Greater Niagara Region
Frank Campbell
Niagara Falls USA is hosting its annual spring outdoor media event and Mother Nature has not been kind in the weather department. Rain, high winds, and cooler temperatures all combined to make things a bit uncomfortable. That said, there are still some nice fish being caught in Lake Ontario and the Niagara River. Fishing in the lower Niagara River has been a bit slow, but some trout, walleye and smallmouth bass are being caught. The water has been a bit stained from the wind and rain. If you can figure out a proper presentation in dealing with the elements, you can catch steelhead and lake trout with an occasional brown trout. Walleyes are also available and bass can be caught by targeting them with tube jigs, swim baits, and other artificials. Capt. Dave Scipione of Scipione’s Fishing Charters has opted to fish in Devil’s Hole to try and stay out of the wind. His approach was to fish for trout using emerald shiners off three-way rigs and it worked for him.
In the upper Niagara River, fishing has been a bit more consistent for walleye and bass. Capt. Chris Cinelli of Grand Island reports decent success for a mixed bag of fish species including pike, bass and walleye. Steve Brzuszkiewicz of Marilla tried trolling a stick bait and managed to catch a walleye limit. He also reeled in three 17-inch bass. Biggest walleye was 26 inches and over 5 pounds.
Salmon and trout action has been great on Lake Ontario this week and the big focus has been on the Spring Lake Ontario Counties Trout and Salmon Derby, continuing through May 10th. There is a $15,000 Grand Prize for the largest salmon caught. However, there is a 20-pound minimum size to weigh in a salmon and as of the midway point of the derby, not a single 20 pounder had been weighed in! It’s still not too late to enter the derby! You might want to give it a try. Find out details at loc.org. Leading lake trout right now is a 27-pound, 3-ounce fish caught out of Point Breeze by John Jackson of Rochester. First place brown trout is 12 pounds, 2 ounces reeled in by Johnny Ellis of Swanville, Maine.
King salmon fishing has been outstanding on the west end of Lake Ontario since the last week of April according to Capt. Pete Alex of Vision Quest Sportfishing out of Wilson. Kings are in 35 to 200 feet of water and spread out throughout the water column. Dreamweaver magnum and regular sized spoons have been producing best off downriggers, divers and lead core lines. Meat has been producing deeper targeted kings. There is a massive class of 2-year-old salmon with very few 3-year-olds in the mix. The average king is 6 to 10 pounds according to Alex. Brown trout fishing along the south shore has been outstanding this spring.
John Van Hoff of North Tonawanda reports unreal fishing over the weekend between the Niagara Bar and Olcott anywhere from 80 to 120 feet of water, 40 to 70 feet down. Spoons were the ticket for him. He boated 60 fish Friday and 30 fish on Sunday using magnum spoons in black and white colors. Gold-backed spoons did well.
Karen Evarts at The Boat Doctors in Olcott also reports outstanding fishing in the lake for king salmon, lake trout and brown trout, depending on what you want to target. Top lures are spoons, but meat and flasher-flies are taking fish as well. At Burt Dam, there has been a mix of bass, suckers, bluegills, and bowfin. Matt Vogt did well at the dam with his niece, 5-year-old Aria Balk of Newfane as the warm water fish seemed to take over the action. The creek has been high and somewhat muddy.
This Saturday is the start of two seven-day contests that are the lead-in to the Wilson Harbor Invitational Salmon Tournament May 16-17. The Salmon Slam and the $1K a Day contests are from May 9 to 15. You do not have to fish in the WHI to fish in the other contests. Call Kevin Jerge at 863-1001 to find out more.
Finger Lakes and Western New York Fishing Report
Captain Nick Petrou Nick Petrou of Natural Outfitters Guide Service
The bass action has been the star of the show here in western NY. The Finger Lakes, Lake Erie, and the Niagara River have all been producing quality bass for the past few weeks. In the Finger Lakes, it’s a mixed bag of largemouth and smallmouth, with largemouth being more dominant. On Lake Erie & the Niagara, it’s predominantly Smallmouth.
Anglers in the Finger Lakes should be fishing shallow as these fish have moved up into their pre-spawn feeding phase to fatten up for the spring. Hot baits are chatterbaits, spinnerbaits, shallow running crankbaits, jerkbaits, and a skirted jig. You can catch some smallmouth out deep, but keep your fishing to 10 feet and less. The water is warmer up shallow and its loaded with fish. I had a crew out last weekend for four days of bass fishing on Cayuga Lake. We had two days where we caught over 30 pounds for our combined five fish and the other two days we had over 25 pounds for our best five. We also boated our biggest largemouth of the year, a 7.14 pound best (pictured above). This past week, I boated another 7.27 pound bass.
Lake Erie bass anglers should be concentrating on areas close to the harbors as the fish have started to move in close to shore. There are some bass offshore in 30-40 feet, but the weather needs to let you get to those fish. Anywhere from 8-30 feet is where we are catching the fish, with tubes, swimbaits, ned rigs and jerkbaits producing the best. Same is true on the Niagara river, but you are using the current to your advantage and drifting your baits in a natural presentation. Some walleyes are also in the mix as well.
On the panfish front, we have concluded our spring yellow perch fishing. Just wanted to thank everyone who sailed with me this spring as we had a final tally of 1,173 perch kept from the end of march to the end of april. We will bring back perch trips come mid september. Crappie and bluegill anglers have been having a ball on some of the finger lakes up in the shallows. Small swimbaits swam just above the emerging weeds have been the ticket, but when there’s wind, a trout magnet fished under a slip bobber produces best. We have had no problem limiting out on crappies and bluegills over the last few trips.
Wayne County Fishing Update
Chris Kenyon
Lake Ontario
2026 LOC DERBY DATES
*Spring-May 1st -10th
*Summer-June 27th-July 26th
*Fall-Aug 21st-Sept 7th
Get in on the action and win your share of the $140,150 in Cash Prizes in the 2026 LOC Event loc.org
100,000 king salmon fingerlings are now swimming in Lake Ontario after spending three weeks in pens behind Krenzer Marine. The net pens were towed to the lake yesterday and released in 30fow where the color was green.
The color of the water was perfect for the fish…given them a chance to disperse without the cormorants noticing them.
The fish grew from 1.5 inches to 4 inches in the pens, which the Department of Environmental Conservation. (DEC) said was the same as the net projects in Orleans and Monroe Counties.
Hats off to the charter captains and other workers who made the Wayne County pen rearing project so successful. It takes many dedicated people working as a team to get the king salmon from pens to the lake.
Currently, the browns are what is being caught in Wayne County waters. The main obstacle for fishing has been the relentless wind. One day it’s northeast, the next is northwest. If you can pick a quiet day and have a safe vessel, concentrate on a close to shore troll. Use bright spoons and stickbaits off the boards, dipseys, and riggers.
Better yet, book a charter service for safety and knowledge.
Bays
The Bay Bridge at the south end of Sodus Bay has anglers catching bluegills and some late season bullheads. The perch in Sodus are at the north end near the channel. The ‘fish and release’ bass are being caught near the trestle area,
Bass season starts June 15th.
We are experiencing high water, and it will become worse in the month of May. No wake zones have not been determined yet; however, make sure you pay attention to any changes in the rules while boating.
Erie Canal
The pull-off parking areas along Route 31 will be the perfect place to cast out when the canal opens in ten days.
The Widewaters County Park will be the ideal location to launch your boat or kayak. There is plenty of room to park your trailer.
The fish in the Widewaters region will be bass, crappies, bluegills, and some pike.
The Erie Canal will open Friday, May 15th and will run through October 14th.
There is an excellent DEC site that lists all the boating launch areas in Wayne County: dec.ny.gov/things-to-do/boating/launch-sites/wayne-county
Bait for fishing is available on the south end of Sodus at Davenports and Bay Bridge Sport Shop.
On Port Bay, Jarvis Bait Farm is open on Brown Road. The signs are on East Port Bay Road at the junction of Brown Road.
Toadz Bait is near the end of West Port Bay. On 1298 Route 104 is Ontario Country Max and 625 E Main St. is Palmyra Country Max.
Orleans County
Orleans County Sportfishing Coordinator Ron Bierstine:
Spring weather continues to average on the cool if not cold side. Right now after a couple of warmer breezy days the forecast is for colder and wetter weather for the mid and end of week. We are due for another rain – it hasn’t rained in at least a few days! Lake nearshore temps slowly are edging up though and there could be some nearshore bait movements afoot. We will have to wait and see what the temp profile looks like after these latest 3 days of hard SW winds.
For those trollers and Charters who don’t make the westward spring migration looking for the Niagara plume the action around the Orleans County waters at the Oak remains a good mixed bag catch. Its browns in tighter, lakers at mid depths, and Kings and cohos mixed in. All those encouraging spring salmon hook-ups, yet where are the 20 pounders weighed in for the spring LOC Derby?!
Serious rec anglers Ben F. and Chris C. aboard a nicely decked out Crestliner recently LOC Derby fished for an afternoon outing. In just that few hour time it was 8 browns and 2 small Kings and some hefty lakers. After the shallow water brown trout bite didn’t give up any derby contenders they trolled north and doubled up on 16 + pounders. A real nice orange belly laker among them from 60 – 70 fow. A slow 1.6 mph troll on the bottom with a Stinger Diehard and cowbells/spin n glo did the brace of lakers.
Capt. Rob W. of Legacy Sportfishing says “all this spring rain seems to be bringing consistent fishing on the Lake. The majority of action still seems to be inside of 30 ft in the colored water with all trout and salmon species showing up. Browns are the highest catches but a good number of Kings are showing up. If you slide out a bit deeper the lake trout bite will keep you busy.”
Oswego County
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Fishing remains excellent, with plenty of brown trout and salmon being caught.
Lake Ontario – Oswego County
Click Here of the 10 day Forecast
The best brown trout bite has been in 10–25 feet of water. Stickbaits and spoons have been producing best, run on flat lines and 1–4 color leadcores. Mini discs and shallow divers have also been effective.
Stinger and Stingray-sized spoons in a variety of colors have been productive, including Killer Mongoose, Gold Perch, Goose N Tonic, Green Glo Alewife, and Dirty White Bou. Productive stickbait colors have included Hot Steel, Ayu, Bleeding Shad, and Clown, primarily in 3.5-inch models.
Anglers targeting salmon have been fishing slightly deeper, in 40–120 feet of water. Downriggers, divers, and leadcores have all been producing fish. Kings have been hitting baits run 5–60 feet below the surface. Both standard and medium-sized spoons have been effective.
During overcast and low-light conditions, darker patterns have been producing best, while brighter chartreuse patterns have worked better during sunny conditions. Productive colors have included Diehard, UV Blitz, Arctic Ice, NBK, and UV Green Alewife. In sunny conditions, Pickleseed, Goose N Tonic, and Yellow Killer have all been productive.
Walleye season is off to a great start in both Oswego Harbor and Sandy Pond. Your best bet is fishing from early evening through sunrise. Large stickbaits have been the bait of choice.
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