Fall run setup — and why this site exists

This is the first weekly report, so a quick word on what this is before we get to the fishing.

Every angler on this lake has the same morning routine — check the water temp, check the wind, check whether the tributaries came up overnight — and it means bouncing between four different federal websites, two of which look like they were built in 2003. The conditions dashboard on this site pulls all of it into one page: nearshore water temperature at Olcott, Rochester, Oswego and Cape Vincent, open-lake surface temp and wave height from the offshore buoy, the marine zone forecasts, and live flows on the Salmon, Oswego, Genesee, Black and Eighteenmile. It refreshes every three hours, it loads fast on a phone in a parking lot at 5 a.m., and it is free.

Live numbers always live on the dashboard, not in this post. What goes here each week is the read on top of them.

Where we are in the season

Early September is the hinge of the year on this lake. The staging period is on: mature kings that spent the summer out over deep water stack up off the tributary mouths, and the fishing moves from a long offshore run to a much shorter one. Mexico Bay and the Salmon River mouth, the Oswego River mouth, the Genesee, and the Niagara Bar all concentrate fish this time of year.

Three things worth watching this week:

• Nearshore temperature. Kings will hold out in the lake until the river water drops enough to pull them in. Watch the tributary temps as much as the lake temps — the gap between them is what moves fish.
• Flow. The Salmon River is dam-controlled, so it steps between scheduled release levels rather than following the rain. The step up is what pulls a fresh push out of the lake, and it is announced ahead of time. Everything else on the south shore is rain-driven.
• Wind. A hard west or northeast blow can swing nearshore temps 15°F in a day through upwelling. A reading from yesterday afternoon can be flatly wrong by dawn.

The derby

The LOC Fall Derby runs through September 7 — the last weekend is happening right now, with the awards at Riley's in North Rose. There is $140,150 in cash prizes across the 2026 LOC events. If you are on the water this weekend and not entered, that is a decision worth reconsidering.

Captains — a standing offer

The charter directory on this site is free and permanent for licensed captains fishing the New York side, with no commission and no lead fees. If you send a couple of lines when you get off the water, it goes in the next report with your name and your boat on it. Get listed here, or just reply to this email.

What's coming

Port-by-port pages, species pages, and a proper stocking-numbers section are all being filled in over the next few weeks. If there is a gauge, a port or a number you check every morning that is not on the dashboard yet, tell me and I will add it.

Fish safe out there. Check the marine forecast, not just this site.