Smelt Fest 2026: Fishing opportunities growing, thanks to work of local anglers

By Joshua Maloni

GM/Managing Editor

Smelt Festival is a time to celebrate local fishing – and there are more opportunities these days thanks to the efforts of local anglers and charter captains.

“What we have here in the Niagara Region is pretty unique – and a lot of people don't know this: It's not just a spring, summer, maybe even early fall fishery. It's a 12-month fishery,” said Joe Srouji, a U.S. Coast Guard licensed master captain. “January, February, March, there are still opportunities – and I mean good opportunities – to fish. The only thing that we can't control is weather.”

Despite Western New York’s unpredictable and often cold weather, “We always have open water, for the most part,” Srouji said. While the past two winters posed a challenge, “On a typical year, we have open water. We'll have some ice chunks that float around. We pretty much just drive slow and drive around them. But the water is usually there for you.”

He said, “We get people from all over that will come down here and fish the winter just to catch steelhead. That takes you into end of December, January, February. Once you start getting into early, mid-March, even into the end of March, that's when weather stability becomes a little uneasy, but the fishing is still good. Brown trout are there, steelhead are there.”

In April, “We have trout fishing. … Then our salmon show up, which is what I'm doing now. We'll stay on and shore salmon throughout the spring, probably into about the second or third week of May before they push offshore, but they're still touchable. You're booking offshore boats to do that. And then it takes us into late-spring, early summer. There's your bass; there's your walleye. We'll do that straight through until September. We don't put that away. But end of September, our fall salmon run starts, which is our matures, our spawners. They'll show up. They'll be here for a while. Then lake trout come in, then browns come in again, and then steelhead come in again. And before you know, it's December again.

“So, it's 100% a year-round fishery.”

Local anglers and charter captains maintain a “pen project” in Youngstown, located just past the yacht club headed toward the Old Fort Niagara side of the village.

“What you're going to see down there is 100% volunteer work from myself and about a dozen, dozen and a half other captains,” Srouji said. “We work directly with New York State DEC, and Fish and Wildlife, and what we're doing to preserve the fishery with salmon and trout – because salmon and trout are an imprint type of fish – where they pretty much grow is where they'll return to spawn. Theoretically. Hopefully. You lose some to other schools and things like that. But what we're trying to do is we're trying to print them on our river.

“As it sits right now, we have somewhere between 160,000 and 180,000 fish sitting in pens as we speak.” Just a few weeks ago, “Myself, a bunch of other captains, we met up down at those docks, and we built those pens.

“What we have is three submersible tanks, and then we also have an enclosed netting enclosure. Those submersibles, right now, are holding tens of thousands of brown trout, steelhead and salmon, and then the open netting is holding about 80,000 or 90,000 salmon.”

“We don't get paid for it; that is 100% volunteer time,” Srouji said. “As a matter of fact, a local gentleman, by the name of Mike Fox, he brings heavy equipment down to lift these submersible pens off the ground and lower them into the river. And we prep everything with automatic feeders. There's guides that go down there every morning, make sure the fish are OK, sometimes to go hand-throw food in there. And we'll raise them for about five to seven weeks, and then we'll release them as the water gets warm. We do this every year.

“Now, once we release them, we all meet up there again, and we tear the pens down. We lift them out of the water, we clean them, power-wash them, put them away for the following year. We do this every single year.

“At the Smelt Fest last year and the year prior, myself and some of the other guys were there selling raffle tickets. Those raffle tickets are going in to help fund the pen project, because each tributary has one. Niagara River has its own project. Olcott Harbor has their own. And then down the east, the further you go east, you find more.

“But that right there, people don't know that we're donating our time to do it. That is 100% donated. Rain or shine, we're there – and we're going to continue doing it every year.”

Srouji credited the older captains as bringing the pen project to fruition, noting he’s just one volunteer.

He said, “What we have sitting in the pens right now could be 4 to 7 inches. They're little babies. So, we protect them as much as we can from birds of prey like cormorants. That's where the submersibles come in. We feed them, we make sure their water is aerated so that, when we release them, mortality rates hopefully come way down.”

Srouji said, “People can't just come down and fish if we didn't do what we did. Eventually it would be bare. There would be nothing left.”

A Lewiston native with some 30 years of experience on the water, Srouji operates Angler's Edge Outdoors. He drives a Lund Pro-V Limited, which is described on his website as “a high-performance fishing boat perfect for the Niagara River. Its sleek design, stability, and advanced features ensure smooth rides and an unforgettable fishing experience. With ample storage and comfort, it’s the ultimate choice for charter captains and professional anglers.”

Angler’s Edge Outdoors offers Lake Erie and Lake Ontario fishing charters for anglers of all skill levels, operating from locations including Lewiston, Youngstown, Niagara Falls and Buffalo. For more information or to book a tour, call 716-791-1085.