fishman08

Whether to run or not should be part of the decision of the team. Last week the teams that ran to wilson lost atleast two hours of fishing time... each team has to decide whether the reduce fishing time is worth it in the end or not. As for the talk of only fast boats being able to run well i saw yankee troller down in wilson, and we all know those trojans are pretty slow.

Anyone can say faster boats have an advantage but i could say the same about all the bigger boats like the trojans and the vikings. Although the bigger boats may not go as fast, they sure as hell handle big water better and don't roll as much giving your lures a much more normal action.

So I say leave the rule as it is... Each boat has it's own advantage...It's assinine to try and restrict the distance a boat can run.

i agree 100%, No need to change any rules with the fish size or amount, and its a huge boost to the economy, This year i've been lucky enough to fish a lot of the tournaments and if it weren't for them there would be very little boats out fishing.

Great job jerry! we might have to start following you at the oak lol... this is the only port that i just can't get acustom too for one reason or another...great catch in crappy conditions

sounds good pete

My original post wasn't about complaining that the top teams are only at the top because of communication. Teams like cold steele, thirlseeker, top gun, freespirit, vision quest are extremely good fishing teams and would no doubt be in contention whether there was communication or not. After getting the much needed experience from moving from the am's to the pro's last year i take pride in my team and believe we can compete whether there's communication or not. All i was trying to get at is that the fun and energy of these tournaments have dwindled since I started fishing them and from seeing the energy and excitment back after fishing NO COMMUNICATION events so far this year there is no doubt in my mind that this one simple rule could bring some life back into the series. Can it be enforced, absolutely. Would this rule bring an explosion of teams to the events, I doubt it. I could see some new teams and old teams coming back for sure, unfortuneately with gas prices and the economy i don't forsee any rule or change bringing a big number of teams to any tournament. I would just like to see the enthusiasm back to my beloved pro/am's as they are my favorite series also. As for them being the hardest test as tournaments goes, arguements could go either way and all i know is that i enjoy the difference in each.

Glen,

You are a great fisherman and i know from talking with you and chris at the docks that you do stick to your plan and i commend you for that, and it definitly does work for you. However, from seeing the effects of communication from both the am and pro division, it definitly more noticable in the pro division and from having experienced it thats why i started this post. I usually read the post on the forums and keep my mouth shut as everyone deserves their opinion, however after seeing such a positive response i figured it was time to bring the topic up again, all i'd like to see is the sportmanship and excitment back to where it once was.

On a side note i know like most i'm chomping at the bit to get back out on the lake and fish the niagara pro am. It's going to be a very exciting year no matter what the rules are i just think it's sad that teams like freespirit and vision quest (if rumors are correct) won't be fishing the east as i look forward to competing against top notch fisherman like themselves.

With two tournaments already gone this past year I figured now is the time to chime in on an already beaten topic. The Big Jon's and the WHI were NO COMMUNICATION events and i've already had more fun fishing this year than i have the previous two combined. It's amazing the response many different teams had at the WHI about how great it was to finally fish against 71 INDIVIDUAL teams instead of many groups of teams.

It's exciting and also nerve racking at the same time going to wiegh-in not knowing how you stack up against the competition, and 20 times more rewarding finishing in the money knowing you did it all by yourself instead of getting a call from a buddy mid morning to put you on the hot bite.

Although, the pro/ams are my favorite tournaments with the 12 fish limits, i can only imagine how much better they could be if they were a no communication event. Say your out fishing kings and the bite dies, what do you do? Do you go inside for browns and hope they are still biting, do you venture out deep and hope to land on a pod of steelies or do you stick around and hope for a few more kings to bite. Unfortuneately communication takes the guess work out of these decisions sometimes as all it takes is a few phone calls and your on the fish.

I know Tom (atommik) will chime in too but i finally see your full idea brotha. It's time for the pro/am's to grow and take a change for the better. These tournaments will be much closer, the fun and energy will finally be back and the results won't be dependant on who you know rather than what you know.

I know next year i'll be scaling back on the number of tournaments our team does and it's sad to think that the few tourny's we cut will most liekly be the pro/ams.

Glad you could remember all those fish, it was starting to get to the point were i was losing count lol....it was a very fun and interesting weekend...

By far WHI is the best tournament on lake ontario. Kevin and company did a great job putting it on. As for the fishing it was poor indeed. There were plenty of kings around but they were just hard to turn like vinny said. We figured out friday that fishing the shallows was pretty much usuless due to all the bait. So we went deep and it was all about finding temp and fish as there was some bait out there but not nearly the amount there was in the shallows to compete with.

Off to St. catherine's we went to kick off the 2011 tournament season. This year we are lucky enough to have Rod (fishtails) join the team for most of our tournaments. It's amazing how well a team can run when you have 4 members with tournament experience, and it should make for a fun and very competitive 2011.

Its a pleasure to have you on board bud.

Friday- We head towards welland canal and figured we'd work towards the bar as thats where the fish had come in recent years. It didn't take long and we were into the fish, mostly lakers but a few nice kings along with a few steelies. Figuring we had a spot that we could get our limit we continued to the bar where it was laker and coho central. Water was cold and the kings just weren't there. So a quick stop to gas up in the river and off we went to towards jordan. We set-up west of jordan and had a decent picture however the west winds were quickly pushing our color and temp to the east. We would only land one beautiful salmon and call it a day around 5pm.

Saturday - Not knowing what the winds did to the color and temp over towards Jordan we made the decision to head towards the welland because we wanted to make sure we got our limit no matter the size. We set-up and noticed our picture was gone. So we slide inside hoping our fish were hiding in the brown water and that they were. We would go on to boat 5 coho's and 3 kings by 0930. At that time seeing that we had our box and 2/3 of the fleet was outside of us and struggling we left our honeyhole so they wouldn't move in on our fish. We got just west of welland when our leadcore took off, we would work that little area for an hour or so and box another 2 kings. Feeling that we officially put ourself in contention we contiue to cover water to see if we could find another honey hole for day 2 if need be but we would never get another bite for the rest of the day. We were sitting 19th after day 1 but easily with-in striking distance of the money.

Sunday- With all the good boxes coming from jordan we knew most of the boats would be fishing that way. So off to the canal we went again to work our inside waters, and hoped that the fleet would shut down the bite quickly at Jordan. When we got to our spot from the previous day our temp was gone and all we found were undersize coho's. At 800 we pulled lines and ran towards jordan. We saw 25 plus boats working the brown water inside and we tried to work the outside waters to stay from the combate trolling but the fish just weren't there so into the mess we trolled. Unfortunately after talking with a few boats that were fishing there, the morning the had ended just before we arrived. However we would grind out 7 bites. 3 would be undersized coho's and we'd head into wiegh-in with only four fish, which kept us in 19th overall.

This spring tournament is a totally different way of fishing then what we experience during the pro/am's. We learned alot and our crew performed well for being together for the first time.

Not to get into a lot of detail due to another tourny next weekend.

Lead cores worked best for us as we never really could get our riggers going well. Warrior spoons were our top baits (btw i can not say enough about the quality of the paint on these spoons). Also MC rockets with the big weenie bait rigs performed well and really surprised me with thier ability to catch fish even in the skinny waters.

wondering if it was caught when it was young and had the hooks ripped the lips off

Burnin - its all based on your transducer, i have a thru-hull and when looking for fish i cruise at about 18 and when i find bait on the screen i stop and start fishing

Howie last i knew the boat yard was full and we got our slip at sunset

Nice brownie!!

really most fish finders are only as good as their transducer they are paired with, that being said i have a airmar thru-hull and it perrforms beautifully...i was a little worried at first drilling a hole in the bottom of the boat but i'm very happy now.

yup, beautiful atlantic nice to see them showing up the last couple years

I sent it may want to get in touch with kevin so nothign else gets missed in the future

all came in an email about 5 days ago

Kevin or someone can you post the address to send the rest of the paper work in? guessing it was on the slip we sent in the first time.

love the hds 10 i've had garmin and raymarine units in the past 5 years and hds 10 definitly holds it own.

yes i've seen many teams do it

not to sure what i paid last year for the pro/am's but i'm pretty sure they didn't increase

The DEC ought to be stocking just fish that reproduce naturally in the lakes. Example: Lake Ontario - Atlantic Salmon and Walleyes and forget the rest.

thats a good one

Come-on jeff not defending your home turf? lol I haven't had the pleasure to witness the amazing fishery the oak has to offer. I only see it during the pro/am and usually the fishing is decent up until the tournament then the wind blows and i can't find the fish lol. So i guess the place has left a bad taste in my mouth over the last few years lol. I still remember the first year i fished the port as an amateur, the only goose egg i've ever had in a tourny on the first day so the second day we ran to wilson and beyond and finally found the fish near the end of the day, we caught 3 fish yet almost jumped into the money, missed out by a pound. Tough fishing for sure! So for consistancy i guess i'll change my vote to olcott wilson area.

The oak may have better steelie fishign but not many head offshore from oswego either but there's great fishign to be had out there not to mention better brown trout fishing

I would have voted for sodus...whats better then a bunch of bars, restaurants and places to stay with a stone throw from the dock. night life is definitly better than the oak too.