Estuary Perch

Stan Oulette of Deer Creek Motel; Pulaski, N.Y.

Back in the early 1960s, catching Pacific salmon and steelhead in Lake Ontario was just a dream entertained by fish and game officials and dreamy-eyed anglers, many of whom had fished out West.

To your average local angler, the targets of choice were warm-water species like smallmouth bass, northern pike and yellow perch. The estuary, the slow-moving, lower stretch of the Salmon River running from the last set of rapids to the mouth, was one of the best spots around to catch ‘em all, especially a bucket of yellow perch.

“Still is” boasts Stan Oulette of Deer Creek Motel, located on State Route 3, a couple miles north of Port Ontario. “In fact,” he claims, "it’s Oswego County’s best kept secret.”

Stan and his brother David are local experts on the lower river. With good reason: both, along with their families, love to eat fish, and perch are their favorite. 

“The estuary always holds fish,” claims Stan, “but they change with the seasons… northern pike are plentiful in the spring, bass are in all summer long, salmon and brown trout come through in the fall, steelhead in winter and spring, and perch…ahh, perch,” he goes on, dreamlike  “… they’re always around.”

The bait of choice for these tasty panfish is a minnow fished on bottom or suspended a few inches off the floor below a bobber. Squeamish anglers and those who prefer artificial lures will catch a batch by jigging a Berkley Atomic Teaser tipped with a Power Honey Worm.

An angler inexperienced in the ways of Lake Ontario tributaries would probably conclude the perch—indeed, all panfish—flee the estuary at the first sight of a salmon.

The exact opposite is true; panfish are drawn into the estuary and spurred into a feeding frenzy by all the salmon eggs and tiny life forms that feed on salmon cadavers.

 

Hit the North Shore’s Bars for a Grand Slam

By
Spider Rybaak

Dennis, Pittston, Pa, a guest of Anglers' Bay,
holding an  "eye" he took between Cleveland and Vienna Bars

Early last week, I was trolling along NY 49 for some juicy quotes and photos for my next book, “Fishing Oneida Lake” (Burford Books, Ithaca, NY, scheduled for release in autumn, 2014). A group of guys standing around in the parking lot of David C. Webb Memorial Park at Taft Bay caught my eye. They looked too burly, hairy and ugly to be trying out for the Olympic figure skating team. So I figured they must be ice fishermen.

I approached them slowly. When you look like me, you walk gently so’s not to scare anyone.

“How were they hittin’, fellas,” I asked.

All but the hairiest remained silent. 

“I got my limit of walleyes,” he answered “but came up a little short of a Grand Slam.”

“Say what?” 

“I was trying to hit an Oneida Lake Grand Slam,” he answered, looking at me askance, like I was really dumb. “You know, a limit of walleyes and a limit of perch,” he continued, with great patience and understanding.

“Of course I know what you mean,” I protested.

I mentioned what I was doing and Craig Storms immediately volunteered to take me ice-fishing, to show me “How to pick up walleyes and perch on the North Shore’s bars.”

Surprisingly, all the other guys started opening up, too. True to the tradition of camaraderie Oneida Lake ice-fishermen are known for, they all pitched in with stories of their day. Everyone agreed to having a ball, even though the day was the coldest so far this winter.

An aspiring guide, Craig volunteered to take me fishing to show me how it’s done. We agreed to meet 6:30 a.m., on January 8, at Apps Bait, tucked into the northeastern corner of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Cleveland Docks Public Fishing Access Site. 

We ended up heading out at Anglers Bay, just west of Vienna Bar, because we were “walkers” (the term mechanized icers use to describe their pedestrian counterparts), and that’s where the steep drop-off into the lake’s deepest area comes closest to shore. About a quarter-mile out, Craig pulls out his smart phone, goes to the Navionics App and starts looking for the 20-foot depth on the drop-off, more specifically, “a bend in the structure.”

Craig likes to fish the bends because they attract more fish. When he finds one, he digs a hole and lowers his MarCum LX5 sonar into it. 

“The bottom’s carpeted in fish,” he announces with the excitement of a man who just had the world’s most beautiful woman invite him over for a chat. 

He digs a couple more holes. Setting up his Otter Double--a two-man shelter--he pulls out a jigging rod loaded with a Slender Spoon, hooks on the top half of a pinched buckeye (he actually lets his left thumbnail grow all winter so he can pinch bait--and irritate his wife). Dropping it to bottom, he lifts it a couple inches and starts jigging pretty forcefully, in 4- to 6- inch sweeps, punctuated every 6th time or so by lifting it to arms-length.

I tie-on a Northland Buck-Shot Rattle Spoon, bait it, and follow his lead.

After about 30 minutes, our arms are twitching … Nothing.

We move about 10 yards north, into 28 feet of water. Craig drops his bait. A line separates from bottom and rises toward it (the lake floor, fish and the lure all appear as short horizontal lines on the graph).

“Seeing a separation head for your bait is very exciting. When it merges with the bait, the temptation to set the hook can be overwhelming. But don’t do it!” he says, with a look as serious as cancer. “Wait until you feel the hit before setting the hook,” he advises.

The fish hits. Barely legal, we agree it’s still a nice one. Breaking out in a smile, the master says “I can’t remember ever seeing a bad one, come to think of it.”

Dropping his lure back down, Craig gets another hit almost immediately, but loses it.

Things are starting to smoke, I think.

I get a hit without seeing a separation. The fish sped in out of the sonar’s range. It’s a shorty, too.

A couple minutes later, I watch a separation rise to my lure. Then it goes down again. Then it comes up. 

“Steady…steady,” Craig instructs.

After playing a mind game for a couple minutes, the fish hits. The fight is a good one. We’re using 4 lb. test line so it takes a couple minutes. But it appears, dodging maddeningly in and out of view. Finally, it goes vertical and Craig pulls it out of the hole.

After high-fiving, and taking hero shots, I decide to lay the thing down near the graph to get a photo of our set up.

Craig warns me not to…But no, I don’t listen. Somehow, that big, fat walleye managed to stick her head back into the hole. Craig grabbed her, but she slipped through his fingers like an exciting dream when you wake up. 

The Cleveland, Phillips and Vienna Bars boast drop-offs where walleyes and perch gather in winter, and slowly move west. Find the magic depth and you’ll stand a good chance of pulling fish dinners out of the hole until your arms hurt.

Still, Craig reminds everyone: “Grand slams don’t happen very often; only about 1 in 25 times out. But that’s what makes ‘em so worth it.”

You can access the best walleye spots from the Cleveland Docks Fishing Access site at the sharp bend on the hamlet’s east side, and at the little park at the end of Mill Street in the village of Constantia. 

Craig landing a good one.

One of our shorties

Craig on Ice

Icing Around

By Spider Rybaak

Dan and Kaytee of Constantia and part of their catch.

Cousin Staash called last Saturday morning to report: “Global warming’s on hold. The ice on Oneida Lake is anywhere from 7 to 11 inches thick and the place looks like tent city, man. Wanna go ice some perch, maybe a few walleye?” he asked.

Syracuse wouldn’t be playing Villanova for another three hours so I figured why not.  I met him at the Cleveland Docks fishing access site and we walked out onto the water. 

An hour later, we’re fishless. Another hour goes by and all we got to show for it is the memory of a couple runts we released. I decide to go home and watch the game.

Stopping at a couple shelters on the way, none admitted to having caught anything of significance. One voice in a lone shanty isolated from everyone else by several hundred feet of frigid emptiness on all sides claimed he hadn’t seen a fish all morning. Blood stains on the ice at two of his five tip-ups testified otherwise, especially since the footprints to and from the holes led to his Clam.

It was pretty obvious he had secrets he wasn’t going to reveal so I just kept walking towards shore and my appointment with Syracuse University basketball’s second disappointment of the season.

Sunday morning rose squeaky white, blue and cold. The loss to Villanova was only a heartbreaking memory and I resolved to forget about it and go on with my life. The first steps on the ice set things right again.

It was that quick because a couple that was coming in as I was going out had fish: two yellow perch about 11 inches each, and a white perch only slightly shorter but twice as broad. They got ‘em on minnows.

A little further out I’m at a crossroads: the group of shanties off to the right was a couple hundred yards closer than the one to the left, so, you guessed it, I went right.

Before long, I’m surrounded by a bustle of activity I haven’t seen on Oneida Lake since Labor Day weekend…if then. Dozens of colorful shelters punctuated the frozen waterscape, conversations of their tenants riding the frosty air. 

Snowmobiles and ATVs ran in every direction. Man-drawn sleds loaded with equipment moved back and forth over the sparkling setting. And everywhere in between, lone anglers sat out in the open, fishing minnows on Jigging Raps or spoons like Swedish Pimples, or insect larvae on tiny ice jigs like Someday Isle Tackle’s Water Puppets and Shimmerlings.

Seeing the entrance to one shelter open, I go over. A walleye is on the ice at the door. Inside, Jim McCarthy, a resident of Clinton, sits steely-eyed, focusing on a tip-up about 10 yards away.

Not realizing he’s having a hit, I commence to bugging the man with questions like how they hittin’?

“My flag just went up,” he responds and flies out of the tent with such blurring speed, I’m left wondering if he was ever really there.

I follow him to the tip-up and the reel’s spinning so fast I worried the friction would create so much heat it would undermine the ice below our feet. But Jim was faster and before you know it, he’s got a whopper of a perch on the ice.

A couple more stops revealed the action was similar everywhere. One lady described it perfectly: “They ain’t exactly jumping out of the holes to get our baits; they’re biting steady, just enough to keep the excitement flowing and to put dinner on the table tonight.”

 Like dancing on ice.

 Hot ice action: Oneida Lake.

Jim McCarthy with a nice walleye he took on a large buckeye in 18 feet of water.

McCaCarthy landing a whopper perch. 

Early Spring on the Oswego River

Fulton's John Guzelak with a couple nice browns he took off the east bank, aka Hotel Row, in Oswego.

You can’t blame ice fishermen for feeling they got stiffed this winter. Oneida Lake didn’t even see a skim of ice until the first week of January and it took until the middle of the month for it to grow thick enough to walk on. And while the fishing was hot for a few weeks, the weather quickly  turned against the ice with warm spells and heavy winds, weakening it to the point where most guys wouldn’t go on it. Those who did walked slow, carefully; and even then some went through and had to be rescued…In mid-February!

But an ice fishermen’s lament is an Oswego River bank angler’s song.  And last weekend there was a lot of silent singing going on up and down the river.

In Phoenix, guys fishing minnows on bottom in the canal below the locks landed bucket loads of yellow perch for their efforts. Ranging from 6 to 10 inches, the fish weren’t as big as their Oneida Lake kin, but the smiles they produced were every bit as bright.

Upriver, in the city of Oswego, the east bank coughed up mixed bags of rainbows, steelies and browns. Most were taken on lures worked slowly a couple feet below the surface.  Blue and silver spoons,  silver in-line spinners and minnow-imitating crankbaits like Challengers all produced.

The shallow rapids above the power plant proved disappointing to most who waded up there. Those in the know say there isn’t enough snow in the hills to generate the run-off needed to swell the river to levels needed to entice steelies into the pockets and plunge pools just below the dam.

However, the deeper rapids along the middle wall and in the Power Plant’s tailrace contain enough chromers to make a trip worthwhile. You gotta work for ‘em, but they’re there.

About the best way to fish the whitewater right now is from a motorized drift boat. You see, the only place to put in is at the launch below the east side of the Bridge Street bridge. Then you run the fast water to the middle wall. You could always row your way over, I guess, but you’ll be limiting your options to the east side and north end of the wall.

With a motorized drift boat, you’ll be able to run the deep rapids and fish at the end of the power company’s retaining wall, as well as some of the deeper pockets in the whitewater.

The Oswego is a massive river, Lake Ontario’s second largest tributary. If you’re unfamiliar with big rapids, please consider hiring a seasoned  professional to show you the ropes. Local legends, captains Andy Bliss (Chasin Tail Adventures, 315-591-4578; www.chasintailadventures.com) and Kevin Davis (315-342-4861; www.catchthedrift.com), are intimately familiar with this mighty stream, and can lead you to the pockets preferred by its largest visiting steelies.

Guys perchin' below the lock in Phoenix.

Jacks in the Ice

Eric Arbogast with some nice Oneida Lake walleyes.

Climate change is a funny thing. The experts claim the world is warming. Oneida Lake formed safe ice a week before Christmas – two weeks earlier than normal – indicating things are cooling down. It’s enough to make you question the weather forecasting business.

One thing’s for certain, however. Today, January 5, Oneida Lake is crowned in an ice cap that’s six inches thick.

Ice fishermen and snowmobilers are all over the place. Some spots are so crowded with ice shelters they look like ice-fishing villages. And the fish are cooperating.

Also known around these parts as jack perch, they’re huge; averaging a solid 10 inches.
A lot are even bigger, up to 13 inches. They’re hanging out in about 20 feet of water and they’re taking Swedish pimples tipped with buckeyes.

Rick Sorenson of Apps Landing Bait Shop claims guys are coming back regularly with 20 to 30 perch. And he should know, located right at the entrance to the DEC’s popular Cleveland Dock fishing access site (parking for 15 cars and close proximity to the magical 20-foot depths), and offering a complete selection of ice-fishing bait and tackle, he’s got anglers coming and going constantly, giving him play-by-play reports on all the action.

On the hard water, anglers are proving how accurate Sorenson is. One pair of guys on the ice out in front of the shop had so many; from a distance it looked like they were sitting on ice carpeted in perch.

Bob Twichell of Fayetteville had about 15 on the ice, five of ‘em 13-inchers. He was using an old technique: drawing fish to his bait with a decoy. He’d bait a line with a perch eye, let it down to the bottom, crank it up a couple of inches and rest the rod on the edge of the ice. Then he’d call fish in by violently jigging a Sonar in a hole a couple feet away.

Bob Twitchell landing another perch.

His buddy Kyle Storie, scored much better using contemporary tactics. He had a fish finder in his hole, and jigged a dot tipped with a buckeye.

Kyle Storie and his carpet of jack perch.

Twichell says, “Walleyes come through all the time. But they don’t hit well until 4 or 5 p.m., when it starts getting dark.”

An old wives’ tale says early ice is the best for ice-fishing; probably because the fish haven’t had their senses overwhelmed with motorized augers, snowmobiles, cleats, you name it.

So get out there, walk quietly and pack a lot of bait. The fish you catch will make your shivering worthwhile.

Andrew Allerton with a nice catch he took on a Swedish Pimple tipped with a buckeye.

Fishing at the Cleveland Dock

Set into the north shore of Oneida Lake, Cleveland, NY traces its roots back to the days of our country’s founding. By the first quarter of the 19th century, it had enough residents to support a general store and hotel. As the century rolled on, glass manufacturing, spurred by the discovery that the area’s sand was the finest around, caused a mini population boom. Its deep water port, dug out of Oneida Lake by the mouth of Black Creek, facilitated huge barges that carried finished glass products to the Erie and Oswego Canals and on to world markets.

Glass manufacturing is a distant memory now, but the docks are a local hot spot for everything the lake has to offer.

The fishing's easy at Cleveland Dock.

Dropping to about six feet deep right at the dock, fed by the cool waters of the creek on the north side, lined by weeds to the south, and straddled by concrete and rocks, the harbor is an ideal bass habitat. However, stuck all summer long by everyone from dock-side, leisure-time anglers in anti-gravity chairs to professional bass pros, these fish are savvy veterans.

Still, they gotta eat sometime, and you can nail ‘em on a free-swimming minnow, fat crayfish, or by presenting lures in new and unusual ways. For instance, I watched one guy nail a 15-inch smallie by twitching a floating stickbait on the surface. What was unusual about him using this popular low light technique is that he was doing it at high noon, out in open water.

Most who fish the dock are trying for panfish or bottom feeders. Yellow perch hang out in the open water, rock bass like the walls and rocks, and sunfish are plentiful along the weed edges. They hit the worms the majority is using, but I do just as good on a Berkley Atomic Teaser (a 1-inch tube jig/trailer combo) tipped with a Berkley Power Wiggler. In addition, my rig draws an occasional crappie and pickerel.

Walleyes move into the dock just about any time of the year, but especially in spring, when they run Black Creek to spawn, and fall, when cooling water temperatures draw them close to shore. They find the security of the deep water to their liking and stay all day long.

What’s more, this time of year the walleyes are drawn to the lake shallows on the south end of the fishing access site, within easy reach of surf anglers casting stickbaits.

Cleveland Dock offers some surprises, too. When I was there last week, I saw a sturgeon, my first in the wild. I was fishing in the shallow water on the north end and the thing come out of the deep. It moved sluggishly in two feet of water, staying in plain sight for a good two minutes. Unfortunately, all I had was my point-and-shoot camera and it doesn’t have a polarized lens so the fish didn’t appear in the photograph.

Get there by taking I-81 exit 32, and driving east on NY 49 for a little over 12 miles.

Panfish are plentiful.

My Abu Garcia fishing tackle resting on decaying structures from Cleveland's days as a thriving port.

Early June Yellow Perch and Walleyes

David Oulette unhooking a juicy Salmon River jack perch.

Brothers Dave and Stan Oulette invited me to go for perch in the Salmon River last Thursday.

Launching at Pine Grove, we headed downstream. Just past the bend in the river, we anchored 10 yards from shore, in 12 feet of water and cast upstream between the two islands.

Using a 2-inch YUM grub, I caught perch ranging from eight to 11 inches in each of my first 10 casts, and then it was every other throw after that.

The brothers kept pulling in perch in rapid succession on minnows. In less than two hours, we had enough to feed us and our families a couple times over; and that's after releasing the 20% that was less than eight inches.

"Spring perch fishing used to always be like this," claims David. "Then the cormorants did a number on them. The DEC's cormorant controls reduced the birds' numbers to the point perch populations are coming back."

Stanley says they'll be here as long as the water is relatively cold, for another week or two.

While we were getting the minnows, Karen Ashley, employee at the local bait shop on NY 3 in Port Ontario, told us she and a some family had good luck with walleyes ranging from 18 to 22 inches in Sandy Pond last week. As proof, she showed us the fillets.

"Troll worms on Stico Spinners in front of Carnsey's Wigwam restaurant," she advises.