Mike and I just finished another Fish’n Canada shoot, this time with the “Fishmaster” Steve Hardcastle. Our intentions were to get out and fish Lake Ontario for early season Chinook Salmon, more commonly referred to as Springs or Kings. Steve charters out of St Catharines every spring and has been tearing up the water so to speak for the past bunch of seasons.
In setting up this shoot, I told Steve that I would really like to bring up the Princecraft for this one but also stated that we don’t want to put downriggers on it. He said “no problem” since a lot of his fish come on leadcore, copper and Dipsy Divers. All we needed on the boat were rod holders… DONE!
The day before the shoot I talked to Steve and of course he had the bad news that the fish have all moved deep… about 150 feet! I said “can we still try it?” and he said lets go for it.
Long story short we caught a small King in shallow water and Steve, being the Fishmaster that he is said we need to re-locate. So as to not scratch the entire shoot we agreed on heading to the mouth of the Niagara River and hope for Salmon or Trout.
The proceeding days had strong winds really churning up Lake Erie which in turn empties into Lake Ontario via the Niagara so the water had some color to it. The good thing was there was a few various mud-lines created. A mud-line basically is a separation of dirty to cleaner water.
As we started trolling we decided to try shallow as well as deep. When we hit the ultra clear water we started to see Lake Trout swimming under and around the boat and in no time we were catching them. The freakiest part of it all was the fishing method.
Our best success came from the rods directly off the back of the boat with Dipsy’s dragging in the sand while pulling spoons! It must have been the sand being raised up… I guess??? Regardless we probably caught 10+ Lakers on this crazy method with one pushing 20 lbs.
If you want a great day on the water for Salmon, Trout, Walleye or Catfish, get in touch with The Fishmaster Steve Hardcastle, when the going gets tough, he finds em!
