Yankee Troller

I haven't been posting much from the Oak the last few weekends. The fishing has been tough most of August. The Salmon on the inside have lock jaw, the fish offshore are small for the most part, and the Brown Trout are hit or miss. Afternoons seem to be more productive than mornings. Below is a quick run down of the last two weeks for us, and some fish P**N. 8/19 - Went offshore in the morning. Picked a few fish mostly small, but we did grab a 27lb Salmon out there on the 34N line. 8/19 - Went offshore for our afternoon trip. Slow pick but everyone on the boat handled a fish or two. We grabbed a 25lb Salmon out there that really made the trip. 8/20 - Slow morning for us. We went 2/4 on the inside looking for 3 KOTO fish. Familiar Bite took both fish. 8/20 - On the afternoon trip we went off shore. 14 bites in 3 hours and then we had a wicked storm come off land. We had to chug into the worst storm I've ever been through for 12 miles. 8/21 - We waited for some storms to blow through. We knew it was gonna blow up, so we stayed inside and picked on the BT. Best spoon was a Stinger Frost Bite. 8/27 - Tough morning. We hit one mature inside, and went 4/7 offshore. 8/27 - Stayed inside and picked on the BT for our afternoon trip. We got on the BT pretty good. 2 triples! Biggest was 14lbs that hit a Lyman plug on a 200' A-TOM-MIK copper. We actually hit a triple on BT with an A-TOM-MIK fly, a Stinger, and a Lyman. 8/28 - Slow morning. 1 mature and 2 BT landed. A few missed shots. We stayed inside the whole morning hoping the Salmon or BT fired up, but they never did.

There is so much more to it than diver size. It also comes down to brand of wire, brand of diver, currents, and thermoclines. A standard LJ diver "typically" will go deeper than what you posted at that distance, but I haven't had a standard LJ diver hit 100' yet on a 2 setting. Love my Smart Troll!

Fish below 200' are harder to catch than fish above 200' in my experience. What kind of weight were you using? No way you were down 290' even with a 20lb shark.

Sometimes it's just the way it goes. If you're running F/F set-ups tighten them drags down a little on the dipseys for the initial strike.

FishUSA is now carrying them

Thanks for the referral bud. The kids were a lot of fun!

Seems like they work better when a new slug of fish come in. Doesn't hurt to put one out there though!

We're not GREAT brown trout fisherman, but we do around the same speed no matter what we chase. On our Moor Subtroll we keep it between 1.8 and 2.1. On our Smart Troll that's 2.5-2.9.

The bottom 10-15' was 58-65 degrees.

We use regular ol' LJ divers. It's the wire we use that gets us a much better dive curve proved with a Smart Troll. American Fishing Wire 30lb Camo 7 strand is a tick larger than Malin 20lb. You just need to be real careful with it not to ever let it get loose on you. It will pig tail after you start using it and letting it loose may cause kinks.

Quick report! Rough couple of days this weekend! Saturday - Made the decision to stay inside and fish BT given horrible offshore reports. Fished 70-80' of water from Troutsburg to the pump house that's West of Sandy. Cleaned 8 BT, lost 5, and tossed back 4 small ones. Early on Stinger Sea Sick Waddlers were going on our Cannon downriggers, and Frost Bites were going on our wires. After the sun came up we took fish on FishUSA DW Martel SS's. Sunday - Canceled the morning due to weather, so on our afternoon trip we ran out to the 30N line and fished NW out to the 33N. 33N line was loaded with fish and bait. Mostly smaller Salmon and steelbow. Moonshine Shelly snacks and Carbon 14s were going on our Cannon downriggers 55-80'. Familiar Bite went a few times down 100-120' as well. DW 72 Monty went on our divers out 175'.

If you can make them stronger than the BJ's that'd be great. Broke way too many of them in the past where the tow rope goes.