"Maverick" Sportfishing -Captain Chris LoPresti - Lake Ontario Fishing Charters
585-749-2073 - chris@mavericksportfishing.com
Maverick Sportfishing On Facebook
Captain Chris LoPresti and 'Maverick'
"Take Your Kids Fishing Today! So You Don't Have To fish For Them Tomorrow!"
 

Ontario fishing springs to life
Spencerport family gets out on the lake even before trout and salmon derby starts

When Chris LoPresti was a little boy, he would wake up before his father, dress, load the family boat with gear, and hook up the trailer to the truck.

"If my father's light wasn't on in his room, I'd tap on his door," LoPresti remembers.

Gary Fallesen has been the outdoor writer for the Democrat and Chronicle since 1996. Before that, he covered Section V high school sports and Syracuse University basketball and football, and was one of the paper's sports columnists. He began his career at the Democrat and Chronicle as a clerk in the sports department in 1979. He is a native of Rochester and a graduate of Greece Arcadia High School and St. John Fisher College (1981).

"It's time to go fishing," he would say to his dad. "It's derby time."

The prospect of getting up and out on the water still excites LoPresti, who is 36 and has two children of his own now. His son, Christopher, won the youth division of the Lake Ontario Counties Spring Trout and Salmon Derby in 2002, when he was 9 years old. Christopher boated a 22-pound, 12-ounce salmon while fishing with his dad off the Niagara River.

"When he was 8, he caught a 34½-pounder," Chris says proudly.

The LoPresti boys — Christopher, Chris, and grandpa Mike, all of Spencerport — will fish in the LOC Derby when it is held May 5 to 14. But LoPresti will have been out several times before the tournament. He will take his son or he will take customers on his charter boat, Maverick, which fishes out of Oak Orchard, Orleans County.

LoPresti loves the arrival of spring. "The awakening of the fishing season," he calls it.

"The smell in the air. The breeze in your face. The rise of the sun when you're on the water," LoPresti says, waxing poetic. "The promise of fishing — today you had five and tomorrow you can have 25."


SHAWN DOWD
staff photographer

Chris LoPresti of Spencerport and son, Christopher, 13, string rods and reels at Lake Breeze Marina in Oak Orchard, Orleans County. Three generations of the family will fish in the LOC Derby.

LoPresti is one of those anglers who claims Lake Ontario is alive and well.

"The fishing is as good today or better than it was 10, 15 years ago," he says. "The quality of the fish is down as far as size, but the quantity of fish is still there."

Department of Environmental Conservation Region 8 director Sean Hanna supports this view. To some degree.

"It really does depend upon what you're looking to catch," Hanna says. "Lake and rainbow (trout) numbers are down, largely due to what's happening at the bottom of the food chain. The gobies and the zebra mussels have messed things up. For example, diporeia and smelt are gone — and some species, like the lake and rainbows, haven't adjusted yet.

"On the other hand, smallmouth bass populations are up over the last two years. The alewife population has rebounded a bit, and that's helped cohos and brownies. They're up. So are walleyes. And chinook salmon — I don't think you can skip a stone three times without hitting a nice chinook."

That's why Hanna says, overall, he is "pretty excited about this season."

What amazes LoPresti is the number of anglers who come from out of state — from New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio — to enjoy a resource that many Rochester-area sportsmen don't seem to take advantage of in their own back yard.

He blames what he calls the "don't-eat-the-fish" campaign. The New York state Department of Health advises that people eat no more than one meal (one-half pound) per week of fish taken from the state's fresh waters.

LoPresti argues that all the PCBs and other contaminants are found in the fat. He cuts that out when he is filleting his fish for consumption.

"People smoke cigarettes every day, drink beer, drink wine," he says. "They're doing as much harm by drinking beer and more harm by smoking than by eating a pound of fish."

Whether anglers eat what they catch or not, they still can enjoy fishing on one of the Great Lakes.

If you go
Lake Ontario is known for its Pacific salmon, lake trout, brown trout, rainbow trout/steelhead, walleye, black bass, northern pike and panfish. A fishing license is required if you are age 16 or older. For licensing information, go to www.dec.state.ny.us.

The Lake Ontario Counties Spring Trout and Salmon Derby begins May 5 and runs through May 14. There is a $10,000 grand prize for the largest salmon or trout caught in the derby, which includes five divisions (salmon, walleye, brown trout, lake trout, and rainbow/steelhead). Entry is $25 for ages 16 and older, $12 for ages 10 to 15. Call (585) 544-2563 or visit www.loc.org.

"This lake is thriving," LoPresti claims, refuting all of those who talk only of the good ol' days. "Everybody is entitled to their own opinion. Everybody fishes differently.

"All I know, in today's day and age with all the ecological changes, you can't take an old dog and teach it how to jump six feet in the air. Guys are crying and whining all the time. Those guys have an inability to adapt. You can't put your feet up on the wheel and drive through some bait and catch seven or eight adult fish."

In other words, what worked in the 1980s and '90s might not be successful today.

"In June last year, I caught the most salmon I've caught in 28 years of fishing," LoPresti says. "June is usually a tricky month."

He attributes his success to his ability to change.

"The water's gin clear (because of zebra mussels). It's rolling over at different times. Weather patterns change. The fish are different," he says, listing some simplistic things on the lake front. "You've got to be able to adjust to conditions."

LoPresti puts a great deal of effort into fishing because he is passionate about it.

He owns his own business, LoPresti Mechanical, but he still fishes on Lake Ontario 125 days of the year. Half of that would be charter business. But he and his father and son go out on their own, too, especially during the LOC Derby.

"I fish every weekend from the end of April through October," he says. "We fish all day. Sun up to sun down. It's fun."

It's also still worth getting excited about. Whether you're a young angler or a young angler at heart.

 
Chris LoPresti, Captain - Maverick Sportfishing - 585-749-2073 - chris@mavericksportfishing.com
Home Port: Oak Orchard Creek - Lake Breeze Marina
990 Point Breeze Road - Kent, NY 14477
Mailing Address: 1916 North Union Street, Spencerport, NY 14559