2021 Lake Ontario fishing report and review along with insights for this year will be discussed in this article/post. The brunt of this this information is derived from our Lake Ontario fishing charters during this period. Most if not all of the insights included are from imperical evidence. There is also some from conjecture!
Early Season Brown Trout Fishing
If you wanted big brown trout in Lake Ontario out of Oswego,NY, 2021 during the month of June was the time and place to do so!! Although limit catches of browns were tough to come by at times, the size of the browns being caught more than made up for it! It was quality not quantity all the way. The lack of two year old browns in the boxes stuck out like sore thumb. It’s my belief based upon obervation as well as conversations with those in the know, that improper stocking during the 2020 season was the cause for the lack of two year old browns. Due to covid, the stocked browns of 2020 were dumped at the river and creek mouths instead of out in the Lake. Cormorants did an awful number on these fish eating and killing a tremendous amount of them.
Enter The Steelhead
When clients wished to fish for other than browns, kings and steelhead were the targets. Thank goodness for the steelhead this past season. During late June into july, steelies as well as kings were around to catch. Big steelheads, too! Our best steely measured 36.25 inches and weighed over 12lbs. It was long and lean. Our heaviest steelhead tipped the scales at 16 lbs. Nice fish for sure! There were two and three year old kings around as well, rounding out the catches!
Ever Changing Winds
The winds in Oswego this year made it anything but easy to fish. As most of you know, “west is best and east is least”! From June through the first week of September, we had a total of four west blows! As one would expect, the fishing was good to excellent after the wind let up. The problem was, within a day or two, a northeast blow would follow undoing any of the benefits of the previous west winds. To add insult to injury, south or east winds would subsequently follow screwing up the temperatures even more. This created some of the most challenging Lake Ontario fishing I can remember in the past 25 years!!
Different Species Save The Day
Earlier we mentioned the steelhead picking up the June slack. As we moved later into July and August, Coho salmon appeared in good numbers not typical for this time of the year. We usually don’t see these quantities of cohos until much later in August. The good thing is these fish were in very healthy condition and very formidable in size. Our biggesst this year was 17lbs! Most other of the cohos we caught were in the 12 to 14lb range and bright silver. Nice fish for sure!
As you can see the 2021 Lake Ontario fishing report and review sheds some light on the multi species available during any given season. What’s nice for us as charters, and you as clients or recreational fisherman, Lake Ontario out of Oswego,NY has the diversity to most often offer different fish to angle for. Also, the size and quality of these different species is at times, nothing short of amazing. Truly, a world class fishery!
If you have any questions , feel free to contact us at 413-346-7675 or via our contact form with any of the questions you may have . We will be happy to answer them. If you would like to book a trip please call 413-346-7675 or feel free to use our contact form as well!