G-Daddy

I am looking for the southward migration into Chesapeake Bay - sometime around Thanksgiving.

We've stayed here http://www.lakeviewmotelandcottage.com/ a few times. Clean, comfortable, cooking available. Not too expensive.

We use them with Canon Uni Trolls straight off the back of the boat. Our flush mount rod holders are in a nice thick deck with good backing plates that handle the stress well. I like being able to pull the riggers and lock in the cabin when leaving the boat unattended. The other advantage is that I can still use the corner rod holders when fishing without downriggers, which we do when on the bay for stripers.

Because we use our boat in 20 - 120 feet of water in Chesapeake Bay and up to 600' on Lake O, the guys at BOE Marine recommended this combo to us: http://www.boemarine.com/Furuno_FCV-585 ... er-FCV585/ http://www.boemarine.com/AIRMAR_Brnz_Fu ... 64-20-10F/

Great report as always. It is guys like you making these reports that give guys like me a chance to catch a few on the rare occasions that we get to the big lake. Thanks and keep up the excellent reporting.

Ain't that the truth. Them 8 hour commutes are tough.

If you haven't done it - go on at least one charter. The many great captains on the lake will teach you so much more in a short period of time than you can learn on your own. We just did our first trip on our own after several charters and we caught somewhere around 70 fish including 3 mature salmon and a 14-1/2 lb steelhead in four days. Most of what we learned before hand was from charters and research on this site.

And she's only got me by 30 years: http://www.petethomasoutdoors.com/2011/ ... derby.html

Great job. Looks like lots of fish coming back to SC PA about now.

Those kings are getting darker by the day.

On my GPS it showed 386 miles from my home to 4C's. I wouldn't want any more boat to tow that far.

No worries. I want to reiterate though, that lessons learned aboard Yankee Troller contributed significantly to the success of our first experience at fishing the lake on our own. By the way - when was the last time you saw a green sportcraft?

Great report and congrats on the tourney placing.

Thanks Rich. It was a pleasure talking with you again Saturday evening. Chartering with you and Bill Ruth and the research done on this site made our good trip possible. Thanks to all who give advice on this wonderful resource.

Shook our building here in SC PA for about 15 seconds.

Updated and added some pics.

Out of curiosity, what were the weights on the placers?

Fishing Report Your Name / Boat Name:Li'l Bit ============== TRIP OVERVIEW ============== Date(s):8/16 Time on Water:5:30 - 7 pm Weather/Temp:80s and sunny Wind Speed/Direction:ssw light Waves: 1 - 2 Surface Temp: 65 Location:230 feet deep LAT/LONG (GPS Cords): =============== FISHING RESULTS =============== Total Hits: 4 Total Boated:4 Species Breakdown:king and steelhead Hot Lure: each fish was different Trolling Speed: 3.1 Down Speed: 2.5 Boat Depth: 230 feet Lure Depth: 65 - 120 ==================== SUMMARY & FURTHER DETAILS ==================== Finally landed a couple of little kings on divers 160 and 220 Steelhead continued to hit spoons on sliders Still have two more days to fish

Fishing Report Your Name / Boat Name:Li'l Bit ============== TRIP OVERVIEW ============== Date(s):8/17 & 8/18 Time on Water:2-4 pm & 6-noon Weather/Temp:beautiful Wind Speed/Direction:SSW Waves: flat on 8/17 and 2' on 8/18 Surface Temp: 69 and 65 Location:Oak Orchard LAT/LONG (GPS Cords): 29 - 33 right out front =============== FISHING RESULTS =============== Total Hits: 5 & 13 Total Boated:4 & 7 Species Breakdown:kings & steelhead Hot Lure: ask my son he's the lure guy Trolling Speed: 3 - 3.7 Down Speed: 2.5 - 3 Boat Depth: 400 Lure Depth: 55 - 105 ==================== SUMMARY & FURTHER DETAILS ==================== Arrived at point breeze around 11:30 after a 7.5 hour drive. Caught 2 kings and two steelhead in the pm - nothing big. Kept the bleeder kings. Got out early this morning and got into a couple of small steelhead that we unhooked at the back of the boat. Then my son and I each had decent steel. Then my 11 year old grandson brought in his first over 20 king all by himself - 34" and 21 lb. It was also the first over 20 anything on our boat. Then we got a real bad case of the drops missing the next five fish. We finally caught a couple more steelhead while we were clearing lines for the run back to the dock. As long as we kept the boat speed in the 2.5 - 3 down speed range we caught fish. When the speed dropped we couldn't buy a bite We found 50 deg at depths ranging from 45 ft - 80 ft. The deeper the water the higher the cold water got. We got our hits on either a north or south troll. All of the fish we caught were on spoons on the riggers - many of the steel on sliders..Had some hits on divers, but they all came unbuttoned. Friday we made a huge loop running northeast out of the harbor to the 29 line and set up a meandering troll to the northwest out to the 36+ line and then back southeast towards the harbor. We managed 15 fish and 13 of them were steelhead with the two kings being really small. Several of the steelhead were in the 7 – 9 pound range. Again we ran back in and were at the dock by 3. I cleaned up 5 steelhead and we had some for an early supper. Then we ran back out and reset our spread for our evening trip. We managed to pick up two more steelhead, once again, including one on the meat rig. Saturday was our last day to fish and was also tournament day with at least two tournaments and a derby being fished out of Oak Orchard Creek. The boat parade was going on for at least an hour before we joined in. We ran northwest to the 29 line but found 63° down to 100 feet. My son gave the order to pull the probe and ran out to 31 where we set out our spread. Early on we had a screamer on the port side wire out 200 pulling a Mountain Dew/Pearl Glow spin doctor and a Chartreuse Glow Hammer fly. It took nearly an hour, but we landed our second fish of the trip over 20 pounds. We had a steady pick of fish when we had another major runoff from our probe rigger still pulling the Caramel Dolphin. It turned out to be a 14 ½ pound steelhead that would have eased into fourth place in the Orleans County Derby – if only we had entered. We continued to work our waypoints and had one more major fish – another over 20 king on the starboard wire rod out 180 with a Chrome spin doctor with green tape on both sides pulling a Butt Sniffer fly. A lot of the fish we caught on Saturday were the result of crossing a temperature break we found. We had parked our probe rigger at 100 feet and found an area that changed from 45° to 53°. Many fish were caught in this transition including the two big salmon and the 14 ½ pound steelhead. All in all it was a great trip with great fun with a great bunch of guys. In addition to the lures mentioned above, we caught a lot of fish on Purple Thunder, NBK, and Evil Eye spoons. We also had some success with Steelie Dan and Salmon Slapper spoons. This Lake Ontario fishing was a fantastic experience none of us will soon forget.

Will do - feel free to do the same.

Coming from due south where I-70 crosses the Mason Dixon Line. We'll be dragging our Sportcraft 252 to the big lake and it is equipped with Berts and Traxtech rod holders, 4 canon downriggers, a Subtroll and we have nine trolling setups including downrigger rods, a couple of setups we use with big planer boards on Chesapeake Bay, and a couple of dipsy rods with wire. We've collected a couple of boxes of spoons, some attractors, flies, meat rigs, squids, stickbaits, etc. Hopefully we can pick up a few tips at the dock and find a few fish.

Are you sure it is the OB? It could be an accessory. Disconnect one at a time until you find the culprit.

4 of us greenhorns from SC PA will be making the nearly 400 mi journey to Oak Orchard starting very early Wednesday. This will be our third trip and the lake was not very kind to us on our first two trips. Weather and boat trouble have kept us off the lake. We have chartered over the last 20 years and want to try it on our own. Will be staying at 4Cs Wed - Sun. Our next salmon will be our first. We have been reading and searching these forums for over a year and hope that helps us. Please wish us fair winds and following seas - and freedom from the boat gremlins.

I just hope it keeps for a while. Four of us are traveling from SC PA and will be up from 8/17 and leaving 8/21 and hoping to catch our first-ever salmon or trout. Charters are fun but we want to catch some on our own.

This is a true story. My son-in-law's father was bass fishing on Lake Erie and buried a hook in his hand. Went back to the launch ramp where he was showing his condition to the bait store proprietor. Some guy he did not know told him about the string trick and offered t pull the hook out. Well - the guy didn't know the string trick as well as he thought and drove the hook deeper. The unnamed victim yelled at him - "I thought you knew how to do this." The guy said - "I guess I will have to get my wife to print of the instrucitons so I can do it right." They went to the hospital and the triage nurse looked up his name and said "Welcome Back. We removed a hook from your hand two years ago today. What happened last year? Didn't you go fishing?"