What one thing would you change? and why?

[GAMBLER]

After hearing stories from this past weekends Pro / Am, I thought this would be an interesting poll.

I would run all mag spoons and flashers and flies. Yes some smaller fish still take mags and flasher/fly rigs but the numbers of small fish go down considerably.

[Chromeslayer]

we didnt run a single spoon for the pro am.. only took 2 dinks .. spin docs and flies did the damage

[rustyrat]

90 % of my fish came on paddles and flies and mag spoons. 120 to 140 down and 300 to 350 0n the wire . What are ya gonna do? Dink city. Change the rules to 24 inches when the water is below 55 degrees. Could have released those fish easily.

Wouldn't have mattered on my dismal showing though.

RR

[MyTurn]

We ran mostly flies on Sat and still took 2 dinks we had to keep. Sunday we started with all flies and 2 out of the first three were legal dinks. We wound up taking our 2 best on spoons. We were done by 9:15 both days, so for a 2 day tounament we only got to fish about 6 hrs.

While the fact that there are a ton of 2nd year fish out there (these 18"dinks were pen reared or stocked in 07) bodes well for 09 and 2010, it is abominable that we have to kill so many for the sake of a fishing contest. There was a HUGE consensus among the people I spoke with at the weigh in that this is wrong and something needs to change. The most common thoughts I heard were:

1) Change the min for all fish to 25". All species (including atlantic) would share a common min length.

- OR -

2) Allow culling by releasing a fish by the side of the boat (NOT netting, measuring, and dumping) Once the fish hits the deck it must be kept if it is legal. Releasing by the side of the boat would greatly improve the fish's odds of survivability. I realize that there is a school of thought that all 4 tournaments must have the same rules, and that this option is not a good one for the East end when the fish are deep and the water is warm on top. SOOOO, the way around that is you make this rule optional based on the Tournament committee's discretion at each of the tournaments. At the captain's meeting the committee announces if the "culling" rule is in effect or not.

- OR-

3) Increase the "captain's discretion" buffer from 1/2" to maybe 4 or 5 inches

[Yankee Troller]

I'll be honest with you when I say 3/4's of my fish came off NK 28's and Super Slims. I didnt have "holy crap" boxes, but enough to cash a check. I think every method mentioned above will take big fish and small fish at times. I reeled in 2 or 3 22" fish on the 600' copper. How pissed was I...lol.

My theory on how to get to the big guys is fish the skinny water first thing. They are sually in there feeding. Once that screen disaears go deep. For a 30 minute program on Sunday I had 2 riggers on the bottom in 250 fow. Lots of fish down there, but didnt pull one off that bottom. I have in the past though.

[reel drag]

slower speed 2.0

[Yankee Troller]

Not necessarily true....when I won the Orleans last yr we had to run ball speed 3.0-3.2 down 100-140. I was fishing next to superstars like Rebel and Thrillseeker at the time. The big guys wanted it fast. This past Sunday before the Pro-Am we figured the same program out. We fished all day. We bumped the speed up over 3.0 at the ball and everything was teenagers up to 19lbs.

The thing about fishing is there is no set rule out there, and most things you figure out just amaze ya. Thats what brings us back to the fishery.

[Dolly Varden]

Every year is different ! Sometimes a box of 5-7 lbs. average would have got you a nice check. I'm sure those folks running the events will take a look at this problem but again there is no easy answer or an answer that will work each and every year. Good luck to all the rest of the season.

[Fishtails]

I can't even vote....I did all of the above and still got dink's. Thinking back, we should have fished higher in the bait pods I was marking early....like rich says. I didn't......I went deep right away. First fish was a dink on the dipsey wire ( white spinny w/ little boy blue fly). Second was a deep rigger 155 down on a mag Denny glo frog spoon. Third was a "slightly better" small king on the 500 copper on a spinny/fly. That was the way it went for us. Live and learn. Even got a dink to end the morning on the 600 copper....go figure?

Maybe just bigger bait rigs ??? Anyone run 11" flashers instead of the 8" ?? If so....how'd that work out?

[rustyrat]

I ran 11 in paddle with a leader of 36 inches to the fly on my thumper. On fri it took all my bigger fish(12 to 14 lbers). The rest of the weekend it took dinks. I don't think it mattered.

[Shade]

Why not run the pro/am later, like maybe August through September when the fish are larger?

[GAMBLER]

August would be a bad time for charter captains to fish the Pro Am. That is there busiest time of the year.

[Gill-T]

My home port is Youngstown, so I fish the bar all year. There are ALWAYS shakers to deal with. The currents and bait there make it an ideal rearing ground for the little ones. I have tried Mag spoons with large siawash hooks.....that just ended up killing more dinks. If I had to pick a pattern that was more for large fish it would be paddles/flies, paddles and whole herring, or size #5 J-plugs. Otherwise, you catch what is bitting.

[REELJERKS]

None of the above..

I have takin dinks 150 down in 150 fow with 11" flashers and flys

[Big Dave]

When the water is cold enough I don't see why the smaller fish can't be released. If you gamble and don't get a full box oh well. The fish I saw realsed that were netted and measured under the 18.5 all took off. And I have caught large salmon that show signs of an out of lake experience.

[CBish]

There is a body of scientific data that would support going colder. Several studies in the Pacific and one in Michigan suggest that the juveniles of certain pelagic species will occupy a niche that is 3-4 degrees C higher than the adult members of that species.

CC

[UpGrady]

If I were in a sea of dinks, I might consider going old school on them with a dodger/squid and lite flutter spoon program and slow way down with some varied lead lengths...

I can remember back in the day when the motto was "Speed kills"... 2.0-2.2 was the target with a yeck, slammer, sutton program and dodgers on the meatballs...

[CBish]

You may have something there Hans, I don't remember dropping many 1lbers to the bottom cause of small fish and I would remember cause that would tick me off!!

The big evil eyes were good slow too. Was that the Sutton 06 and 78?

CC

[UpGrady]

5F Black/Silver Evil Eyes were hot at times off riggers as well as wire divers. Sutton 06, 88's off riggers and 38's off the meatballs.

[Shade]

The committee can change to any length and it will not matter. If you guys fished Thursday and Friday you did not have to go very deep to catch 14 - 18lb fish. The tournaments on Friday was won by at 26lb and on the 3 fish 50lbs was low and 60 was high. In May and early June you have to much weather differences mostly high North East and East winds. Not good winds for fishing. By the end of June to early July the weather is more cosistant with more warmer westerly winds. The winds between Thursday and Friday compared to Saturday and Sunday was the difference.

Like I said before, this tournament needs to be later in June or early July. Look at the difference in fish size and weights in Oswego compared to Niagara and Orleans.