Finders Keepers

Hey Chris, Great question! We'd love to open it up to everyone, however just like for mid-west tornadoes, we have to make ensure the reports are legit and from a reliable source. Not to say some of the general fishing population wouldn't be making legit reports, but when opened up to everyone the number of false reports sky-rockets. It was also specifically stated by both the NWS and the research group that the reports need to come from reliable sources. In this case that would be meteorological personnel and charter captains.

If any of the charter captains would like to be a part of the network of captains reporting waterspouts to the Wayne County Storm Trackers group (and relayed to the International Centre for Waterspout Research and national Weatehr Service), please drop me a PM and I will forward to you the contact information for our director Jack Matthys. Here is a link for the Wayne County Storm Trackers: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Storm- ... 8011776436 and for the International Centre for Waterspout Research: http://www.icwr.ca/ With your help of verifying and reporting the occurrence of waterspouts, they will be able to refine and develop their model to better forecast and predict waterspout formation, and ultimately making it safer for everyone with boating interests on the lake.

Thanks Wayne! No worries on the washdown, it felt good in the heat!

Well, there's nothing like ending the season with a banner day!! My brother and I went out of Sodus today looking for that 40 pounder, and in that respect came up short. But, we did manage to have a blast! Hit the water at 4:30 and headed a bit west starting over 100 fow in front of Maxwell Creek. The screen was LOADED from 90 to the bottom, so we set our spread of boards/flies on the wires and spoons on the riggers between 85 and 95 ft to start. Things started quiet and while the FF was indicating multiple hooks after multiple hooks on the screen, we couldn't get any to go. However, as soon as the sun broke above the horizon, the rods started to pop! We worked a stretch about a half-mile eirther side of Boulder Pt from 100-130 fow and found one particular honey hole that gave us a double heading west, swung back through heading east and picked up another, headed back west and tripled up, headed back east and picked up another, then on our next treck west we did a quad!! Hits were coming on seasick waddler mags, NK Raspberry Mags, and Yo Momma's Face Mag spoons on the riggers set at 108 and 98 ft, wires at 295 and 495 pulling white/purple spin docs with UV Blue flies, and black/green dots spin doc with green teaser head. Sometime around 9:30 or so we landed a beauty of a brown that tipped our scales to 15 lbs, but we were smoking the fish so good we put it in the box and continued to fish. We ended the day at 2pm with our 31st hit of the day landing a nice 18 lb king. Our total count for the day was 26 for 31. Pics of the 15.4 lb brown (currently 10th in the LOC) and video to come when I get a chance to download them! Good luck to everyone heading out tomorrow for the last day of the LOC!! Let's see that 40 lb'er hit the scales!!

Those are some quality catches there!! Nice job!!

Thanks! Our scale on the boat read 32 lbs, so that's why we pulled lines. At the time that would have put us top 5, now around 11th. We checked our scale earlier this season and was dead-on, maybe it needs to be checked again...

If the ladies are going to show up a bit later, the question is: where are they now? Out in the deep water? We have marked a ton of large marks out deep down 250-500 ft, has anyone had any success targeting those super deep kings?

We decided to focus on the Oswego area for the Fair Haven Challenge this year unless another port looked to be more promising. So pre-fishing we found quite a few fish in tight (90-140 fow), but the traffic was very heavy, some nice pods of coho's int eh 200-350 fow range, and an unbelievable amount of fish out in the 380-550 fow range, which is where we focused our efforts on Friday trying to get the program down. This day really beat us up pretty good as we started off with a great king that ended up biting us off. Then after we boated a couple good kings (24 and 27 lbs), we hooked into another good fish, but the rubber band instead of being sliced through and flying, stayed wrapped on the wire and got drawn up into the twilly tip which then somehow got bound-up and ended up breaking the wire! Then to top it off, both of our electric riggers malfunctioned leaving us fishing old school with manual riggers and no probe. We finished 5 for 7 on Wed, 8 for 12 on Thu, and 6 for 9 Fri, mostly with good upper teens and 20's kings, so we decided to stay with the program for Saturday. On Saturday we headed out of Oswego joined by our dad and friend Rich. We first checked out the 200 fow area and found a blank screen, so we continued out to 350, where we began to mark a few. Before long it became apparent that our fish from the past several days had either moved or grouped up into pods and weren't interested in biting anything we threw at them! We worked a couple pods of fish through 8am washing lures until we finally had a good rip on the 80 ft wire pulling a gator spin doc and meat rig and soon thereafter a nice 16 lb king got the skunk out of the boat. We hoped that was the beginning of them turning on, but we washed lures again until 9:30 when we made the call to pull lines and head in to the masses and go for the stagers. We set up over 140 fow a little east of port. After our first swing in to 90 fow, we hooked up over 120 fow on a pretty girl rig on the rigger set down at 95 ft. This king stayed DEEP the whole time and never made a run. When it came up behind the boat we could see it was a big shark and after doing a bit of a dance in the back of the boat we netted the 41" brute! It pulled our scale to 32 lbs, so we pulled lines and headed in to weigh it in the LOC. Official weight was only 31.01, but good enough for 16th place. Then we headed back out to the same spot and set back up. We only had 50 minutes left to fish, and we couldn't get any rods to fire so we started pulling lines. Just then, the 300' wire started screamin' and didn't stop until 750 feet! We cleared all the other rods and turned on the fish to get it in quick, as we were starting to get short on time. Soon thereafter we boated a dark 27 lb'er to add to our box. While we didn't have the quantity we wanted, we knew we had a good shot at the Biggest Fish Award. When we got to weigh-in in Fair Haven, the largest fish so far was 27 and change, so that was encouraging. We weighed our box in which only totalled 70 and change pounds, but we had the big fish at that point. Lots of coolers came in and we waited anxiously to see if our king would hold. Fast & Silver mentioned they had a big fish in their box, which made us a bit nervous, but they came up a pound short. Phew!! So we ended up taking the biggest fish award for the second tournament in a row! We'd like to thank Tom Allen for the awesome box of flies and boards! We're definitely stocked-up on A-TOM-MIK flies now!! As it is every year: a great event that we really enjoy fishing!! To all those involved with putting it on - NICE JOB!!!! And congrats to those that placed!

That happens also if the treble hook is too close to the head or if the meat is too soft. It also happens when kings keep hitting the bait and not getting to hooks. I have seen a meat rod on the rigger get pounded many times without popping. Bring it up and the meat is shredded. No kidding!! I haven't had that happen yet, we've always hooked up or had short hits on the wire, but the meat has been fine.

That happens also if the treble hook is too close to the head or if the meat is too soft.

While I am not a fan of lakers...THAT'S AN AWESOME FISH!! I bet it felt like a telephone pole coming in!!

Hey Wayne - How's that new net treating you?

WTG Kyle!! Nice job getting Connor and his dad into some quality fish! See ya this coming weekend at the FHC - GAME ON!!

Looks like you guys are having a great do out there!! Now, let's see that mid-30's hit the deck!!

There's nothing wrong with a little action on the lures!

Looks like a good salmon chop to me!!

We've been paying Kyle to take notes while out with you... even gave him a tiny video camera... We thought he had a wire on this past weekend!! Too bad we have a wire-scrambler on board!!

Happy b-day!!

Nice fish!! Wtg Kristen!! Gotta love it when they come in ready to play at the back of the boat!! I can't wait to see how many slobs you guys put in the boat with Kyle at the FHC!! I just hope they're not bigger than ours!

I have you on video shooting across our bow, at a safe distance, flying! you may have been the smallest boat there but that is one fast boat you have. Nice report and congrats on your finish. Thanks Mark! I'd love to see the video sometime! We were also shooting video and probably have you coming out behind us! Once I have a bit of time, I will post the video on Youtube and put the link on here.

I'll tell ya one thing, we marked more huge fish this past weekend down off Oswego than we have all season combined!! When those fish turn on, it's going to be complete mayhem down there!! However, having said that, our largest fish this season have come off of Fair Haven and we have marked many large fish off Sodus too, so I wouldn't give up on our home waters yet!

I would recommend Fat Nancy's in Pulaski, Screwy Louie's in Fair Haven, and/or Warren's Hook Line and Sinker on Sodus Point. All three have very good selections of gear.

Pre-Fishing Plan: Work from the river west on Wed, the river east on Thu and try to find where the fish were holding. Fine-tune the gameplan on Fri during the BFF event, and have a tight program down for the main event on Sat. Pre-fishing Wed: Headed to O-town with Kyle (Apple Boy) in the AM and got on the water a little after 5am. Set-up out front of the river over 100 fow and started marking lots of HUGE marks near the bottom. We worked those marks for the first hour or so but couldn't get them to budge, and once the sun came up they vanished. So we started working westward. We worked the 120-300 fow range towards Fair Haven and only picked up a couple small kings, so pointed it north for deeper water to take a look-see out deeper before swinging in to our waypoints near Fair Haven. Once we got out beyond 450 fow, we started marking fish and soon thereafter we had our first major in the boat. We found an area holding fish, but the bite wasn't fast and furious. So we headed towards our prior waypoints and on our way found a nice pod of kings that were snapping. Of course, as soon as we found the fish T-storms developed and were moving towards us, so we called it a day and headed back in. We ended 7 for 12, and never really found the waters we were looking for. Pre-Fishing Thu: The current wave forecast for Sat was calling for 3-5's out of the wsw, so with our boat I knew we wouldn't be able to motor far from the river. So I decided to concentrate on the waters out front of the river, starting in tight and working deeper. I was out solo, so it was a 3-rod program: 2 riggers and a wire to start. It was a beautiful morning: I started out in tight and once again tried to get the large marks near the bottom to go. This was what the graph looked like when I set down: After an hour of throwing j-plugs, dodger/flies, and spoons at them, I couldn't get them to go (other than one release on the mupped black/green glow NK mags set-up with nobody home) and they again disappeared. So I began to work deeper. I then got a call from my wife who wanted me to come back by 10:45 to watch the girls while she headed to a doc's appointment, so that meant I would have to pull lines at 8:30! Then my probe started acting up and then quit all together! So I pulled both both riggers and went over to a 3-wire program, as I could guage the speed better by reading their pull. The screen was blank as I headed deeper and I could see a huge pack of boats over 400+ fow. As soon as I got to 380 fow the screen began to light up with fish and 5 minutes later the port side deeper diver started screaming! 20 minutes later a nice 16 lb king hit the deck. At that point it was 8:25 and I had to pull lines. Big Fish Friday: Our initial plan was to start around 200 fow, work out deep through the area where I caught the 16 lb'er the day before, then work eastward to try to locate the mother-load of kings. The forecast didn't look very good with rain and T-storms forecast along with strong east to south to sw winds, so it was just my brother and me heading out. To our surprise, it was pretty nice when we first got on the water and set-down over 200 fow! Our probe was still out to lunch, so we had to guess at our speed to dial in what the fish wanted. We started marking fish right away and it appeared they may have slid in from the day before. As we set lines trolling out deeper, we ran out of the fish around 300 fow, so we turned and trolled back in and ran out of fish over 250 fow, so we turned and trolled back out running out of the fish around 350 fow... It was apparent the fish were sliding back out, so we kept trolling in a N-S orientation through the school. They ended up stopping in the 450-600 fow range and we worked a small area area where they seemed to be concentrated. We picked up a fish almost every pass and they were quality fish in the upper teens and lower 20's. At one point, the fish seemed to be higher in the water column, so I started bringing in one of the wires accordingly, and "POP!", the wire went completely limp! A fray in the line had broke and we lost the entire set-up! After re-rigging the wire, a little while later Jeff was rigging the probe rigger when "CRACK! SPLASH!", the port side high diver set-up was gone!! The rigger rod holder had broken clean off the rigger!! As luck would have it, the port side rigger rod started to weigh down - the rod had gotten caught in it! We slowed up and very carefully brought the rigger rod in and retrieved the wire set-up! We ended up with a pair of low 20's as our two biggest fish for the BFF event totaling 45.5 lbs which landed us somewhere around 12th place for the event. Only 19 teams weighed-in and there was talk of a tough bite. So since we had gone 9 for 12, (our top 6 would have been about a 130 lb box), we were feeling confident for Sat. That evening, we gased up the boat, went to Lowes to grab a hot air gun, and installed a new antenna on our probe rigger (hoping this would fix our probe issues). Sat Main Event: My brother and I were joind by Kyle and Gary (our observer). At 5:45 we headed out and lined-up at the front of the pack by the lighthouse. Once again, we were the smallest boat in the fleet and ready to rock! When Tom fired off the rounds all the teams took off and we headed right back to our honey hole from Fri. It was a quick ride out with only a slight chop from the south and we sat down over 300 fow. The screen was blank, but we weren't too worried (yet). As soon as we hit 400 fow the screen lit up with fish and then the portside lower diver got hammered and started peeling wire!! My brother was on the rod and it ran out over 500 ft of wire before slowing down and we knew we had a good fish on. It took some time before we got it behind the boat and it looked HUGE!! And not ready to hit the net, so Kyle got on the kicker throttle just in case the fish wanted to dance, I was on the net, and Jeff was bringing him in. It ended up being a 15 minute cat and mouse chase at the back of the boat, as this fish was not going to give up! Several times it tried to swim under the boat, towards our other lines, etc. and Kyle was dynamite on the kicker thrusting the boat forward to keep the fish behind us. Finally the brute hit the deck and it was cheers and high-fives all around!! This thing was a beast and we had our kicker fish! It hit one of our custom Rhys Davis teaser heads behind a black/green dots spin doc (our hottest set-up the last month or so). After setting back up we attempted to snap a quick picture of Jeff and the huge king, but the rigger next to me popped! I grabbed the rod, set the hook, and a decent Coho came flying out of the water right behind the boat! Soon thereafter a nice 14 lb coho hit the deck! Set back up and were able to snap a few pics: After that it was a slow pick and we would hit one more in the mid-teens, dropped one around 14 lbs right behind the boat when the hook came unbuttoned, and had a few short hits on the wires that didn't hook up. After 8:30 we continued to mark fish, but the bites stopped. We continued to try one thing after another until we had a stack of gear in a miriad of colors in the back of the boat! We then tried working some new water a bit further east, but we started to run out of the fish and we didn't want to leave fish to hopefully find some others, so we turned and went back. Then we tried going a bit deeper, but again ran out of the fish and we decided to turn back and keep working them. On our way back to our honey hole we finally hooked up again with another good fish with under an hour to go. 20 minutes later an upper teens king hit the deck. That one hit a Captain Valium spin doc pulling a jawbreaker sushi fly. We set back up hoping to get one more in the box, but it wasn't meant to be and at 2pm it was game-over and time to head in. It was a bit of a bumpy ride in as the wsw wind started to really blow. But we made it back with plenty of time to spare and headed to weigh-in with our cooler. Quite a few teams had weighed in before us, including Son of a Gun who was sitting in first place and had the largest fish so far with a 30.06 lb'er. When we weighed in, our big king tipped the scales to 31.64 lbs and we took over big fish! Our 4 fish box weighed in at 76.16 lbs and put us in 3rd place overall! But there were quite a few teams yet to weigh-in and with only 4 fish, we didn't think we had a chance at staying top 3, and maybe not even top 10, although it appeared as though the whole fleet had a bit of a struggle. We eventually dropped to 8th place as the last teams weighed in and our 31 lb king ended up being the largest fish! We grabbed a bite to eat at the picnic lunch and shot a few team pics and Tom shot some pics of us with the largest king: The banquet dinner was great and there were many stories being told under the tent of fish that got away, "if only's", and lots of laughs. At the awards ceremony there was a little mix-up between us and Son of a Gun with the biggest fish award, but that got straightened out afterwards. Congrats to team Praying Mantis for both the Big Fish Friday and Invitational wins! I would like to once again thank Tom for putting together a great event that we are definitely looking forward to doing again next year!

23", front, less action...