Lake Ontario tribs steelhead/browns report

[Kyle Noonan]

Spent Saturday through Tuesday fishing Lake Ontario tribs for steelhead and lake-run browns accompanied by former TPFRer Matt Longley and another buddy from New York (like me and Matt, a Mainer-in-exile). On the first day, I caught a ~15" brown on the Salmon R. and my buddy caught a nice steelhead on South Sandy (photo attached). Both fish were released. Then, not a single additional fish was hooked, let alone landed, for the remainder of the trip--making it one of our slowest (though not THE slowest) fall steelhead trips to date. I suspect the very low water all fall (including while we were there), and the fact that they dropped the Salmon from 900 cfs to 335 between Saturday and Sunday, worked against us. It seems to have been a slow fall up there for everyone, including the spin fishermen, though we did see a few steelhead on stringers getting dragged out. Next time we'll need to do a better rain dance the week before we head up there. 

Our fish came on a crystal meth egg and a stonefly with an egg head (not sure what the pattern is called). I also ripped streamers to see if I could get an angry brown to take a swipe (along the lines of the one Thomas Perkins landed last month), but no dice. Weather was cold, but manageable--lows in the high 20s and highs in the upper 30s and low 40s. 

We'll be back in April. Looking forward to steelheading again when it gets dark later than 5pm.