USA TODAY International Edition
N. Y.’ s Niagara River a sport fishing treasure
LEWISTON, N. Y. By mid- morning, a rising northeast wind had combined with the 40- degree temperature to add a razor’s edge nick to the pelting rain. Brian McCarthy snugged up his raincoat, checked his bait and made another cast.
We’d landed and released a few football- size smallmouth bass from the Niagara River and missed the hookset on a couple more. But overall, fishing had been slow, almost certainly a byproduct of the challenging and unstable weather conditions.
Then the line moved. A bulldogged fight brought an arm’s length lake trout to hand.
“How big, you think?” McCarthy asked.
Joe Marra eyed the silvery and gray tinted fish. “About 9 pounds. Maybe 10.” We had been fishing the rocky riverbed on the stretch of the Niagara River known as Devil’s Hole. The area is about six miles below Niagara Falls and immediately upstream from the imposing Robert Moses Niagara Hydroelectric Power Station.
Marra decided to change tactics. He exchanged the bait rods for long- lined, deep- running crank bait rigs. Two drifts. Two steelhead, the largest about 15 pounds.
“That’s more like it,” Marra said. THE MIGHTY NIAGARA The Niagara River flows northward from Lake Erie for about 30 miles before emptying into Lake Ontario.
It’s a powerful, productive and historic slice of water that forms the border between western New York and Ontario, Canada, and, of course, is primarily defined by the famous waterfall that bear its name.
But the river, along with the two Great Lakes that feed and receive it, form one of the most diverse and productive sport fisheries found anywhere.
Marra has been fishing these waters all his life, as has Frank Campbell, who owns and operates Niagara Region Charter Service and for whom Marra occasionally guides. Both men view the river above and below the falls as separate fisheries, equally productive but markedly different.
“In the lower river and ( Lake) Ontario it’s predominately steelhead, brown trout and lake trout,” Campbell said. “Also salmon. And we do have some of the warm- wa- ter species; smallmouth bass, muskellunge, walleye and a few others.”
For anglers plying the upper Niagara and Lake Erie, the predominant sport fish are smallmouth bass, walleye and muskellunge. It’s a combination that provides year- round action.
“We fish for cold- water species basically from November to the end of May and warm- water species from May to November or December,” Campbell said. “I’m kind of spoiled in that I can pick and choose what I want to fish for.” WONDERS OF DEVIL’S HOLE Devil’s Hole is a stretch of the Niagara that’s difficult to reach and a challenge to fish. But it can, depending on the season, serve up a smorgasbord of North American sportfish, a lineup that includes all the aforementioned species and, rarely, sturgeon. Doubledigit weight fish are common.
At the cusp of the towering bluff is Devil’s Hole State Park, which includes a stairway that leads to the river’s edge, an access route for shore- bound anglers.
But it’s what you can’t see, according to Marra, that attracts the fish. This stretch of the riverbed is strewn with Ice Age- era boulders. It’s exactly the type of cover that attracts big, strong, brawny sport fish. It’s also a barrier to most boaters.
Fishing is often phenomenal, but boating conditions are tricky and occasionally treacherous. At the risk of sounding self- serving, Campbell strongly advises inexperienced boaters against plying these waters.
“A guide is the shortcut. Not only to catching fish. But staying safe and learning the waters,” he said. CATCHING LOCAL HISTORY The next morning, we headed downriver and fished the fringe of Lake Ontario, just off the point where Fort Niagara still stands guard.
The fort, which was established by the French in 1726 to stake a foothold in what was then the Iroquois Confederacy, later flew under British and American flags.
“Lewiston is a beautiful little town,” Campbell said after releasing the first of about two dozen smallmouth bass and one 20pound lake trout. “There is a lot of history in the area. The War of 1812. The Underground Railroad. And there’s also a lot of natural beauty. Hiking. Biking. Birding.
“And, of course, Niagara Falls.”