Trolling for Lake Ontario’s stateside brown trout

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I’m down in Oswego, New York, today through to Wednesday, fishing with Outdoor Canada managing editor Bob Sexton, art director Sandra Cheung and Chris Gatley, northeast and Canada sales manager for Navionics Inc. The king salmon action has apparently been slow of late in this part of Lake Ontario, so the game this morning was trolling Moonshine spoons for brown trout. And thanks to Captains George Haskins and Nick Lee from Good Times Sportfishing, we got into them big time.

We headed out from Port Ontario just before 6 a.m. aboard the Good Times III, a well-equipped 30-foot SportCraft. We weren’t long at the fishing grounds about seven kilometres out into Mexico Bay when the guys got us on the fish and the first rod popped. Sandra had the honours, and she soon had her first-ever brown trout in the boat.

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I guess the excitement was a bit much for Sandra, because she was soon looking pretty green behind the gills, and after four hours we decided to pull the chute and get the poor woman back to terra firma (don’t worry, Sandra, we’ll get you a seasickness-fighting patch for tomorrow). Been there. Not fun.

As it was, we wouldn’t have been out much longer anyway, as we were just a few fish shy of a full box. The morning’s tally? Eight browns, the biggest of which was eight pounds. Bob’s going to flash one up on the BBQ tonight for dinner.

As I write this, I’m sitting on the couch in our rustic, comfortable two-bedroom cabin at K&G Lodge Fishing Resort, glancing occasionally at the screen on our small TV. CNN is covering the crashing market in the wake of America’s downgraded credit rating—the Dow ended the day down 634 points. There’s only one cure for that kind of news: more fishing.

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So tomorrow, the plan is to drop Shimano Butterfly jigs to the bottom in 60-plus feet of water. Yup, we’re going to jig for deepwater browns, a technique Chris has down to an art form. It should be a hoot.

Mission accomplished: Sandra and Captain Nick Lee with her first-ever brown trout
Mission accomplished: Sandra and Captain Nick Lee with her first-ever brown trout
Nice football! Bob Sexton and a typical Lake Ontario brown trout
Nice football! Bob Sexton and a typical Lake Ontario brown trout
Little piggy: My eight-pounder spat up a round goby
Little piggy: My eight-pounder spat up a round goby