Yankee's Spring King of the Lake

[Yankee Troller]

Spring King of the Lake 2014

It felt great going into the first event of the season. The severe Winter had us thinking hard about what the fish were doing for weeks in advance. This event kicks off Salmon season for us. It also provides a break from the Spring Brown Trout charters.

 

Friday (Practice) - We checked the Welland Canal water first, and it wasn’t long before rods were flying. Lakers and Kings made up the catch. We ran our three Cannon Downriggers with a spoon program, and two divers. The hot spoons were a Dreamweaver Sea SIck Waddler, and a Moonshine Arctic Ice. The Moonshine was parked on our diver, and the Sea Sick Waddler was on our Cannon out and down. We made a few passes and figured that was “a spot†so we moved on. 

 

Second area we checked was Jordan, and by the time we got there it was blowing NE pretty hard, and we didn’t catch or learn much of anything in that water. We figured anything we learned was going to get washed away by mother nature, so to the dock we headed for a little socializing on the dock with friends we haven’t seen since the Fall.

 

Saturday (Day 1) - We headed to the Welland, but after and hour and a half we didn’t have anything to show for. We tucked in to the cove East of the Welland and started to dial in a Coho program. We worked the waters down to 4 mile point and back to hook into about 100 fish! It was insane! Mostly Coho and Brown Trout, but we got our first Grand Slam of the season! I can vouch for the 100 fish day by saying we went through all 18 of our clippers on each board tow line 2.5 times on top of our rigger shots.

 

Stick baits on one board, and spoons with split shot in front of them on the other board was the ticket. Anything bright seemed to work, and work well. As the day progressed the Coho got bigger. We finally were able to get 5 over 20†by 2pm. One was pushing 10lbs, which is a monster for the Spring time!

 

We thought 5 fish would be key in this event, and when the 5th hit the deck it was all high fives. Little did we know Kings were still snapping, and after day 1 we were in 15th place.

 

 

Sunday (Day 2) - We gave it a go for the mighty Chinook Salmon. It was all or nothing for us!.We set up in the leaders waters, and went to work. We weeded through a ton of Lake Trout, and some big ones to boot, to find four king bites. Three of which we landed. One took a Dreamweaver Sea Sick Waddler fished off our Cannon Downrigger down 35’ and MUPPED, one took a Moonshine Arctic Freeze off our diver out 40’, and a third took a Dreamweaver Glow Green Alewife on our other diver out 30’.

 

By 12:30 we were sitting on 3 and the decision was made to switch gears and box two Coho. We knew the bigger ones bit later in the day on Saturday. We went into the Coho water, and it was on immediately! Within an hour we were into over 20 fish, and we got our two Coho. However, they wouldn’t be enough to jump us up high enough into the money. We finished the event in 9th place, and you can’t knock a top 10 finish in these events when your fishing against some of Lake Ontario’s finest.

 

 

 

Salmon Season has begun! 

[Xxx]

Man Yankee, those are some huge lakers, I would have loved to reel some of those big girls in, thanks for sharing. Pap.

[Yankee Troller]

Man Yankee, those are some huge lakers, I would have loved to reel some of those big girls in, thanks for sharing. Pap.

They are big, and there were a lot of big ones! Typical Spring Lakers piled up West. They pull pretty good too!

[dvdegeorge]

Nice job!

[Gator]

Yank's King of the Lake report is like the first robin of Spring to me...it's on!!

[bout time]

Great job and great report as always

'Bout Time

Mike

[j_hudson]

Wow, how much did those lakers weigh?

[Yankee Troller]

The big one was just under 20lbs. That coho was more impressive for the spring.

Sent from my XT1080 using Lake Ontario United mobile app

Edited April 29, 2014 by Yankee Troller

[KnifeKnot]

Great report Yankee!

[brucehookedup]

I knew you were a forkie hunter. Good coho, and they will only get fatter.

[John Kelley]

Good job Captain Rick,

I hope you end up in the money again this year like you did last year!!  

[skipper19]

Good finish Rick! Definitely fun looking days! Nice report!

cent frum my notso smart fone

[FX]

Nice report and pics Rick - thanks for sharing!

 

Shawn

[Kooter469]

Nicely Done!

[Day Break]

Very nice report as usual. Looks like you are becoming one of Ontario's finest! Thanks for sharing. You know how to get all of us excited about getting back on the big O! See  you at the Oak this summer. I have to work through  my spring striper season close to home first.

[Yankee Troller]

I knew you were a forkie hunter. Good coho, and they will only get fatter.

 

You just wait Bruce! Coming back to the Genny in September to do a little forkie fishing!