Fishtails

Great report Rich.... It was good to talk with you out there. Keep it up & keep the crew smiling....I know that always makes my day! Keep in touch.

Rod

I had my friend Dr Burns in from San Diego Ca. and quickly introduced him to our lake O fishery. He was impressed....to say the least. He grew up in the pacific northwest and his father ran a salmon charter for many years.

On Monday, we got a late start cause I forgot my boat keys. After we figured out how to hotwire the engines, we hit the lake. We started out hooking up within the first fifteen min., but after a lengthly battle the fish was lost. Within another half hour, Dr Burns landed his first east coast king at about 22lbs. Both fish were on the riggers. We had a burner on the copper, but it sad see ya and then the lake got realy bumpy and the fishing ended for us.

Tuesday started out with leftover 4 fters, but Mondays west blow along with a major reduction in boat traffic turned on the fish. We started late (8am) and got blanked till 9:30....then three rods fired at the same time....a triple !! Welcome to lake O Mr. Burns!!! Fish came over 95 fow 65 down, 50 down and 100 out on the thumper. We landed two of the three....both 13 lb coho's. We picked away at them till 2pm and then we picked up and ran to a different area east of the harbor. Good choice....4 fish on within an hour. Headed in for a nap @ 3 and got back out for the final hour and had 4 more hook-ups, including a double, and landed two of them. Dr. Burns landed 8 Salmon on the day....he was blown away with our fishery!!! He said it's very rare to catch more than one a day out west.

The thumper was hot...the dipsey was not (for us, anyway). Riggers took pretty many hits & the copper has slowed for me, taking only two hits in two days. Lots of smaller kings.....10 to 15 lbs and mostly all males. We released all but 4 (2 coho & 2 kings) Flies and paddles did most of the damage, with two coming on spoons. Big suprise was the orange dodger and green fly. It was super hot with the kings (thought it was only a coho killer ???).

All the usual colors took hits. Most fish came in 70 to 105 fow...though most boats fished deeper than us.

One final note.....the fish are starting to enter the harbor. I saw a king swiming around the dock with a flasher & fly trailing it! Saw one other king off the dock also.

Good Luck !!!!

Rod

If your surface speed was 1.8.....you were going way to slow. Your ball speed is "usually" slower than your surface speed......usually. Try kicking it up to 2.5 to 3.0 and you'll do better.

Rod

I agree with you Tim. Maybe It's just a matter of having faith in what your using? We run all three (dodgers, spin doctors & e chips) almost all the time. Different times of the day, or different days all together get different results for me, but they all have thier moment in the sun. Our biggest fish this year came off the metal dodgers, while the most fish came off the spin doctors. It could simply be that I run more spin doc's than e- chips ?? I just love some of the color combo's dreamweaver is putting out.

Rod

Landed a triple with only two guys on the boat.....Wow, nice job!!

Thanks for the great pics...looks like the kids had a blast! I noticed when I was out two days ago that the lake was starting to set up nicely again after Saturday nights western blow. Hope it stays that way for a while and the bite should stay hot.

Hey Enzo...how long you staying up for?? I'll be up with a guy from San Diego on Monday, Tues & Wed of next week. Clark will be fishing on Fri & Sat in Oswego, give him a call on ch 68 and he'll be glad to give you the up to date report. Call on the radio for waterlogged.

I don't want to give you false info, and I had no probe the last day & a half. It appeared as though the lake was setting up again and the fish were slowly on the move and heading a little deeper. The fish are there in pretty good numbers....you should have a great time as long as the weather holds. Get those kids on some fish !!

Rod

Gulp makes a cut bait and I'm curious if anyone's tried using it ?? I picked up three flavors a couple weeks back at Gander Mountain but have yet to try it. It looks the part & smells fishy without even opening it up, so I can imagine the stink once I open the pack. How does it stack up against the real thing?? I thought it may be a viable alternative since I hear the new cut bait is real soft.

Anyone have any reviews to share??

Thanks,

Rod K

Sorry for the lack of reports guys, but I have no internet access when I'm in NY. The fishing is starting to really heat up in Oswego, so if you can get out....do it! Two weeks ago I took a buddy and his son, as well as Waterlogged (Clark) and the fishing was great, with most of the kings being very deep @ 450 to 600 fow. My buddy took his first king on that trip and it just missed making the loc board that day by 2 oz.

Tim and his first king.

We ended that half day trip going 6 for 9 with Tim's son also landing his first ever king.

I got out several days later and a steady east blow had changed everything. Chris (Traveling man) and myself worked hard for the two fish we boated. The only rod we got to fire was the thumper with a white spin doc and fly. Cold water was everywhere and the fish were scattered.

Our next day out we fished the FHC and managed a 7th place finish going 6 for 7. We had a couple guys up from Maryland and they had an awesome time. As I remember, one fish came on the copper (400 out), one on the thumper, one one a wire dipsey and three off the riggers. No real patterns, they were caught on all different combo's.

Our next day out was our worst trip of the year. Oh, we caught a few fish, but we also caught the bottom with a thumper rod trying to swing back around to net my son's 10-12 lb Steelhead we (I)lost out of the net. It was his first Steelhead and after we lost it, it went belly up so I swung around to net it....to tight....big mistake!! Final tally on lost equipment was one spool of wire line, my sub troll probe, a shark downrigger ball, a release, a stacker release, a spin doc and fly and a 16 oz thumper set up :shock: :x

Well....after that I was fishing without any wire rods and only one rigger without a probe, so needless to say the fishing started to suck for us. We did manage a 1 for 3 afternoon with my son catching his first small Coho.

All in all, a great trip. The Coho's have also arrived in Oswego & they seem ready to play! I'll be back up on Monday so give me a shout if your on the water!

Rod

Lucky Enuff

Congrats on the good day Richard, It was a really fun day with great weather.

Also, It was nice to finally meet Billy V and Del of team liquid Plummer.

This was my first year fishing any tornaments and I had a total blast!! I'm fairly new to Salmon fishing, with this being only my third year but I'm a full blown addict now. :shock: I don't want to rush time, but I'm looking forward to next year. Our team came a long way this year and we worked really well together in the FHC. It was nice to finish 7th, but I guess 10th would have been better since 7th had no payout but 10th did :roll: ....not sure I get the payout structure in this one?? Regardless of that though, It was a really well run event and I hope we have more LOU members in it next year.

If I could make one suggestion on improvement for next year, It would be a bathroom of some sort. My 8 yr old had to pee really bad during the awards, and Screwy Louie's said no to him, they had no "public bathrooms". That was pretty lame, I thought.

Rod

Team Lucky Enuff

I will be going out derby fishing next week, and could use a partner or two or three any day from Mon thru Thurs. My boat is at Wrights Marina in Oswego on the black dock #24. I'll be leaving the dock by 5:30 am, so if anyone is interested in getting out and getting on the leader board, give me a call on my cell @ 610-217-4516.

I don't have internet here, so you'll have to call me. I have all the tackle needed and a 24 ft boat set up for the lake....just need some partners entered in the loc. If you have a favorite set up....bring it along and we'll run it.

Rod Keyser

Team Lucky Enuff

Glad to hear the kids got a chance to play with the kings!!! I bet they loved it. Nothing like seeing that look on a kids face. We were out for a few hours yesterday.....very slow after the heavy blow. A buddy I took out for the first time landed a nice king and took it strait to get it mounted....so that was cool. He was all smiles.

On the copper, a penn 345 gti is a good one. I run two 600 copper rigs that have spooled on Diawa sealine's....nice reels but they are pretty bulky. My buddy pulled one in on the 500 copper 10 min. after landing his big king on the wire rod. Got the copper fish to within 10 ft of the boat and it said see ya and swam off :shock: . I don't think he liked that to much....but I thought it was pretty funny myself.

Rod

Nice Salmon, but how can you let your son go out in public looking like that? That's one ugly shirt!!....lol

Rod

PSU

Gotta Bite,

Most of what you've heard on lakers in lake O is spot on, but they are decent eating. I agree with Ray on the size....only keep the smaller ones under thev 25" slot.

I trim the belly meat off, skin the fillet and V section out the darker meat on the outside back.

As for a fight...there isn't much. When pulling one in, it't like pulling in a huge clump of weeds. You'll feel the rod tip bounce a few times, and that's about the only indication you will get that it's a fish.

It's fishing...and any fishing is good in my book. The Salmon, browns and bows are just more sporting, that's all.

Rod

It helps Mark....love the reports & thanks! I've been working looooooong days/nights in the shop so that I can get a couple more weeks up there. Heading up Sunday morning and should get plenty of days in fishing over those two/three weeks. When I'm stuck here in Pa...I live it through you guys

Rod

No problem Ray.......just didn't get it & now I do, so thanks. I guess I'm a pretty far cry from the desk & expense report type. I restore antiques & furniture so I think I'm high on chemicals most of the time

Ray, most of the time I can't figure out what your talking about, and this is no exception.

"FISHTAILS WHAT THE HE** KINDA EXPENCE REPORT IS THIS ITS ABOUT SOME GUY CATCHING A SALMON ,,,,,,,,,,,,are you daydreaming again?????????????????????????next youll want my office........"

When I do figure it out, I usually laugh. Othertimes I just scratch my head :roll: Of course I'm daydreaming Ray....I'm down here in Pa slaving away 14 hrs a day so I can get back up fishing with you guys. I love reports like skipper's. It's just like reading a good book....you get pulled right into the story .

I didn't know that about the Okuma, Brian. I did know Okuma had a reel that would handle the 600....didn't know the gear ratio? That's much faster than my current reel.

Go ahead and rig up another one, what's another $20 at this point...lol. All Season in Pulaski has a 600 ft spool of "I believe" #37 lb for $19.99. That's what I'm running currently.

Those extra knots worry me on a splice. If you trust your knots won't fail you, that's a way to go. Copper is pretty soft. If anyone runs copper with splices I'd like to hear how it's worked out.

I just started fishing Oswego this year, so there are guys here that can help you a lot more than I can.

Your questions:

1) Wrights landing Marina

2) Boat out of the harbor and look for the pack.....then stay just outside of them for starters and listen to the radio for info on how deep to run the riggers and how far out to run the dipsey. Right in front of the college is a good place to start also.

3) DO get out early....5-5:30 ish is great. DON"T listen to the wife when she tells you to take out the trash before you leave. The trash can wait but the bite won't...lol

Rod

I do run it on the board sometimes, but I have 500 & 600 copper set ups and I don't really want to invest in a 300 & 400 also (this year, anyhow). Last week I only needed to run out 400 to get to the fish. So, since I'm understanding you shouldn't put the copper in the board release, I run it out the back on those times. Lots of folks would love to have our problems...no??

I love the copper.....It's been great on some days for me. So, I'm thinking on certain days when the board doesn't work and I want to get the copper in the water, change the wire rods to thumpers. Sounds logical to me but sometimes I'm a moran and can't see the forest through the trees. Maybe it won't work any better, but im thinking the thumper will track straiter in a turn. Am I wrong ?? Doesn't anyone run thumper's anymore?

Ray....when we get a fish on a line other than the copper (a rigger for instance), we have had great luck putting the copper rod up in the rocket launcher. Sometimes we have to move it once or twice depending on what the fish is doing, but so far it's worked out.

Thanks,

Rod

Richard,

We have tried a dipsey on both sides, and a copper out the shute, but that just created problems. It was okay most of the time....but one screw up on the wheel and what a mess :x We seem to be okay if we run only one dipsey, but I was curious to know if a thumper set up would allow us to run two wire rods, along with the copper and riggers. If I want to run dipsies I would pull the copper. Does that make any sense?

Thanks,

Rod

I've been having some problems this year on a six rod spread running dipseys and copper at the same time on our 8 ft beam boat. When we don't run the copper off the board, we've had a couple tangles. My thought to mininize those costly messes is to run thumper rods instead of dipseys when I have the copper in the water. I'm thinking the thumper rod should be more predictable than the dipsey rod...what do you think? Is a 1 lb wieght what most of you go with?

Thumper's are new to me. We ran them one day last week and all our fish that morning came on the thumpers, but we only ran 4 rods with no copper.

Thanks for any advise.

Rod

Thanks for the great play by play....for a short moment I was in the boat with you!!

I have 4 or 6 of them on the boat still in the box. I got them at Cabelas, but have not tried one yet. From the sounds of it noone else has either. One of these days I'll throw one out and swim it around.

Here's a link to them:

http://cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates ... &noImage=0

Rod

Enzo

I just spoke with Kevin (Murphy's Law) who was out today in Oswego. He told me the fish are still scattered. They decided to fish the browns in 70 fow...did 6. He said he marked kings there as well, but no takers. That's all I got bud, sorry. Good Luck & let me know how you do!

Rod