Zero Temperature Fishing

By Jerry Adrian

You roll over in bed, grovel for the remote, turn on the TV, and hit the weather channel. The weather on the eights says that it is 13 degrees with a 20-mile per hour wind. You do the math and discover the wind chill is below zero.

You pull the covers up around your shoulders and think you are glad that with it being so cold out there is nothing you have to do today. Nothing except meet your fishing guide in 20 minutes and fish the Niagara River!

It was a few days before Christmas. However, this adventure started several years ago when, at one of the area’s sport shows, I listened to the guides and charter captains from the Niagara River region talk about fishing year-round. Being the average area angler who put his boat away months ago I was more than a little skeptical as to their claims.

Now years later, here we were on this cold December morning in Lewiston, New York. Lewiston had snow on mostly all the New England-style homes and shops looked something like a Currier and Ives print. Although only minutes from the tourist areas of Niagara Falls, Lewiston gives on the tranquil atmosphere that is associated with Vermont and Connecticut.

At the launch ramp we found ourselves standing in several inches of fresh snow, where we listened to pickup trucks spinning as they engaged their four wheel drives to get up the ramps after launching their boats.

We watched as our guide for the day, Frank Campbell (who is possibly one of the most filmed and written about guides on the Niagara) unloaded his Lund fishing boat into the icy waters. This day we would be fishing with Frank for steelhead, brown and lake trout.

Having had the opportunity to fish some of the southern lakes such as Dale Hollow I knew there they do fish year round, but it was still surprising to me that we were about to fish in New York just days before Christmas.

That morning (a weekday) there were about five or six other individuals or charter boats in the water with us as we started out fishing just off the launch ramp in front of the town of Lewiston.

Fishing was done by drifting downstream using a barrel type sinker with about five to six feet of line tied to it. This was accompanied with a size-six hook and, using egg sacks and shad-type minnows of fresh skean.

The method was to drop your line to the bottom of the river until you feel the sinker on the bottom and then lift the line so that the sinker just brushed the bottom as you drifted along. The key Frank pointed out was to have your line nearly straight down.

Watching the boats that day reminded me of a flock of turkeys as they go into a field to feed. One would go to one end of the field and the others would follow and then when that one moved to another location they would all follow again.

Early on that morning all the boats were doing about the same and catching the same, one or two steelhead per drift. They would then motor up the river and set up another run.

Because our guide had over 11 years experience on this river made him pretty much the leader of the pack that day. One or two fish per pass was “okay” according to Frank, but he wanted to try different spots on the river where we could increase the action.

We tried several different spots along and down the river with the same results, one to two steelhead per drift. We worked our way to the mouth of the Niagara across from Fort Gorge, where we caught another few steelhead and a couple lake trout. We were fishing where the river empties into Lake Ontario. Because of wind direction, at this point, Frank wanted to try a sandbar, which is two miles long and just a short distance out into Ontario. This was a spot where the bottom rises from 40 feet to about 20 and a place Frank felt we might find lake and brown trout.

Frank explained that on different days and different conditions the river and the lake will yield different quantities of fish. The more experienced guides will have an idea of places they want to try each day, depending on the conditions. “It’s time on the water,” Frank says, “that will give the captain the knowledge to find fish in various weather and river conditions.”

As we made our first drift from the deeper water to the more shallow water of the sandbar everyone got a hit and in short order we had a triple working.

This pattern continued each time we made the drift from the deeper water. At several times that day we were forced to play our fish out longer so that other fish could be netted. At that point, we were catching lake and brown trout in the 10- to 15-pound range.

Weather is always a factor when fishing. On this day, the winds out of the east increased the waves to come across the lake, causing us to cut short the time we would have liked to spend on that sandbar.

There was still the river and at this point Frank wanted to go to a section of the river known as the Devil’s Hole. This was near one of the power plants on the Niagara just up from Lewiston and a great place for some large steelhead.

A note for those who fish the Ohio River and Lake Erie near power plants: I know what you’re thinking and no, their discharge pipes do not discharge heated water.

To get to Devil’s Hole we were required to travel about seven miles up the river at about 30 miles an hour. That is when you find out what cold is all about. A wind chill of zero and then 30 miles an hour! One thing about fishing the river at that time of year is that you better have the right gear. Wind breaking clothing or a survival suit are a must if you intend to spend the day. Some captains have these suits available or can recommend what you need to wear.

Once in the Devil’s Hole we changed up to a Kwik Fish lure and did as Frank had said. We netted several large steelhead, which in the current of the river gives quite a fight.

It was now around two o’clock and time to call it a day: well for us anyway. We found that Frank had another charter that day with a man who fishes with Frank several times a year and is happy to get out for a few hours in the late afternoon.

What a great day of fishing. A large quantity of good-sized steelhead, lakers and browns. A time of the year when most fisherman are home watching fishing shows on the tube or reading about fishing in Ohio Valley Outdoors.

Our thanks to our guide, Frank Campbell 716-284-8546 and to the Niagara Region County Tourist Bureau 1-800-338-7890 for providing us a room at the Portage House motel.