Yankee's Niagara Pro Am

[Yankee Troller]

Our team for this tournament consisted of my brother and I, Rob Wescott of Sandy Creek who runs Legacy Sportfishing, Jeremy Sage of Sandy Creek who runs JDs Custom Charters, and our uncle Eric Pappert. We had a great time! Fishing wasn't as good as it had been, but that is starting to become the theme of this tournament. Regardless of how good or bad the fishing was we still got to see a lot of our friends that we only get to see during tournament times.

Friday June 4th (Practice) - We knew that the Niagara Bar had a load of Cohos on it the last two weeks, and my friend Bill Ruth, from Billy V Sportfishing, was heading down there to dial in that Coho program. With us knowing that information we skipped practicing those fish and searched for new water. We left the dock at 4:30am to try and capitalize on that early morning Salmon bite we had last Sunday. We set-up in 60' of water and the screen was OK. We fished out too 300 right smack dab in front of Wilson, and never moved a rod. Sort of disappointed we were off to look for new water. Throughout the day we would pick away at under sized Kings with the Dreamweaver Glow Green Alewife being their favorite spoon fished off our 45 rigger. We would also go on to boat a nice 7 pound Coho during the day, and lose a decent fish on the 5 color core. Not very productive, but we really thought we had a nice pod of fish on the Niagara bar since we were told the screen looked good. Our best screen on our Hummingbird 1157 was 7 miles West of Wilson in about 300-400 foot of water. At one point in the day we took two short guys on one rod. It was pretty cool! Check out the picture.

Saturday June 5th (Day 1) - We headed for the Niagara Bar in a nice 2-3' chop from the West. Took us a little bit to get there, but when we did the screen looked very decent. We set rods, and the wait began. We would have great screens and blank screens on the bar at various times. We went through what seemed like 3 or 4 programs and changed out more lure colors than I thought we had. Spoons, flys, and Coho rigs. Nothing worked, and the only keeper fish we had hooked up with was still swimming. So at 11am we made the decision to troll to our waypoints from our practice day. On the way we picked at a few small fish, and one even touched 18", but we didn't want to bring in a small fish and tossed him back so he could grow up. Uncle Eric wasn't feeling well all day. He had just got into town from Mexico at midnight and drove down to the boat that same night. So, we didn't mind that he slept most of the day. It wasn't like we were killing them. He did wake up at one point and we asked him, "what would you throw down?" He mumbled "plain silver 5' behind the ball down 60'!" OK, so down that rig went. 10 minutes later and I hear "FISH ON!" Guess what? That rig Uncle Eric choose fired! We could tell it was a nice fish and we played it with caution. When it hit the deck a lot of pressure was lifted from our shoulders. The skunk was out of the boat! He weighed 23 pounds and looked very healthy. We boxed him and fished for the next 45 minutes trying to put something else in the cooler with him. However, we were not successful at doing so. We headed in and the word from everyone was that the bite was a tough one. Most teams had 3 or 4 fish, and only one Pro team boxed their 12 fish.

Sunday June 6th (Day 2) - BLOWN OFF! Yup, thats right! Out of 6 possible tournament days this year we have been able to fish 2 of them. Mother nature has not been nice in 2010. We finished the tourney 35th out of 49 teams. Wish we could have hit the water because the screen we had out there at the end of the day seemed to be very promising. Maybe we could have jumped up a few places. Anyway, see everyone this week at the Oak.

[Fishtails]

Nice report! It was a tough day bud....wasn't it? We had a similar day. We hit them good on the bar Friday, and I "think" they were there first thing Saturday cause my screen was decent, but I guess they slid east fast. You were fishing inside us on Saturday morning. I couldn't find a coho or king all morning, just an under size Atlantic & Steelhead. We picked up & ran twice , and saved face by finally boxing a steelie and a brown out over 325 fow to avoid our first tournament zero. I was sweating for a little bit there We did land a 13 plus pound brown on Thursday. Wish I got a pic, but we got it right back in the water after putting it on the scale.

You'll bounce back this weekend. I hope we finally get a break in the weather!! See ya in Orleans

[Silver Fox]

FYI Rick. Inspect Rob's little lunch cooler before he gets on the boat!

[Yankee Troller]

Thanks for the heads up Scott!

See you there Rod!

[ray koziatek]

I think every boat had a bananna sliped into it saturday,,,those "happy spots "were few and far between and most ended up in the "between zone",one more derby like that and ill rename my boat "Between Zone "

[choo-choo]

hey rick,it sure was tough out there on the bar saturday,i wasn't fishing the derby but decided to fish there fri and sat..Got there late morning fridayand headed out to the red can...saw billy v and others ....the screen was really ,really good,with nice cold water,43,44 to 52 degrees down around 40 feet in many locations. I marked lots of fish and bait but could only get 1 to bite. I figured sat morning woul be an awesome bloodbath of coho's and kings out there north of the red can area........WRONG!! the wind started blowing friday afternoon into the night,and through the night into saturday morning. I headed out of the river ,to the can, as the derby boats from wilson were setting up. All the cold water was gone!! I found 1 patch of 60 degrees down 40,and caught an 8 lb coho...1 other hit ,and that was it for me all morning.Lots of 64 degreeish water from the suface down past 50 feet. That wind moved all that cold water and salmon ,i guess, far to the east.....i sure could not find that cold water around the bar saturday....man how that wind changed everything...did the tams that did well,did they catch the fish way east of olcott?..i would like to know for future reference....good luck in the next couple of weeks, and thank you and billy v for the reports last month...steve...choo-choo