"News Flash" from Club President Joe Yaeger

[Instigator]

 Welcome to another 2025 LOTSA Newsflash targeted to keep everyone informed of Club happenings. We hope that you were able to join us the last weekend of July to enjoy a great time fishing the LOTSA Tournaments along with attending the LOTSA Picnic. This is the 22^nd year of these events.  The Fishing for Kings has continued to be slower than we experienced last year but we saw just about all the boats fishing our Tournaments catch a few kings in the upper teens to low 20s. Again, our members were well represented on the Summer LOC Board including the 3^rd largest King at 29- pound, 12-ounces that also won our Tournament. A special thanks goes out to Paul DeAngelo (Great Lakes Fish Art Studio) for mounting this giant for free for the winner. This fish can be seen at the LOTSA Booth at the Greater Niagara Fishing Expo next February 19-22, 2026. We had 56 boats entered and over 220 people attended the Picnic. The DEC took measurements and DNA samples from over 75 Kings on Friday which should help them greatly in their future management of the Fishery.
 
       Our Tournament Director, Matt Dunn, and his team of volunteers did another great job this year. Year after year it just keeps getting better! When you see Matt, please take the time to thank him as without the year around effort he puts in, this event would not be possible. We run these events as FUN learning experience for us all and hope to become better anglers in the future from what we learned.
 
       A special thanks goes out to the 10 volunteers who filleted and packaged up every one of the Kings that our members donated for the Sister Helen's Food Pantry, a local pantry who was thrilled to get these fish and distribute them to those in need. Thanks also to Relentless Knives for their donation of 10 knives which were given to the volunteers to clean the fish and then keep!
 
Below is more detail written by long time LOTSA member Bill Hilts Jr.:
 
LOTSA Tournament Results
The Lake Ontario Trout and Salmon Association held its three in-club fishing contests last weekend – the Curt Meddaugh Memorial Tournament that was the best three fish for one day, the LOTSA King Salmon Tournament for the biggest fish overall on Saturday, and the 323 contest that allows teams to enter three fish over two days of fishing. A total of 56 teams competed in the events.

For the “Curt” contest, the Mutiny team led by Capt. Jason Monkelbaan of Wheatfield won on Friday, weighing in over 62 pounds of salmon. Also on the team were Gary Monkelbaan of Tonawanda (Jason’s dad) and Jackson Monkelbaan of North Tonawanda (Jason’s nephew, fishing in his first tournament). They focused on the Niagara Bar in 120 to 200 feet of water using meat rigs, Pro Troll flashers, and A-Tom-Mik Pro-Am flies. Second place went to Capt. Craig Heitzenrater’s Crank That team with 59.44 pounds of salmon. Third place was Chris Petrucci of Beallsville, Pa. with the D-Day team that scored 59.22 pounds. Big Fish for the day went to Roy Leising of East Amherst with the Sportcraft 232 team, a 23.33-pound king salmon.

In the LOTSA King Salmon contest, Gerald Bielicki, Jr. of Corfu hauled in a 29-pound, 12-ounce Wilson fish that gave them the win for his Bad Habit team. He was fishing with his father, Gerald, Sr. of Akron and Joe Yuhnke of Tonawanda and they caught the big fish on a Warrior yellowtail spoon behind 10 colors of lead core line in 170 feet of water. It was also the third largest salmon in the Lake Ontario Counties derby and the largest caught by a LOTSA member. The lucky salmon was big enough to give his team the win in the LOTSA 323 event, three fish that weighed in at 68.86 pounds.

Second place in the King Salmon contest was Nate Stephenson of Wilson with the Triple J team, weighing in a 25.23-pound salmon. Third place went to Wildcat led by Arthur O’Mara, Jr. of Moravia with a 23.27-pound king.
Second place in the 323 competition was Reel Blessing led by Scott Kelly of Kittanning, Pa. with 63.93 pounds of salmonids. O’Mara and his Wildcat squad came in third with 62.93 pounds of fish.

After the contests were over, several hundred pounds of Pacific salmon, cleaned by LOTSA volunteers, were donated to Sister Helen’s Food Pantry in Lockport.

From LOTSA Tournament Director – Matt Dunn:
The LOTSA Picnic was held after the weigh in on Saturday Olcott Firehall. It was very well attended and the air conditioning a much-appreciated relief from the heat! The dinner, compliments of LOTSA, was catered by One Eye Jacks BBQ and we heard nothing but compliments on the food. Over $5,000 worth of “fishing” gear was raffled off as door prizes during the event.

This tournament would not be possible without our great tournament sponsors!! The following are the sponsors for this tournament, Dreamweaver, ITO Flies, Traxstech, Town of Newfane, Musselhead Tackle, Scotty, Salmon Candy, GRC Trolling, Gibbs Delta, Fish USA, Great Lakes Fish Art Studios , Fish Hawk, Chinook Divers, Sonny's Fishing Center, Torpedo Divers, Finn Tackle, Fish Thief Snubbers, 3L Flies, Relentless Knives, Atommik, Wolverine Tackle, Route 18 Tackle, Fish Hunter/ Fish Grip, and NK Spoons.  As you can see, it takes a lot of sponsor support to make this tournament happen. We are very thankful for all of them and I ask everyone to support these companies whenever possible!

Check out the www.lotsa1.org or our Facebook page for more information and pictures of these events. 

       The last two LOTSA Tournaments for the year are the Greater Niagara Fish Odyssey and the Fall LOC which has two LOTSA winners (1 for each week). Let’s see if a LOTSA member can win the Fall LOC and the Greater Niagara Fish Odyssey. If you have never fished the Greater Niagara Fish Odyssey, I encourage you to support this event by signing up and encouraging your friends to do the same. It is a fun tournament with some great competition among LOTSA members for the Salmon Division. You check it out and signup at https://bit.ly/fishodyssey2025.  I hope we get to enjoy a great end of the Lake Ontario open water season and you can enjoy this world class fishery that Lake Ontario provides for us!

LOTSA President – Joe Yaeger