Yankee Troller

A team in Michigan used 30' leads behind a Dispey to win a tourney a few weeks back. They didnt feel they could achieve the depths with a Slide diver, so I was told. They would hand line in the fish (remember these fish typically are smaller) to the net. once the diver hit the tip of the rod. I use the longest lead I can get away with for netting purposes. The shorter your lead behind the diver the less whip your flasher will have.

Thats funny!

I'll be running a trip out of the Oak this Saturday, and I know they aren't in it. However, we will be derby fishing Sunday morning out of the Oak.

You can let all 4 out at the same time. Let the high wires go out on the clicker and he low wires out on a light drag. We've perfected this with the Pro-Ams trying to get rods in the water as fast as possible.

Yeah you need a fishing license

I fish there every week! The best times are from sun up to 7am and about an hour right before dark. The topwater bite is amazing if you are on the right areas. You'll know becasue you can see them. Other than that hit the weed edges flipping whatever bait you have confidence in and remember these are NY laregies so they get to about 4-6lbs. Dont come out here with a rainbow trout Huddelston and expect to take a 14lb fish. If you want Pike hit the weed edges with crankbaits! I tossed one around for bass this weekend and caught 5 pike back to back to back.

Man is that gonna suck! The same weekend 110 BASS Elitie pros will be pounding it! I wish I could be there but I have trips.

T_barb - I run my double wires a little different than other people. I buy the Dreamweaver medium sized Dipsey Diver rings. I take my low wire (the one closest to the rear of the boat) and set it on a .5. You cant take this wire with the big ring and set it any further past a 1 becasue that ring will really pull it to the side (and get it into the high wire). I take my high diver with a regular ring and set it on a 2 or a 2.5 setting. I keep at least 25' difference between the two and try to keep it more like 50'. SO, if I am running 4 wires I might put the starboard low out 250 and the starboard high out 300. The port low would be 275 and the port high would be 325. Staggering 4 wires like that really tells you the sweet spot, so you can dial in the other side. I can run this set-up in rough stuff and i have NEVER had them tangle and my ol' man makes some pretty scary turns!

LOL...OK going from left to right the players names are copper, high wire, low wire, and rigger. I like to keep all my wires and rigger rods low so when fighting a fish they are totally out of the way. Keeping the rigger rods close to the water like that also keeps the line closer to the boat so no fish can swim through them when its time to net. When a rigger rod is standing up there is more bow in the line.

Already started this a few weeks ago. It has accounted for the biggest fish to come aboard my boat so far this year.

Thought it was a cool pic Jax took while at the Sodus Pro-Am.

Shouldnt you be putting that on your new boat when you get one?

I understand the logic, but it worries me that a Salmon would think a baitfish can swim backwards, but know to bite when thunderstorms roll through.

SOB....now I have to buy some more colors! I didn't even know those two existed.

Nice job Mikey! You got pics?

OK......call me stupid, but look at that spoon! Now I have caught many fish on that the last few years. I just don't understand what a huge glow eye at the back of the spoon represents! Dont get me wrong....I have a few spoons like this. But does any form of bait fish in Lake O have an eye on the tail end of it?

I know Billy V was. I swear my connection is against everything they tell you not to do, and I don't use the special tape they sent. I get signal down to 150 without an issue. Not to mention my cable is chewed up and exposed in a few areas above the probe. This past weekend it started to come in and go out only to find out an hour later the low battery light went off. We switched the battery and it worked like a champ again. I'm lost! I should be in your boat, but im not.....

To the WHOLE group that is responsible for getting the Pro-Am tournaments to where they are today. Im talking the tournament comittee, the people who sit on the local tourist comittees, and the local businesses that pitch in to accomodate us (I mean we are a rowdy bunch of guys.....just look at Ray K). This thing is only going to get bigger and better! I thin the pre Pro/Am tournaments were a nice add to the whole weekend. The video taping that went on to promote this event may help also. This is a lot of work, so lets let them know we appreciate it!

7/18 - Friday Pre-Tournament - Well, we left the dock about 5:30am and headed out to practice for the Wayne County Pro-Am. We stopped in the short water around 50 foot to check out the screen. We saw bait and fish so we dropped our lines. It wasn't long before we had our first Brown Trout in the boat. A healthy lb brown that took an Orange Yeck Frog off a rigger. We would end up taking one more Brown Trout heading out to check the Salmon waters. We get out to 150fow and the Salmon rigs start firing. Mostly a SmartFish/A-TOM-MIK fly bite with white and green being the colors of choice. 400 and 600 coppers, wires, and riggers would all take fish. We pulled lines around 1pm with a good box. When we weighed our fish we had 3 fish for 57lbs. That totaled 87 points and was good for fourth in the pre tourney. Currently we are learning how to smile! 7/19 (Day 1 Sodus Pro/Am) - We passed up the Brown Trout water and headed right for the Salmon waters. We had no idea what we were in store for! It took us 15 minutes before we took our first shot, but it was a good one and we couldn't turn him on the wire dipsey. Eventually he won and we were back looking for our first fish. Next rod to fire was our 80 rigger with a Dreamweaver SS Glow Frog. This was our hottest rig the whole day and would take many fish. Our 400 fired with a Chrome Frog Spin Doctor pulling an A-TOM-MIK Packer fly. We dropped that screamer within the first minute of him striking. The 600 went with a Green SmartFish pulling an A-TOM-MIK Ultra green glow fly and we drop that screamer within the first few minutes. The wires were pulling Chrome E-Chip's with A-TOM-MIK Big Fin flies, or White SmartFish with A-TOM-MIK Ultra green glow flies. What a disappointing day as we ended it by going Brown Trout fishing to scrounge up a few quick keepers. We boxed 5 Salmon, lost 5 screamers, threw back 6 short Salmon, and went 1 for 2 on the Brown Trout. After everyone in the tourney weighed in we sat just out of the money. I can say we lost the leading box without a doubt, but as they say "That's why they call if Fishing and not Catching!" The leading boxes were all Brown Trout boxes. Not many people were targeting Kings this weekend. Our box for the day scored 107 points. 7/20 (Day 2 Sodus Pro/Am) - The decision to go right back out to the waters we had fished the prior two days was an easy one. When we sat down and dropped lines the screen looked good, but the fish had lock jaw! It wasn't long before the screen would disappear and we would be in search mode. We trolled around till 11am without a single strike! We traveled out to over 300' and the screen just never looked promising. Our team made the decision to hit up the Brown Trout waters, so we pulled lines and ran in. Finished setting rods and the corner downrigger fires and we have our first fish on. We stuck it out in there pulling in 4 Brown Trout. 3 of the 4 took a Stinger Penguin, and the other took a Stinger Gin and juice. Our score for the day was just under 70 points and we finished the tourney in 16th place out of 37 Pro teams.

Great idea Paul. We were just talking about how there arent many of these on the West end this weekend. There are 3 on the East end, which have turned out to be a great gig for the local businesses.

Well, we ended up taking 3rd in the pre-fish tourney. We had a 22, a 20, and a teenager. Our prefishing led us to believe there were some good fish in the area. The other top boats in the tourney were fishing in almost the same vicinity. I will give ya a quick update on our day without giving specific details until Sunday night. We boxed 5 Kings, lost 5 kings (keeper kings that took line), tossed back 6 under Kings, and when we went BT fishing we went 1 for 2. To sum it up we dropped the winning box today! The teams leading the Pro side went BT fishing.

OK Tom, I felt so bad about calling hyou guys names I let the kid use one of my riggers today to try for a laker. Guess what.............................................................................................................................................................................................................................THEY TANGLED WITH ANOTHER RIGGER AND COST US A BROWN TROUT AT THE END OF THE DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They need to make these SALMON tournaments and not Salmoin and Trout

Yeah, its been a Brown bite for the leaders. Candy boat is in 1st and i think top gun is up there too. We are in 12th and about 100 points out. Not much separates the top 10.

You need to learn how to deal with Jax. He tried to have me go in and fish for Lakers at the Oswego Pro Am. He got laughed at by the rest of the team. What joker fishes for Lakers? If there are kings around.......and there were b/c you caught some......why bother? Figure out how to change your program to keep the rods firing in the late morning-afternoon bite. He is such a queer when he talks about "your gonna need them one day on a charter." Yeah, well charter with me and if the kings dont bite I'll take ya out again for FREE! They need to eat sometime.

First off......I'm glad to hear everything worked out in your almost tragic matter. Secondly, there were no claps of thunder or any lightening during the tourney. I know it was predicted, but it never accumulated to anything.