I was on my way out of the lab on Friday when I rang up a buddy to see what's up. Turns out that he was planning to hit the Niagara on the weekend and he invited me to join him. I didn't need too much arm twisting to get me to say "YES!"
We were planning to meet at a carpool parking lot on Hwy 6 at 5:15am this morning...but we both ended up about 20min late. That's alright...we're just a little late. While Chris hurried to help me load his car, Pete was complaining that he would have already caught a fish by this time
We got to the Niagara by 6:30am. It took a while to suit up and rig up...but we were soon fishing. We're bottom bouncing today with 1oz pencil lead (or slinkies). Our various offerings included pink worms, roe, plastic minnows, twister tails and other plastic lures.
It was a really slow day. There were about 6-7 boats drifting the back eddy and the boats were doing much better than the shore guys. We witnessed quite a few double headers and someone was usually hooked up to a fish in one of the boats.
Finally, at about 8:30am, I was in mid-drift when a fish slammed my pink worm. The fish jumped and revealed its rainbow identity. I had to dodge a tree in order to follow the fish down current. Pete came running with the net and did a masterful job on the first attempt.
I usually don't keep steelhead...but since I was running out of roe, and this fish was a good eater size, I decided to put on my meat hunter cap and took one for the table. There's enough skein to last me at least a year now The slaughter ended there
I drifted a while longer with the pink worm and got nothing. So off goes the pinkie, on goes a plastic 3" minnow. A few cast later, I thought the slinky was dragging into the weeds on bottom and I gave it a pop. The line tugged back and gave some headshakes. FISH ON again!
This one was a wee little guy...but I was happy to get a nice little 12" brownie. No worst for wear after the quick CPR.
While I was hooked up, someone next to me put on the double header and landed a nice 6lb male brown.
After that, it was all the action for another 3 hours. I had another fish on with a white twister tail but it came off after two headshakes.
About 11:30am, Chris hooked up into a hard fighting fish. It took 5 or 6 runs before coming into the net. It wasn't fighting far from shore, but everytime the fish saw me with the net, off it went with another 50 feet of line. We did land the 7lb steelhead buck and did a CPR on the fish. This fish took a white twister tail.
We fished until 12:30pm and called it a day. There were maybe a half dozen of fish caught today...so I felt pretty good having two on the board Heck, I'm grateful just catching one of the target species and it would have made my day already
Got home, cleaned the fish, salted the skein...and now I'm enjoying some pan fried steelhead fillet. MMM
First steelhead this fall...yes...that's pathetic
Fishing the Niagara River
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Fishing the Niagara River
Last edited by Ken on Sun Dec 14, 2008 7:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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