Quick trip - Braddock Bay - 6/28

I headed out with my ol' man and girlfriend around 7:30am and we fished till 10am. We started in tight looking for some Brown Trout, but the water was too warm. So, we slowly trolled North looking for that temp break and the Browns, but it just didn't show up. Once we hit 160' of water the center rigger started throbbing, so my girlfriend grabs the rod and fights a nice 5-6lb Steelhead to the net. It took a sliding cheater on a 60' rigger pulling a Dreamweaver SS Glow Froggy w/ a silver cup. Things were slow this morning with a bleak screen. However 160' seemed to be holding the most fish. I switched up one of the 5 colors to a 10 color with that Stinger Copper Confusion from Thursday evening. it wasn't in the water for 10 minutes and the rod was loaded with something heavy. That lasted about 10 seconds as the mono between the core and braid snapped. That spoon has had a lot of attention from the fish in the last two trips. About 9:30 I hear a rigger start screaming and I look up and it is the corner rigger I just changed up. I had it parked at 80' with a free slider. Both lures were Stinger Copper Glow Green Alewives. We boated a healthy teenage Salmon.This fish took the slider, and in my opinion was out of the comfort zone for Salmon considering my 60' rigger was reading 55 degrees. 

Really Quick weeknight trip - Braddock Bay - 6/25

We wanted to try a prop on the boat tonight so we headed out of Braddocks Bay around 7pm. WE set down in about 40' of water and started to set lines. We ran 3 riggers, 2 wires, a 10 color down the chute, and 2 five colors off the boards. We fished for about an hour and took 3 - 6-8lb Steelhead all off 5 color cores. 2 took a Stinger Confusion on a Copper blank. The third Steelie took a Rapala GFR in a J-11 size. The screen looked really good, but the current was ripping. I have no doubt that a morning trip out there would yield a bunch of action. I found out when we got out there that all my Steelie colors were in the other Special Mate box sitting at my brothers house. I wish I had some of them because I hear the Dreamweaver SS Crazy Bitch, Firecracker, and Steelie Dan along with the Stinger Mixed Veggies has been HOT off Braddocks in the last few days for some nice Steelies.

Fathers Day Weekend/NYS Bass Opener

So I took a break from the Lake Ontario Salmon and Trout to chase some Bass this past weekend. A much needed break! The Salmon and Trout fishery on the West end isn't very consistent right now. The weather for the weekend wasn't looking all that good, but thats why we have Gore-tex! I headed out to Conesus on Saturday morning and fished from 5:30-1. Fishing wasn't HOT and HEAVY, but it was relaxing. I tried like heck to get a topwater bite given the conditions, but the Bass weren't having it. Only a few Bass took the time to come up and grab either my clear Chug Bug or Deps Buzz Jet. So, on to other things that have found their way into my boat! I tossed soft plastics, jigs, and a chatterboat at the fish with little to show for. Finally I went back to a place I KNOW the fish are and pulled out my Bandit 200 in the Sexy Shad pattern. 3rd cast and fish on! I didn't think he was as big as he was, but when he got to the side of the boat I was like WHOA! I put a nice 4lb Largemouth in the boat. About 20 cast later fish on again! Same thing, I didn't think this fish was that big until he neared the boat and I noticed this one was about 3lbs. OK, so I think I'm on to something now. I didn't get bit for another 30 or 40 cast so I pulled off that spot and headed to the next one. On this spot I tossed a Senko around because this is a spot they like to bite the Senko. Well, nothing wanted a Senko. I picked up my crankbait an within 5 casts fish on! Unfortunately this one came off after a few seconds, but it looked like a decent fish. I fished the rest of the day and pulled a bunch of smaller Bass on the crankbait. It was nice to get out and even nicer to establish a pattern on a tough day. Here are some pics:

Sunday we headed to Sodus for the annual Sodus Bay Bassmasters open team tourney. Again, we were met with tough conditions, but we figured we could still catch them. We were right, but we couldnt catch the big ones. We bounced all over the bay looking for that one kicker fish. We tossd Frogs, soft plastics, crankbaits, jigs, and chatterbaits at the fish and all were eaten just as good as the next bait. At the end opf the day we were sitting with 10 pounds of bass and we knew it just wasnt enough. So, we put our fish back and headed home.

Orleans Pro Am 2009

OK, so the second leg of the Western End Cup was this past weekend out of one of my favorite ports (Oak Orchard).  We Have had a rough go this year in tourney's and we were looking for some revenge! We won this tourney 2 years ago.

Friday (Practice/Pre Tourney) - We hit the water on Friday after hearing about a decent steelhead bite. We dropped in at 70 right out front to check the King waters and trolled on a due North heading. We took our first shot around the 200' mark and it ended up being a 10lb King that took our 140 wire diver set on a 3 pulling a Dreamweaver SS Gator. It would be a while until we took our next fish. We trolled out to 550 and then headed South East towards Devil's Nose. Once we hit the inside water there we ran into the motherload of Lakers. We took a 10lb fish and being 1:30 we made the decision to toss it back. WRONG MOVE! A few minutes later we took a 6lb Laker, and tossed that one back. One took a Wondebread SmartFish pulling a Hammer fly and the other took a Northern King Glow Coyote. About 1:45 the 300 copper starts to sing. This fish took a few nice runs and when it got to the boat we knew we had a big guy. He took a White w/ Green Dot SmartFish pulling an A-TOM-MIK Ultra Green Glow Live Series fly. On our Berkley boga scale he just misses the 25lb mark weighing in at 24.85lbs. So, after we boxed that fish we tried to scramble for another big lake Trout and just couldn't do it. We did grab us a small 6lb King that hit our center rigger, but we tossed his back to live another day. 

So, at the captains meeting they announced the winners of the little pre tourney. If we had made the right decisions during the day we could have taken the 5th biggest box of the day and most likely the biggest fish of the day. Here is a picture of the slob!

Saturday (Day 1) - We headed over to Devil's Nose first thing. We took 2 nice Lakers and a couple of Kings there late in the day on Friday, so the decision wasn't a hard one. Well, the Lakers took no time at all! We boxed a couple of nice Lake Trout off SmartFish/A-TOM-MIK combos. One off the wire diver and the other off the 300 copper. We worked that area looking for a couple of Kings, but we never got bit. So we worked our way down to the Sandy creek area where we would pick up two fish. One King and one Steelhead. The Steelhead took a mixed Veggies Singray Stinger off our 10 color, and the King took a Dreamweaver SS Silver w/ Green Glow tape off our rigger parked down 40'. We would end the day by pulling into 30-40' off the nose to see if any Brown Trout were around and took two shots, but lost them both. One off a 5 color core towing a stinger Stingray Black Wiggler, and another off the rigger with a Stinger Copper Glow Green Alewife. We ended the day in the middle of the pack, but within striking distance of a check. Out of about 40 teams on day 1 there was 1 12 fish box, 1 10 fish box, 2 7 fish boxes, and the rest of the field had 6 or less.

Sunday (Day 2) - Well, day 2 we decided to hang out in front of the Oak because some big guys were caught there the last two days. We managed to take a small Steelhead out of there but that was it. So, we made the run down to the nose and had our two Lakers in a matter of 30 minutes. We worked the area to see if there were any kings in it and we did take one off our center rigger while we were hooked up with a Laker. The King took a Dreamweaver SS Gator and the Lakers took White SmartFish/A-TOM-MIK combos. We worked that area a little more and even checked inside for Browns without another touch. We then made the decision to take a run out to 450' of water to try for some steelhead. With 30 minutes left to fish we took one on a slide diver pulling a Stingray Gator. When it was all said and done we stayed right were we started the day in 22nd place.

June is a tough month on the Big O! The fish and the Lake are in a transitional period. You can catch them one day and they will be gone on another.

Niagara Pro Am 2009

Friday (Practice/Pre-Tourney) - We headed out about 5:30am and worked the area from Wilson west to the Niagara Bar. Fishing wasn't fast and furious for us, but there was a steady pick most of the day. Our first big guy came 105 down on the corner rigger pulling my favorite Sea Sick Waddler NK 28. Shortly there after we took a ripper on the 375 wire that eventually wound himself up in the 10 color core off to the side. We ended up dropping him because of this. He took that Green dot Smartfish with an A-TOM-MIK Ultra Green Glow fly. Our last King would come from our center rigger that we had parked at 75' for Coho on a Dreamweaver SS Orange Slurpee. The rest of the day was a steady pick of Coho, small stealhead, and small kings. We got our limit, but it wasn't impressive. 

Saturday (Day 1) - Well, we wanted to see if we could scrape up a few kings before we headed into box out on Coho, but the Kings weren't playing in the area we were working. We went deep looking for some and all we found were Coho and a nice 9lb Steelhead. The lure of the day was the Stinger Stingray Mixed Veggies. It took 4 out of the 6 fish we boxed fished off our 10 color core. The Coho we found the day before had moved West a tad and when we got on top of them the bite was over. A very disappointing day for us given we have been slamming the fish out of Wilson for a few weeks, but it is June and the lake seems to be very hit or miss during this particular month.

So, our decision Saturday night was that we needed to go big! Coho weren't going to get us in the money.

Sunday (Day 2) - So, we headed out to a spot that another boat had some luck on a few Kings the day before. We didn't have all the lines in the water when the 400 wire starts to throb. Well, 6:04am and we had our first King locked and by 6:15 he was in our cooler. He took a Dreamweaver Spinny White w/ a Green Edge pulling a Sea Sick Waddler A-TOM-MIK fly. We were pumped thinking we would have a shot at money by the end of the day. Well, it was 8:am before we were locked into another fish. This one hit the 200 rigger pulling a Dreamweaver Spinny Black w/ green dots trailed by an A-TOM-MIK Ultra green Glow fly. No sooner did we get it down and it was hooked up again. So in 15 minutes we had another teenager in the box followed closely by a Coho. Then another lull! We would take a few shots off the 600 later pulling the Green dot SmartFish trailed by an A-TOM-MIK Ultra Glow Green fly. Lastly, our 400 wire would take off with another big guy. This one on a Dreamweaver Frog Racer Spinny towing an A-TOM-MIK Ultra Glow Green fly. We would end the day with 6 in the box again. However 4 were Salmon and 2 were Coho.