Niagara Pro am

[rdebadts]

We brought our boat out for our annual attempt at the niagara Pro am. We fish the open, so the plan was to target big salmon, if we could find them. The weekend before, we found a few good ones in 100, but the wind had blown every conceivable direction this week so I wasn’t sure what we would find.

 

Thursday- we started in 150 fow out front, with the plan to take a long northwest troll. The inside water was ccccccold, and we didn’t mark squat, so we worked out deep. Our action for the day started at about 7:30 out in 270 fow with 4 salmon in about 10 minutes. They were decent fish, a few in the teens, on deep stuff- 100 rigger, 400 copper, 300 dipsey. We worked the rest of the day in 270-330 picking away at various classes of salmon- over a dozen bites in a few hours. The action was deep, 60-100 down for the most part. By 1130, the south wind was howling and I figured my biggest 3 would have weighed in the mid 30s. Not too bad. We came in with a solid plan for Friday.

 

Friday- we ran right out to our waypoints from Thursday, about 300-350 just east of port. We had steady action on kings all day- 20 bites in all. The bite was much higher, mostly 25-50 down. Our leadcore was doing work and the 30-40 riggers with spoons were great. But the bigger fish from yesterday were gone. We could only find 2 year olds, and our score was 56, good for 6th. Tough to be mad about such good action, just sucks that our score didn’t reflect it. We would have had a classic box just shy of 200 pts. Oh well.

 

Saturday- what a catastrophe. Our departure was delayed by 1/2 hour due to ne winds. We left at 5:30 and pounded into 2-3 footers. We stopped short to check out 200 fow, as a saw a few boats with bigger fish were in that the range on Friday. We didn’t see squat, so we trolled out to 350 fow, and immediately had 2 bites- we boated a 6 lb king and lost a legit major. Then at 8:20, with the lake laying down, I get a call that the ams are being called in. Not only are we done for now, the day and the tournament are done?!?!? No going back out in the afternoon, no using our blow day?? My one fish netted us a whopping 16 pts. Ugh

 

It’s too bad how this ended. It shouldn’t have been called to begin with, though I understand why it was... but we certainly should have been able to go back out in the late morning or afternoon. 2 hours of fishing is by no means a reflection of skill- it only shows that you are lucky enough to set down right on active Fish. Why have a blow day if you aren’t gonna use it??? Also, I hear that someone who did VERY well Saturday may have called in and said how Unfishable it was.... I certainly hope this isn’t true.

 

This is a cool tournament and a cool spring fishery. I’ll be back. I just hope a few common sense changes are made.

 

 

The Fishin' Physician Assistant

[signalman]

Nice post thanks for the head.s up.

[tbamniagara]

Wheres the go pro footage? Decided not to fish it this year. Good report and good job. Was there a small craft advisory on Sat. for them to call it off. Last year I remember fishing 2-4s  with no advisory. The water moves so much at this time frame its tough to find good fish.

 

The Big Shadow

[rdebadts]

Wheres the go pro footage? Decided not to fish it this year. Good report and good job. Was there a small craft advisory on Sat. for them to call it off. Last year I remember fishing 2-4s  with no advisory. The water moves so much at this time frame its tough to find good fish.
 
The Big Shadow

The gopro is coming. Takes me some time to get it all edited. Should have a few videos in the next few weeks. It was 2-3 footers Saturday, not sure why it was called honestly.


The Fishin' Physician Assistant

[ripnlip]

Nice report! Too bad about the last day. Nice pictures.

 

Man, on that 1st pic be careful. That hook is awful close to your hand! That salmon does a head shake & that hook is likely to end up in your hand. Hate for something like that to ruin a trip!

 

Good luck!

[rdebadts]

Nice report! Too bad about the last day. Nice pictures.
 
Man, on that 1st pic be careful. That hook is awful close to your hand! That salmon does a head shake & that hook is likely to end up in your hand. Hate for something like that to ruin a trip!
 
Good luck!

Lol, I had already “subdued” him.


The Fishin' Physician Assistant