Lake America fishing report

What changed this week

• The river cooled 16 degrees. It read 66°F on Friday evening and 50°F on both Tuesday and Wednesday mornings.
• The best water moved upriver. Last week the lower run fished best. This week it's the middle and upper.
• Steelhead are in every section, and browns are regular. Steelhead were in all ten postings from Saturday to Wednesday, and browns in six.
• The west-end piers are producing. Olcott, Oak Orchard and the Genesee all have kings and browns after cold-water upwellings pushed fish toward shore.
• Kings are moving up the lower Niagara. Charter boats are getting good hookup numbers in the Devil's Hole drift.
• The Altmar release is posted a week at a time. It's 185 cfs from 1 October, but the posting still ends at 11:59pm Thursday 8 October.
• The Oswego River is down to 1,130 cfs.
• The lower fly fishing section of the Salmon River is still closed, with no reopening date.

The river cooled, and the fish came on Sunday

On The Water's 1 October report had kings stacked in 15 to 30 feet off the Salmon River mouth and a big northwest wind due on Friday, and it expected a large push of fish into the river over the weekend. The Douglaston Salmon Run's logs show the river cooling hard over those days and then fishing well. We can't say the wind caused it, only that both happened.

Morning water temperatures: 57°F on Saturday, 54°F on Sunday, 56°F on Monday, then 50°F on Tuesday and again on Wednesday. Friday evening had read 66°F. The afternoons warm back up, to 62°F on Saturday, 58°F on Sunday, 62°F on Monday and 53°F on Tuesday and Wednesday. The river is cooling, but not in a straight line.

Sunday 4 October is when it turned. Both Sunday postings rated the upper sections excellent to good, with kings, cohos, browns and steelhead all in the counts. The middle went from moderate-to-good in the morning to good-to-excellent by evening, and the lower from moderate to good-to-excellent.

Monday held up. In the morning the upper rated good in its lower part and excellent in its middle part, with nobody fishing the top end. The middle rated good, and excellent through its middle part, with a brown in its lower part. By Monday evening the upper had eased to moderate-to-good.

Where the river stood on Wednesday

The newest posting, Wednesday 7 October in the evening, was the best of the week for the middle section: excellent all the way through, with kings, cohos, steelhead and browns. The upper rated excellent in its middle part and slow at either end. The water was 53°F at 5:15pm, 185 cfs came out of the dam, and Pineville read 216 cfs.

Wednesday morning was 50°F at 6:45am. The middle rated moderate, and good in its middle part, and a 27-inch Atlantic salmon came out of it.

The estuary changed too. It was the weakest water on the run from Saturday to Tuesday, rated slow or quiet in five postings and moderate in one. On Wednesday it rated good in both postings, with fish holding in it, while the water just upriver dropped to moderate and then low. One day isn't a pattern yet.

Steelhead and browns are in it now

Steelhead were in all ten postings from Saturday to Wednesday, and they showed up in every section. Last week they were mostly in the middle and lower. This week they were in the upper counts in eight of the ten postings.

Browns have gone from an odd fish to a regular one. They were in six of the ten postings: the upper on both Sunday postings, the middle and lower on Monday morning, the lower on Tuesday morning, and the middle on both Wednesday postings. Kings and cohos are still most of the fish, and both were in every posting.

Flows and the release schedule

• Salmon River at Pineville (USGS 04250200), 8 October: 224 cfs, gage height 5.33 ft. That's the highest reading of the last ten days, against a ten-day average of 217, so the river has crept up a little.
• Douglaston's Pineville readings ran 213 to 220 cfs across every posting, and the dam read 185 cfs on every one.
• The Altmar release is 185 cfs, posted from 6am on 1 October to 11:59pm on Thursday 8 October. As of Thursday morning, nothing was published after that.
• No fall whitewater releases are posted. The Lighthouse Hill schedule still ends with 5–6 September.

A release posted for a week is better than the one- and two-day windows of late September. It still runs out Thursday night, though, so anyone booking for next week is booking on a release that hasn't been published. Ask your guide. A guide who says they know for certain is ahead of what the dam operator has put in writing. The release line is 1-844-430-FLOW.

Oswego River at Lock 7 (USGS 04249000), 8 October at 2:45am: 1,130 cfs, gage height 2.40 ft. That's down from 1,220 cfs a week ago. The gauge page puts it at 41% of normal for the date, against 72% last week, which is a bigger swing than a 90 cfs drop explains. Either way, the Oswego is low and falling.

The lower fly zone is still closed

DEC's 14 September action stands. The lower fly fishing section, from the Route 52 bridge in Altmar to the hatchery, didn't open on 15 September. It stays closed until DEC has collected enough salmon eggs at the hatchery, and DEC hasn't published a reopening date. The usual 1 September step-up from 185 to 335 cfs is still on hold because the reservoir is low.

Still open: the 16 miles of river below the Route 52 bridge, and the upper fly fishing area above the hatchery. DEC's Central New York hotline says the same this week.

You'll still see "closed until Oct. 31" online. DEC hasn't said that. The date comes from earlier closures: a 2025 news story used it, and so did an older Oswego County notice that appears to be from 2020. DEC's 2026 notice gives no date.

The west end: the piers are producing

DEC's Lake Erie and Western New York hotline for 2 to 9 October says pier fishing has picked up after cold-water upwellings pushed fish toward shore. The Olcott, Oak Orchard and Genesee River piers are all producing kings, browns and the occasional lake trout, on large glow spoons, spinners and stickbaits. Last week DEC called pier catches limited.

Early trout and salmon runs have started in some tributaries, helped by Erie Canal releases. There are kings and browns at the Eighteenmile and Oak Orchard dams, and a few Atlantics at Oak Orchard. Johnson and Sandy Creeks are still thin. On the lake, mature kings are staging nearshore in less than 100 feet of water. DEC didn't give a thermocline depth this week, so go by the depth range.

The lower Niagara

Kings are moving up the lower river, and charter boats are getting good hookup numbers in the Devil's Hole drift. DEC names controlled drifts with three-way rigs and cured skein as the way to fish it. On The Water's 1 October report agrees: Frank Campbell in Lewiston reported double-digit hookups drifting egg skein on three-way rigs, with deep-diving stickbaits also taking fish. Capt. Kyle Kokanovich of Rust Belt Sportfishing went four for five on mature kings, bouncing skein along the bottom. The river was in the mid-50s after Lake Erie cooled and turned over.

From shore, kings are coming from the NYPA platform and from Devil's Hole and Whirlpool State Parks on spoons, spinners, stickbaits and skein in bright or glow colors. Mike Ziehm of Niagara Falls fishes No. 4 spinners in white and chartreuse for kings and walleye. Walleye and smallmouth are steady through the lower river. Crayfish are the best live bait for now, and shiners should take over as the water cools.

Above the falls, walleye are along Unity Island on swimbaits, blade baits and shiner rigs, best at dawn, dusk and after dark. Jeff Pippard of Niagara Outdoors reports very good smallmouth fishing on leeches and golden shiners.

If you keep walleye from the lower Niagara or nearby Lake Ontario waters, DEC still asks you to turn in otolith samples.

Olcott, Oak Orchard and the Genesee

Karen Evarts of The Boat Doctors and Tackle Barn says the Olcott piers are productive. The rocky beach at the foot of Jackson Street has been a hot spot for kings and browns on spoons, and northern pike are biting inside Olcott Harbor. On the piers, use J13 Rapalas or spoons in green or blue. Burt Dam has kings, browns and steelhead on egg sacs, beads, jigs and skein, and the best color changes from day to day.

At Oak Orchard, Orleans County sportfishing coordinator Ron Bierstine reports flows dropping slowly, slightly stained and fishable. Salmon and browns are coming from the dam area, with more anglers working downstream. Get in from the dam or the Park Ave Ext Fishing Trail. A few trollers are working J-plugs at the river mouth where kings stage, and some boats are running offshore for steelhead. He expects steelhead, cohos and Atlantics as the tributaries cool.

The Genesee River pier is on DEC's producing list this week, with kings, browns and the odd lake trout on the same glow spoons. Rochester is back in the report after we left it out last week.

Sodus Bay and the Wayne County shore

Chris Kenyon's update in On The Water says late-season king fishing out of Sodus is winding down. A few charters are still working 90 to 150 feet of water straight out from the bay, on Wonderbread spoons from Michigan Stinger. The Sodus Point pier is giving up browns and steelhead on Little Cleo and Acme Kastmaster spoons. The channel has a strong current, so wear a life vest.

Inside Sodus and Port Bays, there's so much baitfish that the fishing is hard. Try live minnows for perch at the north end of Sodus, between the islands. Maxwell Creek is dry and needs rain before browns can run it. The Erie Canal closes on 14 October, so bass, crappie and bluegill at Widewaters are a this-week trip.

The Oswego River

DEC's Central New York hotline has a new 2 to 9 October edition, but its figures are still from 21 September, so read it as last month's picture. Browns are coming mainly from below the dam, behind the hotel and along the wall, on jigs and blade baits in goby colors. Salmon are being caught at the dam, a few Atlantics have taken jigs and floats, and salmon are moving upriver slowly despite the low water.

Two practical notes from the hotline. You can't use Leto Island to reach the dam, so go in from the west (Brookfield) side. And some stretches of the river require a life jacket.

On The Water's 1 October report is more current. Plenty of fish have reached the dam and the flats, but the water in the channel is still slightly warm and numbers there haven't been great. Anglers who wade have been doing better.

The hotline's flow figure, 1,940 cfs on 21 September, is far above the 1,130 cfs the river read on Thursday morning.