Finders Keepers 2012 FHC Report

[Finders Keepers]

We decided to focus on the Oswego area for the Fair Haven Challenge this year unless another port looked to be more promising. So pre-fishing we found quite a few fish in tight (90-140 fow), but the traffic was very heavy, some nice pods of coho's int eh 200-350 fow range, and an unbelievable amount of fish out in the 380-550 fow range, which is where we focused our efforts on Friday trying to get the program down. This day really beat us up pretty good as we started off with a great king that ended up biting us off. Then after we boated a couple good kings (24 and 27 lbs), we hooked into another good fish, but the rubber band instead of being sliced through and flying, stayed wrapped on the wire and got drawn up into the twilly tip which then somehow got bound-up and ended up breaking the wire! Then to top it off, both of our electric riggers malfunctioned leaving us fishing old school with manual riggers and no probe. We finished 5 for 7 on Wed, 8 for 12 on Thu, and 6 for 9 Fri, mostly with good upper teens and 20's kings, so we decided to stay with the program for Saturday.

On Saturday we headed out of Oswego joined by our dad and friend Rich. We first checked out the 200 fow area and found a blank screen, so we continued out to 350, where we began to mark a few. Before long it became apparent that our fish from the past several days had either moved or grouped up into pods and weren't interested in biting anything we threw at them! We worked a couple pods of fish through 8am washing lures until we finally had a good rip on the 80 ft wire pulling a gator spin doc and meat rig and soon thereafter a nice 16 lb king got the skunk out of the boat. We hoped that was the beginning of them turning on, but we washed lures again until 9:30 when we made the call to pull lines and head in to the masses and go for the stagers. We set up over 140 fow a little east of port. After our first swing in to 90 fow, we hooked up over 120 fow on a pretty girl rig on the rigger set down at 95 ft. This king stayed DEEP the whole time and never made a run. When it came up behind the boat we could see it was a big shark and after doing a bit of a dance in the back of the boat we netted the 41" brute!

It pulled our scale to 32 lbs, so we pulled lines and headed in to weigh it in the LOC. Official weight was only 31.01, but good enough for 16th place. Then we headed back out to the same spot and set back up. We only had 50 minutes left to fish, and we couldn't get any rods to fire so we started pulling lines. Just then, the 300' wire started screamin' and didn't stop until 750 feet! We cleared all the other rods and turned on the fish to get it in quick, as we were starting to get short on time. Soon thereafter we boated a dark 27 lb'er to add to our box. While we didn't have the quantity we wanted, we knew we had a good shot at the Biggest Fish Award. When we got to weigh-in in Fair Haven, the largest fish so far was 27 and change, so that was encouraging. We weighed our box in which only totalled 70 and change pounds, but we had the big fish at that point. Lots of coolers came in and we waited anxiously to see if our king would hold. Fast & Silver mentioned they had a big fish in their box, which made us a bit nervous, but they came up a pound short. Phew!! So we ended up taking the biggest fish award for the second tournament in a row!

We'd like to thank Tom Allen for the awesome box of flies and boards! We're definitely stocked-up on A-TOM-MIK flies now!! As it is every year: a great event that we really enjoy fishing!! To all those involved with putting it on - NICE JOB!!!! And congrats to those that placed!

[kylew]

Those are some quality fish! Nice report.

[Mortigan]

[Landshark]

Still cant believe you pulled lines in a tourney for a 31. Youknuckleheads. Nice beast though. And congrats on the big fish award

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[Yankee Troller]

Still cant believe you pulled lines in a tourney for a 31. Youknuckleheads. Nice beast though. And congrats on the big fish award

[ Post made via Android ]

Don't question a "Pro" Mike!

[blueghost1]

Good report Tim

[Finders Keepers]

Thanks! Our scale on the boat read 32 lbs, so that's why we pulled lines. At the time that would have put us top 5, now around 11th. We checked our scale earlier this season and was dead-on, maybe it needs to be checked again...

[stoutner]

great job guys!