1000 Islands NY Fishing Report

[Gerry Zagorski]

Just got back on Sunday from a 4 day trip up to the 1000 Islands. For those of you not familiar with the area, it's 100 miles north of Syracuse on the Canadian border where Lake Ontario forms a delta that feeds into the St Lawrence River. The delta is dotted with over 1000 Islands and the water is crystal clear because of Zebra muscles. Easily 50 foot visibility.

Our group of 7 met up first thing Wednesday morning 5/23, loaded up the boats with all our provisions and ran over to the 100 year old home we rented on Grindstone Island that serves as our base of operations. Nice place with a big kitchen, old soft beds and a wrap around porch on the St Lawrence River with a view that is fitting of a post card.

Once we got settled in we split up on the boats and started fishing. Your are not allowed to fish for Smallies this time of year in the Great Lakes areas, but as many of you know, the St Lawrence is practically polluted with them and you can't avoid them while fishing for Pike.

Best trip we had for the 27 years we've been going up. The weather was perfect and the fishing was lights out every day. Pike, Smallies, a few Large Mouth and even a Gar all carefully released. Most fish caught on Panther Martin spinners, a few on Meps and in one of the back bays the guys had a blast one late afternoon throwing surface baits like Hula Poppers. I saw a Musky swim by that was the size of my leg

Ate, drank, fished and laughed too much. A great way to get away from it all and spend some quality time with great friends.