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| Bonding with my son-in-laws, James(l) and Adam(r) |
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| Adam with his first ever steelhead. |
We met John at the lower ramp in Lewiston, NY and were underway by 7:45. We headed towards the mouth of the river, our first drifts being off the high banks and further down towards the convent. The fishing was slow but it was good to finally be fishing the Niagara River. We picked up two steelhead in these drifts and later move to the mouth of the river and spent about 2 hours making drifts past the Coast Guard station to the end of the break wall. With a strong east-southeast wind getting out onto the Niagara Bar was out of the question. These drifts produced 1 fish on for one of my son-in-laws but it wrapped some bottom structure and broke him off.
We drifted the bottom using Emerald Shiners and skein, picking up all fish on the shiners. As the day progressed and water clarity clouded up and we added a chartreuse trout bead in front of the shiner but had no further action. All-in-all it was a great day fishing and spending time with Capt. John and my son-in-laws. We are planning a fall trip on the St. Lawrence River with Capt. John for Muskies, can't wait.
Tight lines
