May 2025 Fishing Reports
Open Lake action in the Orleans County waters has been up and down, somewhat as the weather has likewise gone up and down. Most trollers are in a bit of a search mode - trying to come up with something consistent, especially for Kings. After the end of last week and the past weekend’s east and northeast winds and recent precipitation, it looks like we may be headed for more consistent weather patterns through this week and into the weekend. Right now, all the tribs are once again moving out some high and stained flows. And there is still a chance of more rain or storms through later today and tonight.
Before the tribs outflow stain came on just recently, the inside waters were mostly clear and full of bait, especially going toward the west. Not sure that we have seen onshore bait movement like this in quite a few years. So, spoons and plugs competing for bites in all that bait and clear water was a tough ask. Most guys went on a search mode deeper for Kings or hung with the Laker marks for their hookups.
One veteran civilian angler couple got their 9th place spring LOC salmon by going west in 90 fow around the Bluffs. Check out that big King in the pic below! Mike and Charlotte fished anywhere from 50 feet down to the bottom. The derby fish hit a DW gold spoon on a 300 copper line running about 60 ft down. Mike and Charlotte are persistent with previous LOC prizewinners, so I wouldn’t count them out for coming up with a bigger leaderboard salmon!
On the Charter side of things, some of the Oak “regulars” are still out west looking for that Niagara plume early season King action. A guess is that the previous east winds making things tough here were making for challenging conditions there too. But Cpt. Dave S. from Tracker Charters hangs in here at the Oak and said “weekend fishing was great, the weather was the issue. We saw the bait and clear water inside, so we moved north to 90 – 130 fow. We got silvers on slide divers and high riggers on black and gold. There were good marks and bait deeper 40 to 60 ft down, but the only deep bite was lake trout for good action all day.”
Finishing up the spring stocking (after release of the pen salmon and steelhead) – some direct stock fingerlings have been released. The recent plants included Atlantic (50,000) and brown trout (38,500), and more steelhead (20,000). Many thanks to NYSDEC hatchery personnel and managers for late in their day efforts and USDA cormorant control for trying to help get all the fingerlings dispersed and out into the open Lake.
