A-baum

Sorry about the mispost... Definitely was not a salmon. I've seen chinooks and coho out west. Any chance carp look blue under water? We saw 4-5 of them total. And a brown bullhead in about 2' of water which was weird. I hope your trip goes better than ours. Nobody we talked to, including a dozen other anglers, guys at bait shops, the lady at the marina....nobody knows where the smallies are. We watched boat after boat drift where they should be and nobody caught one that we saw. I even dropped a big jig down to 80' for walleye. Nothing. We landed one stud smallie in 6 days of hard fishing. My buddy's son hooked a goby while perch fishing and as a joke I told him to toss it in. Well he did and we drifted over a nice drop and a 5lb, 19" smallie nailed it. I threw everything I have that looks like a goby and nothing. we also got one 3lb LMB in a cove just before dusk. Was really tough to find any consistency with anything but perch which are more than plentiful.

So due to the water clarity, we've seen a few of the same fish we can't ID. They are usually in 6-12ft or water, look blueish and have white tips on their fins. They appear to be larger fish, maybe pushing 8-10lbs. They are cruising the bottom and not too spooked by our boat. They look wider and flatter than a bass or pike. Maybe blue catfish? Anyone know?

Wasn't a heck of a lot better today. We did find a pile of jumbo perch upstream of a small island. Had to be 20 of them. We also got into 2 pike pulled out of about 25-35ft of water. One LMB in a back bay in the weeds at dusk. Still no sign of smallies. Talked to several others here who fished hard and nobody got any. I have to think they just aren't here? We fished from 60ft all the way to 15-20ft. Steep drop offs, not so deep drop offs. Drifted. Also fished at anchor. Found some nice shoals to fish. Fished the edges of the channel. Nothing. No nibbles. It's truly bizarre. You'd think after 3 days of hitting them we'd stumble into something. Looks like several of the top BASS guys from the tournament went right into Ontario to get their bass.

Awesome. Thanks for clarifying.

Apologies for the ignorance....but what are "green fish"?

Would that also affect the perch and pike? Just seems like nothing is biting anywhere. Chippewa isn't far upriver from waddington and my guess is folks fished these drop offs hard. Maybe we will try and fish some spots that wouldn't necessarily be attractive to the tournament guys. Small drop offs around little islands further from the channel?

Hey folks, wondering if anyone has fished the St. Lawrence river lately or know anyone who has. Fished it hard the last 2 days out of Chippewa Bay and we are struggling. We are here for 3 more full days and hoping to dial something in. We've mostly fished the shoals and drop offs anywhere from 10 to 60ft. Thrown drop shots mostly in natural/goby colors, thrown some tubes in similar colors. Dropped and drifted live worms and shiners. Thrown some crayfish patterns. Threw some spoons for pike. So far we have 2 smallies under 12", a handful of perch and a bunch of annoying gobys. Using fluoride almost exclusively. At the very least we wanted a perch fish fry which is usually automatic up here. Anyone experiencing something similar? Just feels "off". Fish aren't where they should be. Very few bites. Thrown the kitchen sink and coming up mostly empty. Would appreciate any tips or tricks.