Switching
it up a little! It was just me and my brother today. We had heard
that there were some Kings around, but the bite was very early. So, I woke up at 4:30, and we were leaving the pier-heads
a little before 5. We went straight out and set up in 70 feet of water. Screen wasn't great, but we started to set lines.
It didn't take long at our 400 copper started to freakin' scream! I handed the rod off to my brother and he began his battle
with this fish that would last for a good 25 minutes. As it got close to the net I could tell it was a nice fish, but I had
no idea how nice it really was until it hit the deck of the boat. Immediately we put it on the scale and it settled at 29.0
pounds. My brother said he wanted that silver Spring King on his wall so we ran in and put it on ice. We ran back out to the
same area and set lines once again, and we began a slow pick for the next hour and a half. We would boat another King around
14 pounds, and two other Kings in the 5 pound range. At 8:30 we called it quits and went in for some breakfast. The big guy
took a Smart Fish green dot towing an A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist, two of the remaining three fish took a wonder dot Smart Fish towing
an A-TOM-MIK shredded Hammer, and the last one took a Northern King THAT spoon. All in all it was a great morning and a good
weekend at the Wilson Boat House marina. When we dropped the fish off at Mountain Man Taxidermy he measured it at 40"
from the nose to the bottom of the 'V' in the tail. The girth measures out at 25". I can't wait till August and September
are here so we can fish for true 40 pound Kings in Lake Ontario. Pictures from the day:  
5/29 - More Cohos Well,
today was embarrassing. I woke up to my customer standing behind my boat wondering where I was. I thought they were coming
on Sunday, but he booked Saturday. It was all good as my brother and I rushed to get the boat together, and ready for this
charter. I knew the Cohos were all over he Niagara Bar, so we broke the pier-heads at 5am and rolled down to the bar. We were
one of the first boats there and the bite was fast and furious for the first hour. We boxed 3 in the first hour and then we
went flat. The Cohos would come in spurts of 2-4 fish at a time and we would end the day with a nice box of Cohos for John
and his family. Our program today consisted of a few short short cores off our otter boats, short wires and slide divers,
and three downriggers. Hot set-ups for today were A-TOM-MIK Coho flies in the Ludington and Blue/Green color schemes behind
Dreamweaver mini spinnies. Also, a Dreamweaver Get-r-done was taking shots as a slider on our 45 rigger. John fished with us last
year. He took his daughter and her friends out with us as a gift for graduating from college. We took some hefty Kings last
year. This year we smoked the Cohos. Needless to say they left very happy again. Here are a few shots from our trip:  
5/25
- More Coho's and Tons of action! The last two days have been a lot
of fun. Took a little vacation time from work to enjoy some great Lake Ontario fishing with my very first customers when I
started chartering four years ago. These guys come from all over the Northeastern part of the US each year and fish with us
for two days. Nick (the leader of the gang) comes from New Jersey, Gaylord hails from Minnesota, Al lives over in Connecticut,
and Phil is a Rochesterian. A Rochesterian who up until about four years ago never knew about the fishery in his back yard.
We find that to be the case a lot when talking to people in our home town of Rochester. Well, we figured we would go down to the Niagara Bar again and try to load
up the cooler with Coho's and maybe try to end the day searching for some Kings. Al is the only one who hasn't battled a Spring
King. This group last year (minus Al) had an amazing two days with lots of large King Salmon hitting our deck. This year they
hooked up with the most amount of fish in two days than ever before! At 11a.m. we had 2 Cohos in the box and we had dropped
at least a dozen fish. We went on a HOT streak that included landing a triple and a double back to back. Come 2 o' clock we
had 11 in the box we tossed back a skippy and lost at least 12 or 14 Cohos. We ran the same program as the previous day with a 3 and a 5 color core off
each otter boat, 3 downriggers, 2 wires out anywhere from 75 to 175 on 2.5 and 3 settings, and a 10 color down the chute.
LOTS of lures went today, but the hot set-up was a DW 5" Orange Spinny pulling an A-TOM-MIK Ludington Coho fly. Second
best rig was a silver LJ dodger pulling an A-TOM-MIK Green Crinkle Coho Fly. On our riggers many spoons took a hit or two,
but I was pleasantly surprised when the DW SS Get r done went a few times as a slidr on our corner rigger. We lost a monster
Rainbow 20' behind the boat when it decided to do a pair of 3' leaps before Nick had a chance to grab the rod. Other spoons
that went were DW SS Firecracker, Orange Gangsta, and my favorite Coho lure the Orange Slurpee. We parked our riggers at 30-70'
depending on whether we were on top of the bar or out over open water. The picture seemed to be a little worse than yesterday's,
but not bad enough to put us in search mode. My
birthday weekend went GREAT, and I really enjoyed fishing for the last four days. Mother nature decided to be nice to us,
and we had flat calm seas for all four days. We have one trip on Sunday, but we will be fun fishing/practicing for the first
Pro-Am which starts the first weekend of June. I have a few pictures that I am going to have to post later today, so stay
tuned!   
5/24 -
Coho Nation! Today and also again tomorrow I have my very first charter clients fishing
with us. Great group of guys spread from Minnesota to the Jersey Shore. After what we did to the Cohos on Sunday it was a
no brain'r to go back and beat up on them some more. We left the dock at 6:15 and ran about 9 miles West. When we sat down
the screen wasn't great, but we started to set lines anyway. The screen finally got better, and rods started to pop. We ran
a 2 color on the furthest line out on our Otter Boats, and a five color right next to it. On the 2 colors we had Dreamweaver
Coho Killer and an Orange Slurpee SS going, and on the five colors were mini Dreamweaver Spin Doctors in Orange with blue/green
and green/gold A-TOM-MIK Coho Flies. The green/gold was the HOT set-up for the day. On our riggers we put numerous spoons,
but the one that went the most was a Dreamweaver SS Firecracker. A few shots on our wires today pulling Green SmartFish/A-TOM-MIK
Hypnotist flies. We boxed out, and lost at least another one. That Coho roll is a real winner if you ever want to get un-hooked!
Back at it again tomorrow, and the game plan is Cohos then maybe we go looking for a King or two. Not many Kings caught today
from what I heard. Our Big guy today was a toss up between a 10lb Coho and a 9lb Rainbow.   
5/23 -
Took the girlfriends out! My brother Craig and I took our girlfriends out
today, and the weather was exactly what they wanted.....sun and flat seas. Think they cared about catching fish? Nope! All
they wanted was to get a sun tan, well they need to learn that those come faster than normal when your trolling on Lake Ontario.
On the way out at 9a.m. (yeah thats right 9a.m.) I made a few calls and the story was that it was slow for EVERYONE. So, we
just rolled West and pulled in at 4 mile creek before we started to set lines. It didn't take long and we were slowly moving
rods. All Cohos for the most part, and there were some real beauties tipping the scale at 7-9 pounds. A-TOM-MIK Coho flies
(Blue/Green), Dreamweaver SS's (Firecracker), and A-TOM-MIK Salmon flies (Hypnotist) were doing the trick. Around noon our
ten color pulling a Moonshine Carbon 14 started to sing, and when that fish hit the deck we were pleasantly surprised. a 13
pound Atlantic Salmon! Thank you Canada! WE pulled lines shortly there after and headed for the marina. Girls were baked,
and our stomachs were empty. It was a pleasant day on the big pond, and we will be out Monday and Tuesday. Check out some
pictures from today:  
5/22 - Scraped up some action on a TOUGH
day! Today Jeff and his brother came all the way from the Jersey Shore with
his son Jacob and his niece Sara. They were tipped off by my Monday and Tuesday crew that the fishing in Lake Ontario is pretty
exciting. So, I made the poor kids get up and on the boat by 5:30am and we left for what we heard was a tough bite. We sat
down in 60 fow right off Wilson harbor and the screen was LOADED with bait and Salmon. So we set lines on a NW troll. We tried
to run a high low program today. High for some cohos to satisfy the kids, and low to try and WOW the kids with a MONSTER Salmon.
It took a few minutes after we got set up to entice a fish, but once we did it was a steady pick until about noon. We never
saw a Coho, but the skippy Kings put up enough of a fight to put some smiles on the kids faces. Our down riggers were going
anywhere from 50-80. The spoon of the day was our Northern King Sea Sick Waddler fished on our 70 rigger. The 80 rigger went
with an Northern King THAT spoon as did our 50 rigger with a Northern King dimple light Glow Coyote. We ended up throwing
back five Salmon that really needed a few more years to grow up, and that was fully understood when this guy hit the deck
and they saw what I meant: This guy weighed a hair over
19 pounds. Not huge, but a very good representation of a Spring King, and compared to the 12-15" Salmon we were catching
this was a treat. Our program today consisted of 3 riggers, 4 wires, 2 short cores off one Otter boat and a 300 or 400 off
the other otter boat. Just about everything took a shot. Jeff and family went home with a few bags of Salmon fillets, and
the kids went home with a smile. To top it off on thier way they got to see Niagara Falls, and they tasted some wings from
Duffs. Here are some other shots from today:  
Lake Ontario Salmon and Trout Pro-Am Tournament
Series Check out this new, very cool, promotional video for the Pro Am tournament
series that hits up Niagara, Orleans, Jefferson, and Wayne county each year. We participate in all four events, and grab a
few top 10s each year. Its been 3 years since we won an event, and we plan on changing that this year! The Lake Cup is up
for the taking in 2010 after the Cold Steel boyz ran away with it in 2009. This prestigious cup has been passed around to
a lot of great teams over the last 15 or more years. Will 2010 be our year? We will just have to wait and see! In the meantime
check out this video. If this doesn't get your blood pumping.......YOUR DEAD!
2010 - The year
of the BIG SALMON! So, already this year we have seen at least 3 fish over 30, and possibly
a rumored 4th. Just yesterday Captain Bob Stevens boated a 35lb King Salmon while fishing the Niagara Bar. That fish in August
or September would have been mid 40's!!!!!! We haven't seen 40 pound fish in Lake Ontario in quite a while. Not to mention
it is almost unheard of in the rest of the Great Lakes. We are talking Alaska size King Salmon right here in Lake Ontario!!!
Our big guy so far this year tipped the scale at 25 pounds, and that happened this past weekend. We are already getting ready
to have a 40 pound brute hit our deck by the end of this season. The question is.....When will it happen? Will it happen during
a tournament, or a charter? An FYI.....here are the dates we have left for the 2010
season. The season you don't want to miss out on! May
29th and 31st June 26th and 27th July 3rd, 4th, 5th, 24th, and 25th August 28th and 29th September 4th, 5th, and 6th
May 16th Charter - TOUGH, but we prevailed! I
had some friends from work out with us today, so I HAD to produce! With yesterdays results I figured it would be NO PROBLEM!
Well, I was wrong. Water color looked GREAT, and the screen was very good. It took us a while to get our first shot. Unlike
yesterday, our wires never took a shot today. We ran the same program as yesterday. 4 wires, 2 - 500 coppers, and 3 riggers.
An NK THAT spoon did half our fish today on our corner rigger parked at 100'. The other MVP for the day was a wonder dot SmartFish/A-TOM-MIK
glow hammer fished off our 500 copper. In talking to a lot of other boats out there today everyone struggled.The disappointment
for the day was having two nice Kings get sawed off by our wire rods. We worked so hard for the bites we got, and to have
that happen hurt. Regardless, there was enough action for the guys and girls today, and they left with plenty of meat for
the fridge. Here is the Toronto Skyline
you will see when fishing from the Port of Wilson in May with Crazy Yankee Sportfishing! 
Sun, May 16, 2010 | link
Promoting our Fishery! Article in Rochester's Democrat and Chronicle on Sunday May 9th in the
Outdoor Section On
Thursday I was interviewed for an article that was going to feature our new Lake Ontario Tweets website in the Sunday's Outdoor section. I didn't
know there was going to be another article about our fishery that would feature us. So, when I saw that on Sunday morning
at breakfast (because we were blown off Lady O) I was pleasantly surprised. Leo Roth, who is the editor for that section of
the Democrat and Chronicle, did a fantastic job on the article. Although we were featured in the article it was more geared
towards the great fishery/resource we have in our back yard. Promoting this fishery is a task that everyone who fishes the
Lake should take on. My good friend Bill Ruth, who runs Billy V Sportfishing, and myself created Lake Ontario Tweets, or LOT,
do do this very thing. Check out the article below: The article about Lake Ontario Tweets:
Wilson Scotty Tournament May
7th (Practice) - Our team left the dock at 6am, and the game plan was to head West to the 4 mile creek area and work the waters
between there and the border. We didn't get our rods set, and they started to fly. The first fish took a 175' wire diver pulling
a black double crush glow Smart Fish and an A-TOM-MIK hammer fly. While that fish was in play the corner rigger started to
throb and I was on that rod. As I popped it from the downrigger I could tell it was a nice fish. However, about 10 seconds
into the fight I could tell the fish went under my low diver. We tried to fix that, but nothing was working. So, I put the
thumb down on that fish and never let it get more than 20 or 30 yards on me. What happened was the cheater caught the wire
line on the way up. We fixed that problem and proceeded to put that fish in the boat. It was a very healthy 20 pound Salmon,
and as I was pulling the Dreamweaver Moon Cricket out of that fish the fish on the 175' diver hit the deck. That was only
a 7-9lb Salmon, and we sent it back to grow up. We boxed the 20lb'er because we were in the Dreamweaver Big Fish Friday tournament,
and preceded to set the rest of the lines. We fished a 3 rigger, 4 wire, 3 copper program. Soon after getting all the rods
set up our 500 copper down the chute takes off singing! Joe jumps on the rod, and he was in for a battle. This fish played
with us by taking a few nice runs. Generally on long coppers one or two runs are the norm, but this fish didn't want to stop.
After about 30 minutes of hoping it was big, and bustin' Joe's chops for allowing this fish to whoop him the Salmon hit the
deck. Disappointment set in as this fish would hit the scales at 18lbs (not bigger than the 20lb Salmon already in the cooler),
so we put him back to be caught another day. On the end of that 500 copper was a wonder dot Smart Fish trailed by an A-TOM-MIK
Hammer fly. In the next hour we picked up two Coho's and at 8:45am our bite was over. We trolled until 1pm with just one more
fish to add to the count. The predicted winds started to pick up out of the East, and we called it a day. The
20lb Salmon I battled. Joe taking a butt whoopin! May 8th and 9th (Tourney) - For the first time in 14 years both days
of a Scotty event were canceled. The Gale Force winds on Saturday were spectacular! The piers in Wilson were submerged in
HUGE waves. Not a chance we would have made it out there, and I applaud the tournament directors for making the right decision.
The winds continued on into Sunday, and we even had some snow flakes to top it off. Just a miserable weekend for Lake Ontario.
Congrats
to the winners of the LOC Spring derby. For starters there were 2 fish weighed in that tipped the scales at 32 pounds even and 32 pounds and change.
Thats just unheard of this early! The bottom fish in the Salmon division would have won the whole thing in most years. Why
am I so excited about this? Well, this means we may have some true opportunities at a 40lb fish come late August and September.
This WILL be the year of TRUE TROPHY'S. We still have the 23rd and 29th open this month and a few other dates available over
the summer. You DON'T want to miss the 2010 Lake Ontario fishing season!
Spring
LOC Derby 2010 - 1st Weekend The weather this weekend was AMAZING!
However, if there was ever a weekend I wanted some wind this was the one! There was a gnat hatch out there, and boy was it
one of the worst ones I have ever seen. We had GLOBS of gnat's on our flybridge. We couldn't even think about going up there.
A few made their ways into our noses, mouths, and ears, but we never stopped fishing for a derby winner! Check out some pictures
of our boat from Sunday (they don't do it justice).  
Sunday May 2nd - Today we ran a charter with a friend
I met on Lake Ontario United. This was Anthony's third trip with me over the last four years. He really wanted to put his name on the LOC Derby leaaderboard, but we just weren't successful at doing so again today. The good news is we fell just one fish short of a couple dozen.
I couldn't get the rods in the water this morning! We tweaked our program from the prior day, and it worked out perfect. We
started off with more Lakers than Salmon, but that slowly switched as the day passed on. An NK THAT spoon took a few fish,
but it didn't come close to the Dreamweaver Moon Cricket's performance. Boy was that HOT today. A few fish also took a Dreamweaver
Roy Boy. Riggers were parked between 30-45 for most of the day. The flasher/fly bite on our wires died late morning, so a
Dreamweaver green dolphin mag on one side and a Dreamweaver blue dolphin mag on the other side took a few more Kings. 125'
was our hot number on the wires again today. Check out a few pictures from the day.   
Saturday May 1st - After last weekend
we were looking for a little revenge on some Salmon. Well, we got it! We spent Saturday looking for a fish to place on the
derby leaderboard. We weren't successful at our goal, but we took enough fish to have some fun for a few hours. A great mix
of Salmon, Cohos, and Lake trout. The Lake Trout we have been catching off the Niagara Bar have been some real beauties. 14-17
pound fish almost the norm. I might even go out on a limb and say they are becoming aggressive! We were taking them at King
speeds, which really makes us shake our head. Dreamweaver's Roy Boy and an NK THAT spoon in a 28 size were the hot set-ups
on our riggers parked at 30-40' down. On our wires we ran a Smart Fish (white with green dot) pulling an A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist,
and a Dreamweaver Spin Doctor in a gator pattern with an A-TOM-MIK green crinkle. 150' wires were taking Lakers, so we pulled
them into 125' and the Kings started to feast. We tried 5 and 10 color cores off the boards with little success, and a 300
copper run short down the chute, and that resulted in the same low success rate. Here is a nice picture of me and our largest
King of the day. 
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