Yankee Troller

Rod, I think you forgot to talk about an incident in your report! I will toss out a keyword below to help remind you. Keyword - Launch

We were 23 miles West of the Oak when it went from 1's to 6-8's with occasional 10's. Those damn people screwed up my Pro Am box!

Our team this week consisted of my bother and I, Rob Wescott of Legecy Sportfishing, and Jeremy Sage of JDs Custom Charters. Both of which fish from Sandy Creek. If you want to cash a check, or even win one of these tourneys, you need two consistent days. The teams fishing these tournaments are SO good that you can't slip up. This was the case for our team this weekend. Mother Nature threw us a curve ball on Day 1, and we paid the price for it. I'm not so sure I will ever like her! Friday 5/11 (Practice) - We headed East because my friend Bill Ruth was fishing down from Wilson. With one day of practice a good friend to help cover water is a must! So we ran down a few miles and setup in 80 foot of water heading East. It didn't take long and we were into fish. The first one being a 14lb King Salmon that took our Dreamweaver SS Glow Froggy slider on our 40 downrigger. I was like WOW, thats high! Well, that would be the last time that downrigger went. The rest of the day the leadcores took over with a bunch of different spoons. Dreamweaver SS Firecrackers, Stinger Wonderbreads, and Stinger Mix veggies were our hot spoons of the day. We would have never boxed our 12 in practice, but we never turned on any fish either. We ran a 5 and a 10 color off each Otter boat, 3 downriggers, and 2 wires just trying to cover the water column. Saturday 5/12 (Day 1) - As I was checking Lake Ontario Tweets Friday night I saw that my buddy Jeremy slayed the big guys off Olcott. After a few phone calls with him, and a NOAA marine forecast update we said it would be foolish of us not to make that 23+ mile run. Well, at the dock in the morning we had mixed reports on the weather. I saw SE turning to SW, but my buddy Rob on the Hideout boat saw ENE 10-20. Thats bad news for this end of the Lake! Well, our team looked at each other and agreed to stick to our game plan. So, down to the power plant we went. Once we got down there and started to set lines the temperature started to drop and that stiff NE wind started to blow. Within 30 minutes we were rockin' and rollin' in 6-8' waves! 23 miles from port might I add! We tried to troll into them knowing that going with them was not an option. Well, that didn't last long! After 10 or 15 waves over our bow we said this is stupid and we collectively made the decision to run back to port safely. 10 miles an hour all the way back and two hours later we were in front of the Oak. Might I add it was almost 10am, which left four hours to fish. As we set up our 8 rod spread the wind just died! I was thinking to myself "you have to be kidding me!" Once everything was in the water it didn't take long to hook up. The 5 color core with a Dreamweaver SS Firecracker goes off. I grab the rod and bring an 11lb Rainbow to the net. That fish would be our only fish on, and our only fish boxed for the rest of the day. Sunday 5/13 (Day 2) - Team decision on the dock this day was to run 10 miles West, set up, and troll NW until we figured something out. We stopped in 100', 175', 200', and finally 250' before we set lines. We popped a quick Rainbow, and then our program started to develop. We ran a pair of 5 color cores off the Otter boats, a 10 color down the chute, 3 downriggers, a wire, and a slide diver. That first fish took a Dreamweaver SS Firecracker off the 5 color core. Then the 45 rigger with a slider started to put out. Both spoons were Dreamweaver SS Da' Shiznits, and either the slider would go or the main line. It didn't matter. That was our hot spoon of the morning! We tried to find something similar to it for the other riggers and finally did with a Dreamweaver regular Green Eye Glow Ghost, which would take our 21lb King Salmon today. We boxed our 12 by 10:30, and headed in for some lunch. Another spoon that took a few shots was a Stinger NBK fished off a 120 wire diver, and also the Dreamweaver SS Firecracker o our 5 color. We finished with 3 Kings, 1 Coho, and 8 Rainbows for a total weight of 82 pounds. We were the first Pro team to box out, and one of only 5 Pro teams to box out on day 2. The fish wanted it on a strict NE troll into the slight chop. We had a line that was absolutely sick! Doubles and even a triple at one point. We would box our 12 toss back 2 shorts, and drop 5 fish. Some of the Rainbows we caught this weekend were real giants, and they were very acrobatic. We finished the tourney in 16th place, which wasn't bad considering our 1 fish day on Saturday. We also took claim to the Siggs Rigs Comeback award for the tourney. The West end is done, and it is time to head down East in a few weeks. When I fish sliding cheaters its mainly when I am fishing a Rainbow or Coho program. Usually with sliding cheaters you loose A LOT of fish. There is just too much slack in the line. However, those new Daiwa Saltist with the high speed retrieves have come in very handy when trying to catch up to these fish on the sliders. A few other boats running these reels have seen the same thing. I can honestly say that these new Daiwa Saltist are putting more fish in the boat!

Steve, nice to see you back buddy!

Dick call Jim Piano. His has the 4.3's and he has plenty of power. He really likes it too. Great tourney boat!

I think if it continues to wrap around there will be more points. However, I am not doctor deer, so I have no f'n clue!

Your killing me! I plan on getting mine in the woods end of July.

You have my support Tom. I was talking to Bob Cinelli today, and he asked that I pair you up with Sam Zucco, who is heading up the Rochester area opposition. Call or PM me and I can get you his information. At the Oak Orchard Pro Am captains meeting I will have a petition from the group in Rochester that is opposing the GLOW project. I will try to get it somewhere centralized, and I will also get it announced during the meeting.

I though Pices had the big fish of the tourney at 25. Must have mis-heard that. Was that fish the one you waved me off on? I knew I should have made a hard left! LOL Hows the Yankee look on video? Next time give me a heads up and I'll do my hair!

Thanks for the heads up Scott! See you there Rod!

Our team for this tournament consisted of my brother and I, Rob Wescott of Sandy Creek who runs Legacy Sportfishing, Jeremy Sage of Sandy Creek who runs JDs Custom Charters, and our uncle Eric Pappert. We had a great time! Fishing wasn't as good as it had been, but that is starting to become the theme of this tournament. Regardless of how good or bad the fishing was we still got to see a lot of our friends that we only get to see during tournament times. Friday June 4th (Practice) - We knew that the Niagara Bar had a load of Cohos on it the last two weeks, and my friend Bill Ruth, from Billy V Sportfishing, was heading down there to dial in that Coho program. With us knowing that information we skipped practicing those fish and searched for new water. We left the dock at 4:30am to try and capitalize on that early morning Salmon bite we had last Sunday. We set-up in 60' of water and the screen was OK. We fished out too 300 right smack dab in front of Wilson, and never moved a rod. Sort of disappointed we were off to look for new water. Throughout the day we would pick away at under sized Kings with the Dreamweaver Glow Green Alewife being their favorite spoon fished off our 45 rigger. We would also go on to boat a nice 7 pound Coho during the day, and lose a decent fish on the 5 color core. Not very productive, but we really thought we had a nice pod of fish on the Niagara bar since we were told the screen looked good. Our best screen on our Hummingbird 1157 was 7 miles West of Wilson in about 300-400 foot of water. At one point in the day we took two short guys on one rod. It was pretty cool! Check out the picture. Saturday June 5th (Day 1) - We headed for the Niagara Bar in a nice 2-3' chop from the West. Took us a little bit to get there, but when we did the screen looked very decent. We set rods, and the wait began. We would have great screens and blank screens on the bar at various times. We went through what seemed like 3 or 4 programs and changed out more lure colors than I thought we had. Spoons, flys, and Coho rigs. Nothing worked, and the only keeper fish we had hooked up with was still swimming. So at 11am we made the decision to troll to our waypoints from our practice day. On the way we picked at a few small fish, and one even touched 18", but we didn't want to bring in a small fish and tossed him back so he could grow up. Uncle Eric wasn't feeling well all day. He had just got into town from Mexico at midnight and drove down to the boat that same night. So, we didn't mind that he slept most of the day. It wasn't like we were killing them. He did wake up at one point and we asked him, "what would you throw down?" He mumbled "plain silver 5' behind the ball down 60'!" OK, so down that rig went. 10 minutes later and I hear "FISH ON!" Guess what? That rig Uncle Eric choose fired! We could tell it was a nice fish and we played it with caution. When it hit the deck a lot of pressure was lifted from our shoulders. The skunk was out of the boat! He weighed 23 pounds and looked very healthy. We boxed him and fished for the next 45 minutes trying to put something else in the cooler with him. However, we were not successful at doing so. We headed in and the word from everyone was that the bite was a tough one. Most teams had 3 or 4 fish, and only one Pro team boxed their 12 fish. Sunday June 6th (Day 2) - BLOWN OFF! Yup, thats right! Out of 6 possible tournament days this year we have been able to fish 2 of them. Mother nature has not been nice in 2010. We finished the tourney 35th out of 49 teams. Wish we could have hit the water because the screen we had out there at the end of the day seemed to be very promising. Maybe we could have jumped up a few places. Anyway, see everyone this week at the Oak.

It wasn't easy out there guys! EVERYONE struggled. Like you said above its all about the great time we have during these events. Sorry I wasn't at the captains meeting (stupid wedding) (not mine). I'm sure I will see you this weekend if your going to be there.

Nice report....how big was that bow?

SW - we were off the water by 8:30/9am and headed to breakfast with the Billy V family by 10am. Saw Pacific run past us.

Mountain Man is right in Kendall. I just got our 32lb King from Labor day and he does a nice job. Streeter in Wayne does nice work also. Paul Czarnicki who participates on this website does fantastic work. He operates Tri-State taxidermy.

We can't thank you guys enough for the hard work you do protecting our country! I hope everyone had a great day.

GO to the tackle description forum. Billy V posted a picture of it there.

Did it end up being food or are you guys mounting that? That's a great Atlantic!

5/29 - Well, today was embarrassing. I woke up to my customer standing behind my boat wondering where I was. I thought they were coming on Sunday, but he booked Saturday. It was all good as my brother and I rushed to get the boat together, and ready for this charter. I knew the Cohos were all over he Niagara Bar, so we broke the pier-heads at 5am and rolled down to the bar. We were one of the first boats there and the bite was fast and furious for the first hour. We boxed 3 in the first hour and then we went flat. The Cohos would come in spurts of 2-4 fish at a time and we would end the day with a nice box of Cohos for John and his family. Our program today consisted of a few short short cores off our otter boats, short wires and slide divers, and three downriggers. Hot set-ups for today were A-TOM-MIK Coho flies in the Ludington and Blue/Green color schemes behind Dreamweaver mini spinnies. Also, a Dreamweaver Get-r-done was taking shots as a slider on our 45 rigger. 5/30 - It was just me and my brother today. We had heard that there were some Kings around, but the bite was very early. So, I woke up at 4:30, and we were leaving the pier-heads a little before 5. We went straight out and set up in 70 feet of water. Screen wasn't great, but we started to set lines. It didn't take long at our 400 copper started to freakin' scream! I handed the rod off to my brother and he began his battle with this fish that would last for a good 25 minutes. As it got close to the net I could tell it was a nice fish, but I had no idea how nice it really was until it hit the deck of the boat. Immediately we put it on the scale and it settled at 29.0 pounds. My brother said he wanted that silver Spring King on his wall so we ran in and put it on ice. We ran back out to the same area and set lines once again, and we began a slow pick for the next hour and a half. We would boat another King around 14 pounds, and two other Kings in the 5 pound range. At 8:30 we called it quits and went in for some breakfast. The big guy took a Smart Fish wonder dot towing an A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist, two of the remaining three fish took a wonder dot Smart Fish towing an A-TOM-MIK shredded Hammer, and the last one took a Northern King THAT spoon. All in all it was a great morning and a good weekend at the Wilson Boat House marina. When we dropped the fish off at Mountain Man Taxidermy he measured it at 40" from the nose to the bottom of the 'V' in the tail. The girth measures out at 25". I can't wait till August and September are here so we can fish for true 40 pound Kings in Lake Ontario.

That's been the program for the last week Dick! Sucks, but right now it's the best we have. I'm going looking for some sharks on Monday.

Definitely Captains Cove! I bought some there too last season.

Great job! Nice to see some fish showing up around the ROC.

Musky....no way that ride in your link has only 600 hours on it.

When we run a mag dipsey it goes no higher than a 1 setting and most of the time a .5 setting. Those mag rings really pull those divers to the sides. More than you know! I'm betting that's definitely your problem. However on the Yankee we let the Coppers out last. down the chute then attach it to the board and slide it down. If your using walleye boards they may not be pulling to the side enough, and on turns you are laying your copper right on top of your wires divers.

That's funny!