During the late fall and winter months in Central Western New York, also known as the Finger Lakes Region, some anglers hang up their gear to avoid frozen guides and fingers. Other anglers will take this time to bundle up and fish for landlocked Atlantic salmon, and big lake trout from the shoreline. Cayuga Lake, the largest of the Finger Lakes at 38-miles long, hasn’t frozen over completely since 1979 so the open water can yield some amazing year-round fishing. For Kurt Hoefig and Peter Zibinski, the cold and blustery weather couldn’t keep them off a laker bite. In this video Kurt and Pete get into a what can best be described as a “lake trout blitz”. Using Binsky blade baits, they hook fish after fish in the choppy conditions.

The Finger Lakes are the headwaters for many of Lake Ontario’s tributaries, and the On The Water crew are no strangers to lake trout in this region. Watch here as OTW’s Chris Megan targets lake trout in the spring on Lake Ontario, just north of Cayuga, during Season 12 of On The Water TV.