6/28 – Afternoon Charter

 

We joined forces with Maverick Sportfishing and Hideout Charters to take out a group from the company 5linx. 5linx booked this trip for some of their employees and some of their customers as an appreciation event. We left the dock at 2pm and fished till 5:30pm and I can guarantee that every person that went out had a GREAT time. All the boats reported multiple fish hook-ups at the same time. We started the trip with a quad, and landed 3 of the 4 fish. The one that got away was the biggest of the 4 (I swear that’s no fish story).

 

We ran 3 riggers parked at 80, 95, and 110. On the riggers we ran spoons with sliders. DW Shiznits, DW Feelin Erie, and Stinger Later Gators. The temperature dropped a little further today. We finally found 50 degrees at 80’ down on our Depth Raider. Our Deeper Divers were set on a 1.5 and set out 250 and 200. Later on we slid each of them back 25’. We pulled a Wonder Dot SmartFish with a shredded A-TOM-MIK Hammer fly, and a DW Gator Spin Doctor with an A-TOM-MIK Green Crinkle on the wires. Lastly, we set out a 400 copper with a Icehouse chip/A-TOM-MIK Mirage Live, and on the 500 copper we put a Green Dot SmartFish/A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist. A 7 rod spread was hard enough to keep in the water!

 

As I mentioned above our crew started with a quadruple, and it seemed like when one rod went off another one would soon follow. We finally marked a few pods of bait tonight unlike the past few days. A lot of skippy kings were put back for the future of our fishery. We boxed 3 nice Kings, a Nice Coho, and a Steelhead in the end. All rods took fish at one point or another. Hot spoon of the day was the Shiznit AGAIN, but the other two spoons were very close behind.

 

Chris Lopresti, who runs Maverick Sportfishing, says his Northern King 42nd spoon was his #1 spoon of the evening, and he was also the captain who took the big guy tipping the scales at 24lbs. Our big guy of the trip was a tad shy of 22lbs. We had another good one swim out of the net that might have challenged Chris’s big guy…LOL…but me, the captain, didn’t do so well on the net job. That fish still had a little left in him. Rob on the Hideout says his Gators were his best spoon of the night. We all fished the 24/25N lines straight out of the chute.

 

The mix of fish right now is AMAZING out of the Oak. If you have a ride to get you out there then don’t miss out on this bite. We all smoked them in mid-day conditions! If you don’t have a ride contact us for a charter. We have a few dates open, and we would love to have you aboard. Check out some pictures from our boat:

6/27 Derby Fishing

 

We left a little earlier this morning with just my brother, my girlfriend, and me. The six rod spread was the max we could run, which I can’t stand because it’s hard to cover the water column efficiently. Well, by the end of the day maybe less was better!

 

We set up the same program we ended with yesterday (minus 2 extra wires). The program consisted of: 3 riggers, 2 wires, and a 400 copper. On the riggers we had Dreamweaver Feelin’ Erie on the 90-100 rigger, Dreamweaver SS Da Shiznit on our 70-80 rigger, and on our center rigger we had a pair of Stinger Stingray Wonderbreads down for half the morning, and then we switched it up to a Pair of Stinger Later Gators. On the wires we planted a Wonder Dot SmartFish pulling a shredded A-TOM-MIK Hammer fly at 225’ on a 1.5, and a Green Dot SmartFish pulling an A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist out 200’ on a 1.5. On the 400 copper we pulled my Custom Green SmartFish with an A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist.

 

It took us a few minutes to find the fish. We hung out in that 150’ area we did so well in yesterday. We got a call from a buddy a few minutes after we pointed it north, and he said they were on them pretty good. The end of our conversation ended in “Eric, I’ll call you back! Screeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaamer!”  That was the start of it, and it would be CRAZY for the next few hours. At one point 5 out of the 6 rods were out of the water because we had caught fish on them. We tripled at one point, which is fun with 3 people. We did something today that we haven’t done in a long time, and that was to hit a Lake Ontario Grand Slam. In my book that consist of a Salmon, Steelhead, Brown Trout, and a Lake Trout. Our catch for the day consisted mostly of Chinook and Coho Salmon. We caught 1 each of the following: Brown Trout (5lbs), Lake Trout (5lbs), and a Rainbow Trout (17lbs). If we would have boated an Atlantic salmon it would have made it even more special because that would mean we would have caught every cold water species Lake Ontario has to offer.

 

Everything was going with consistency until about 8:45 when the 80 rigger fires. Within seconds a MONSTER Rainbow Trout is breaking surface. My brother and I both yelled “Holy SH*T!” The focus and the intensity was now directed to getting this pig to the net. With at least 6 acrobatic jumps I was sweating bullets. On the way in the fish decided it wanted to test our McCoy Mono in the wire diver, but my brother grabbed that rod and put it in a safe place in the center rigger. When this fish hit the deck it was all high fives. The decision was to head in and weigh it in for the Summer LOC Derby. We quickly put it on the scale and it read a heavy 17 pounds. Knowing the leader was currently my buddy Rich Baliva on the Godzilla boat at 15 pounds and change we put the throttle down. We arrived at Narby’s and the fish weighed 17.4 pounds on the LOC Derby Scale. Good enough for 1st place! Now we have to wait 3 weeks to see if we get knocked off the pedestal.

 

We still had two hours of fishing time before I had to go, so we headed back out to the 25N line and set rods. WE changed out the Green dot SmartFish on the wire for a Gator Spin Doctor and an A-TOM-MIK Green Crinkle, but the rest of the spread stayed the same. Well, it didn’t take long and we were into them again. We would end the day with a nice double on teenage Chinooks. Everything in the spread was going quite consistently the whole morning. Our screen wasn’t great, but rods were flying.

 

The mix of fish off the Oak right now is amazing, so don’t hesitate to get out there, or book a trip with us this weekend coming up before we head East to fish the last two Pro-Ams of the 2010 season.

6/26 – Derby Fishing

 

We left the dock at 7am after the girls got their breakfast in. Man I hate it when they don’t want to wake up early! We headed out to 100fow and set lines. We ran with a double diver program, three riggers, and a 400 copper down the chute. We ran paddles on the deep divers, and spoons on the high divers. Spoons on all the riggers and a paddle on the copper would finish off our program.

 

On the wires we planted a Wonder Dot SmartFish pulling a shredded A-TOM-MIK Hammer fly at 200’ on a 1.5, and a Green Dot SmartFish pulling an A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist out 150’ on a 1.5. On the 400 copper we pulled my Custom Green SmartFish with an A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist. The first round of lure choices on the riggers was Northern King Lazer Spooks, Dreamweaver SS Glow Froggys, and pair of Dreamweaver SS Firecrackers.  Our high Divers were set on 3’s and put 50’ behind our low divers with Magnum spoons. One was a Dreamweaver gator, and the other was a Dreamweaver Moon Cricket.

 

After we got set-up it took a while to get into some fish. We ran West a bit and continued to troll west because we knew there were some good Kings down there from reports on Friday our of Olcott. After 30 minutes of nothing I looked up at the sky and it was very overcast. The light bulb goes off in my head. The Sunday of the Orleans Pro Am the sky was very similar to today. So I dug out the spoons that were red hot on that day, and down they went. A Dreamweaver SS Da Shiznit went down 70, a Dreamweaver Feelin’ Erie went down on the 90 rigger, and a pair of Stinger Stingray Wonderbreads went down 50. It didn’t take long and the rods started going crazy with hooked up fish! For the next few hours we would pound on the Salmon. Mostly 2yr olds with 1 or 2 3yr old mixed in. Perfect fish for the girls!

 

Our fish were only coming on an Easterly troll, and we found out why when we tried to troll West. The current was strong down there. We finally got a few rods to fire on the West troll at the end of our trip, but the East troll was by far the best troll for us and a few other boats I talked to. We finished the day with a lot of fish hooked up and landed, and we came very close to the Lake Ontario Grand Slam. As I stated above mostly a Salmon bite (Chinook and Cohos), but we did manage to get a Brown Trout and a Steelhead on this trip.

 

The girls had fun, so that was a win. We had fun too, but no derby fish for us on this day. On a side note the Coho Salmon that we are getting are very healthy and very nice sized.

One of Many Serious Threats to OUR Fishery

 

The Asian Carp have made it past the Army's Corp's electric barriers!  A live Carp was cuaght yesterday 6 miles from Lake Michigan. So what's next? No one knows, but there won't be any good that comes from this. Lake Michigan, and the Great Lakes, could be severly hurt by the devistaion to the ecosystem this fish could cause. The Great Lakes brings in an estimated 7 billion dollars a year from just its fishery. This could be severly at stake! Check out some articles about this in todays news:

 

Yahoo News

 

MLive.com

 

More on the possible effects of Asian Carp:

 

Stop Asian Carp

 

Dang these things are UGLY!!!

 

Fat Nancy's in Oswego!

 

One of the best tackle shops in Pulaski just expanded thier brand into Oswego. I can guarantee this will save my brother time and gas when we are fishing events held out of Oswego! He always took the drive to Pulaski to support the stores owner (Rob Ripka).

 

 

Fat Nancy’s is now open in Oswego New York. The location is 125 East 1st street. They always carry a full line of river and lake tackle that is unmatched. Products from G-Loomis, Abu Garcia, William Josesph, Abel, Sheffield, Maui Jim, Korkers, Chota, Daiwa, Hodgman, Shakespeare, Water Gremlin, Stren, Mitchell, Shimano, Fisherman, Daiichi, Riversider Rods, Owner, Berkley, Scott and many, many more.

 

They also have a variety of clothing options including sunglasses, t-shirts, hats and more available. If a NYS Fishing License is what you need, they've got you covered there too. They can deliver as well for you via UPS. All major credit cards accepted. Just about anything you can think of that you will need to spend time on the water, you can find right at Fat Nancys!

 

Mid year Review - Daiwa Saltist

 

In 2009 we ran a pair or Saltist STTLW50HA on our 10 color leadcore rods. We were very impressed with the reel as a whole. The old consensus with higher speed reels was that you would loose power in the reel to wrench in larger fish.

 

This is something we put to the test in Late April 2009. While fishing the Spring Scotty from Port Delhousie our hot set-up was our ten color fished down the chute with a Stinger Magnum Penguin. On the last day of the tournament as were were already tripled up and there went the 10 color chute rod! Boy did that drag scream. Well, we would go on to land 3 of the 4 and the largest one was the one taken on the 10 color set-up. He tipped our boat scale at a little over 21lbs. That's a great fish for April on Lake Ontario. When that fish hit the deck my father turned to me and said "WOW that fish came in fast! This is a great reel." 

 

Well, we went on to fish that reel the rest of the Summer, but most of the time it was spent battling Steelhead off-shore. Although they put out quite a fight they have nothing on a large King Salmon. So, along comes Labor day weekend. The Kings were staging in 80' of water. I put out both 10 color rods one of those mornings, and they were HOT. Taking fish after fish. This time of year the Kings are large! We ended up taking 3 fish over 25lbs on those reels that day, and I have to say they handled them with ease. One of whch was 28lbs!

 

The speed of these reels isn't the only benefit you get when you fish with one of these reels. The Saltist line of trolling reels has by far the smoothest drag that any Daiwa trolling reel has ever had. This is an important factor when fishing for big Salmon. A sticky or poor drag can cost you fish, and sometimes gear. Another benefit you will notice with these reels is the extra large handle. A great improvement over the one that came standard with the Sealine 47LC's. 

 

For 2010 these reels came equipped with Line counters, which a lot of people were waiting for. If your in the market for a high end trolling reel then you have to give the Daiwa Saltist line-up a serious look. You wont be disappointed!

Orleans Pro/Am 2010

 

Our team this week consisted of my bother and I, Rob Wescott of Legecy Sportfishing, and Jeremy Sage of JDs Custom Charters. Both of which fish from Sandy Creek. If you want to cash a check, or even win one of these tourneys, you need two consistent days. The teams fishing these tournaments are SO good that you can't slip up. This was the case for our team this weekend. Mother Nature threw us a curve ball on Day 1, and we paid the price for it. I'm not so sure I will ever like her!

 

Friday 5/11 (Practice) - We headed East because my friend Bill Ruth was fishing down from Wilson. With one day of practice a good friend to help cover water is a must! So we ran down a few miles and setup in 80 foot of water heading East. It didn't take long and we were into fish. The first one being a 14lb King Salmon that took our Dreamweaver SS Glow Froggy slider on our 40 downrigger. I was like WOW, thats high! Well, that would be the last time that downrigger went. The rest of the day the leadcores took over with a bunch of different spoons. Dreamweaver SS Firecrackers, Stinger Wonderbreads, and Stinger Mix veggies were our hot spoons of the day. We would have never boxed our 12 in practice, but we never turned on any fish either. We ran a 5 and a 10 color off each Otter boat, 3 downriggers, and 2 wires just trying to cover the water column. 

 

Saturday 5/12 (Day 1) - As I was checking Lake Ontario Tweets Friday night I saw that my buddy Jeremy slayed the big guys off Olcott. After a few phone calls with him, and a NOAA marine forecast update we said it would be foolish of us not to make that 23+ mile run. Well, at the dock in the morning we had mixed reports on the weather. I saw SE turning to SW, but my buddy Rob on the Hideout boat saw ENE 10-20. Thats bad news for this end of the Lake! Well, our team looked at each other and agreed to stick to our game plan. So, down to the power plant we went. Once we got down there and started to set lines the temperature started to drop and that stiff NE wind started to blow. Within 30 minutes we were rockin' and rollin' in 6-8' waves! 23 miles from port might I add! We tried to troll into them knowing that going with them was not an option. Well, that didn't last long! After 10 or 15 waves over our bow we said this is stupid and we collectively made the decision to run back to port safely. 10 miles an hour all the way back and two hours later we were in front of the Oak. Might I add it was almost 10am, which left four hours to fish. As we set up our 8 rod spread the wind just died! I was thinking to myself "you have to be kidding me!" Once everything was in the water it didn't take long to hook up. The 5 color core with a Dreamweaver SS Firecracker goes off. I grab the rod and bring an 11lb Rainbow to the net. That fish would be our only fish on, and our only fish boxed for the rest of the day.

 

Sunday 5/13 (Day 2) - Team decision on the dock this day was to run 10 miles West, set up, and troll NW until we figured something out. We stopped in 100', 175', 200', and finally 250' before we set lines. We popped a quick Rainbow, and then our program started to develop. We ran a pair of 5 color cores off the Otter boats, a 10 color down the chute, 3 downriggers, a wire, and a slide diver. That first fish took a Dreamweaver SS Firecracker off the 5 color core. Then the 45 rigger with a slider started to put out. Both spoons were Dreamweaver SS Da' Shiznits, and either the slider would go or the main line. It didn't matter. That was our hot spoon of the morning! We tried to find something similar to it for the other riggers and finally did with a Dreamweaver regular Green Eye Glow Ghost, which would take our 21lb King Salmon today. We boxed our 12 by 10:30, and headed in for some lunch. Another spoon that took a few shots was a Stinger NBK fished off a 120 wire diver, and also the Dreamweaver SS Firecracker o our 5 color. We finished with 3 Kings, 1 Coho, and 8 Rainbows for a total weight of 82 pounds. We were the first Pro team to box out, and one of only 5 Pro teams to box out on day 2. The fish wanted it on a strict NE troll into the slight chop. We had a line that was absolutely sick! Doubles and even a triple at one point. We would box our 12 toss back 2 shorts, and drop 5 fish. Some of the Rainbows we caught this weekend were real giants, and they were very acrobatic.

 

We finished the tourney in 16th place, which wasn't bad considering our 1 fish day on Saturday. We also took claim to the Siggs Rigs Comeback award for the tourney. The West end is done, and it is time to head down East in a few weeks. When I fish sliding cheaters its mainly when I am fishing a Rainbow or Coho program. Usually with sliding cheaters you loose A LOT of fish. There is just too much slack in the line. However, those new Daiwa Saltist with the high speed retrieves have come in very handy when trying to catch up to these fish on the sliders. A few other boats running these reels have seen the same thing. I can honestly say that these new Daiwa Saltist are putting more fish in the boat!

Selling my Bass Boat!

 

The time has come for me to sell my Bass Boat. Lake Ontario has me fishing just about every weekend from April through Spetember, which leaves no time to chase Bass like I used to. With that being said I have a beauty for sale! It was my dream Bass Boat! The colors are a rare combination to say the least. I have owned it for 4 years now, and I picked it up in Nashville, TN. Check out the specifics:

2004 Ranger 520VX Comanche with a 2003 225 Yamaha VMAX HPDI

25" Yamaha T propellar

Bob's hydraulic jackplate

MinnKota 101# trolling motor

Lowrance X125's (2)

MinnKota 4 bank onboard charger

2 year old Series 31 Interstate batteries

Ranger ratchet cover

Ranger Trail trailer with Cool hubs and spare

Hot foot

Blinker trim for trim/jackplate

Extended front deck

Keyless ignition

Retractable rod tiedowns

SRS seats

1 butt seat, 1 chair

 

The boat is in very good shape. More pictures are available for interested parties. So, if you know someone looking for a Bass Boat let them know this one below is for sale!

Niagara Pro/Am 2010

 

Our team for this tournament consisted of my brother and I, Rob Wescott of Sandy Creek who runs Legacy Sportfishing, Jeremy Sage of Sandy Creek who runs JDs Custom Charters, and our uncle Eric Pappert. We had a great time! Fishing wasn't as good as it had been, but that is starting to become the theme of this tournament. Regardless of how good or bad the fishing was we still got to see a lot of our friends that we only get to see during tournament times.

 

Friday June 4th (Practice) - We knew that the Niagara Bar had a load of Cohos on it the last two weeks, and my friend Bill Ruth, from Billy V Sportfishing, was heading down there to dial in that Coho program. With us knowing that information we skipped practicing those fish and searched for new water. We left the dock at 4:30am to try and capitalize on that early morning Salmon bite we had last Sunday when we put the HUGE 29 pound Salmon in the boat. We set-up in 60' of water and the screen was OK. We fished out too 300 right smack dab in front of Wilson, and never moved a rod. Sort of disappointed we were off to look for new water. Throughout the day we would pick away at under sized Kings with the Dreamweaver Glow Green Alewife being their favorite spoon fished off our 45 rigger. We would also go on to boat a nice 7 pound Coho during the day, and lose a decent fish on the 5 color core. Not very productive, but we really thought we had a nice pod of fish on the Niagara bar since we were told the screen looked good. Our best screen on our Hummingbird 1157 was 7 miles West of Wilson in about 300-400 foot of water. At one point in the day we took two short guys on one rod. It was pretty cool! Check out the picture.

 

Saturday June 5th (Day 1) - We headed for the Niagara Bar in a nice 2-3' chop from the West. Took us a little bit to get there, but when we did the screen looked very decent. We set rods, and the wait began. We would have great screens and blank screens on the bar at various times. We went through what seemed like 3 or 4 programs and changed out more lure colors than I thought we had. Spoons, flys, and Coho rigs. Nothing worked, and the only keeper fish we had hooked up with was still swimming. So at 11am we made the decision to troll to our waypoints from our practice day. On the way we picked at a few small fish, and one even touched 18", but we didn't want to bring in a small fish and tossed him back so he could grow up. Uncle Eric wasn't feeling well all day. he had just got into town from Mexico at midnight and drove down to the boat that same night. So, we didn't mind that he slept most of the day. It wasn't like we were killing them. He did wake up at one point and we asked him, "what would you throw down?" He mumbled "plain silver 5' behind the ball down 60'!" OK, so down that rig went. 10 minutes later and I hear "FISH ON!" Guess what? That rig Uncle Eric choose fired! We could tell it was a nice fish and we played it with caution. When it hit the deck a lot of pressure was lifted from our shoulders. The skunk was out of the boat! He weighed 23 pounds and looked very healthy. We boxed him and fished for the next 45 minutes trying to put something else in the cooler with him. However, we were not successful at doing so. We headed in and the word from everyone was that the bite was a tough one. Most teams had 3 or 4 fish, and only one Pro team boxed their 12 fish.

 

Sunday June 6th (Day 2) - BLOWN OFF! Yup, thats right! Out of 6 possible tournament days this year we have been able to fish 2 of them. Mother nature has not been nice in 2010. We finished the tourney 35th out of 49 teams. Wish we could have hit the water because the screen we had out there at the end of the day seemed to be very promising. Maybe we could have jumped up a few places.

Final Flight Waterfowlers introduces thier new website!

 

Final Flight Waterfowlers is a guide service tailored to help guys, and girls, learn how to Waterfowl hunt. Scott Mastowski is a registered guide in New York, and operates this guide service in and around Avon, NY. He is as hardcore as I am when it comes to hunting. He has always been a successful hunter, and thats because he puts his time in. No corners are cut, and he uses the BEST gear available. 

 

Scott specializes in hunting both Ducks and Geese on the water and in fields. He also offers guided Turkey hunts in May during the Spring season, and can run guided bass trips on Honeyoye and Conesus out of his 20' Bass Cat powered by a 225 horse power Mercury Optimax.

 

He recently went live with a website, which I helped him build. You can visit it at:

 

Final Flight Waterfowlers

 

The website is still under construction, so check back for further details and an updated 2010 price list.