Lake Erie and Lake Ontario are 2 completely different places. Erie is a VERY shallow lake with a small watershed on the tribs and filled with shale. Just not suitable for reproduction. I don't know if I believe the 50% but I would say there's more reproduction in Lake Ontario than you think.
I've fished Ontario 3 times and will spend 4 days there in a few weeks. For flies I love an orange bead head zonker in black. I bet that catches as many fish as all other flies some days up there. I'll also do streamers (wooly buggers, zonkers, leach flies, etc) in chartreuse, black, red, pink and white. Eggs I use estaz in about 10 colors where orange and red seem to fish best and glo bugs in a bunch of colors where an egg color with pink dot seems to out produce. I know guys love a black stone fly up there but I just don't catch many with them.
The thing up there is to bring TONS of flies and TONS of split shot. The fish tear you off and there's lots of snags. NY doesn't sell lead. Aluminum is not as heavy and more expensive so bring 3-4 packs of spit shot. You can literally go through 1-2 dozen flies in a day. It sucks when you only have half a dozen of something that's working and you run out.
I have fished the open water a few times but would rather spend the money on the DSR especially when I do 1 trip a season and am there for just a few days. It's costly but you get the freshest fish and hopefully not as big of a crowd.
I'm hoping Erie has a good year. It's been more than a few years since I've had good fishing up there. Water levels have been bad and the fish numbers have been down. Still looking for that Erie brown trout too.
