Billy V

Great fish Mark! Congrats!!

A big THANK YOU from us too! MUCH appreciated and we definitely look forward to coming back again next year.

They had 'em at Abe's in Sodus Point over the weekend.

Nice job guys! Congratulations.

Pierless, I meant downriggers that we had set with a spoon on a mono rod. No attractor or diver in front of the spoon...just a "clean" spoon. T_barb, We were marking fish both in and out of temp, but there were more marks out of temp than in temp. In the morning on Saturday I had the whole deal set down in the really cold water in the hopes that I could get the big boys to go. I like to fish temp first and the graph second and in retrospect I should have dedicated at least one rod to those out of temp hooks on the graph. Shoot, on Sunday we hooked up with a nice fish on a rigger that we had set 35' down that was in 69 degree water.

On Friday we left the dock at Anchor at 5:30am and went out in front of Fair Haven to thoroughly fish that area. We had a nice fish on for a few minutes first thing on a NK Die Hard fished off of a rigger down 100' but dumped it. We had a ton of bait out in 130-150FOW but there were very few hooks around. We worked our regular waypoints for a couple more hours but didn't see much other than bait on the screen and we couldn't get anything else to go. We decided to pick up and head to our day 2 waypoints from last weekend's Oswego Pro-Am out deeper and a bit west of port. When we got there we found a few of the Pro-Am boats in the area as well as a few of the Fair Haven regulars. We got set up and found some nice hooks down 80' or so. We took a couple of nice steelies and a couple of small Kings before we decided to motor over to Sodus to get checked into our slip there for the weekend. On Saturday we knew that some of the contenders for the cup were gonna head to Oswego to fish for browns. We hadn't seen much from Fair Haven to about Port Bay on Friday, but some friends of our had done fairly well just East of Sodus so we decided to give that a shot rather than run an hour for browns. We went out to about 170 FOW and got set up out in front of Chimney bluffs. We had all kinds of bait and hooks in anywhere from 140-180 FOW but we just couldn't get them to go. After we worked that area for a close to three hours I finally decided to move a rigger up shallower than we had been fishing all morning. It wasn't up there more than 3 minutes when we took the steelhead that ended up being the biggest on the Pro side of the tournament. That fish came on a NK Glow Frog spoon and weighed 10.21 lbs. We put that rig back in the water and moved another rig up higher. The rig that we had just moved up fires and we boated a King that came in at slightly over 23lbs at the weigh-in. That fish came on a Green Double Crush Glow Spinny/Sigg's Green Hypnotist fly out 240' on a 2.5 setting. From there on out we hooked up another 7 or 8 times, all on rigs that we had moved up way out of temp anywhere from 50-80 ft. down. We lost a screamer on the wire dipsy, and broke a nice one off right at the back of the boat on our 400' copper that was pulling a Chrome Frog Spinny/ Sigg's Super Lime Glow Pulse fly. Our riggers pulling clean spoons were by far the hottest set-up of the day for us and most of the fish that we boated came off of them pulling NK Glow Frogs. We ended the day in 16th place with 5 fish in the cooler and I felt like if I had just moved one or two riggers up out of temp sooner that we could've been in a lot better position. We knew we were going back to this same spot on Sunday and we felt like we had a good shot at making some noise in the standings. On Sunday we went back to our waypoints from the day before only to find that the fish weren't there. We went into search mode and found some of them in just a bit closer but still on the same troll that we had been on the day before. As we made a turn in 125FOW our 600' copper pulling a Chrome spinny/Apple Glow Pulse fly fires and we landed our first Laker of the year. We got back on our troll and headed out to the deeper end of it and just before the rains came we landed a great King that came in at 24.91 lbs on the tournament scale after it bit our Chrome Frog Spinny/Sigg's Super Lime Glow Pulse fly that was out 225' on a 2.5. Then it rained. Hard. For quite a while. And the screen went totally blank. We stuck to our spot and as soon as the storm passed the screen lit back up again. We took shots on both our 500 and our 600' coppers but didn't land either of them. We took three small Kings on our wire divers out 180 on a .5 and 225 out on a 2.5, but lost another big boy on those settings too. With just a few minutes to go before we had to pull lines and head in our 70' rigger pulling a Die Hard fired hard and we dumped yet another big fish. :roll: We made it to the weigh-in with another 5 fish box, moved up a few spots and ended the tournament just a few points out of the money. Here's a pic of our team and our box on Day 2. Even though we didn't place, we still had a great time and taking the biggest steelie on the Pro side helped ease the pain of not making the top 10.

I have the same set-up as Yankee, 'cept I run 300 yards of the new Berkley Big Game braid for backer and it fits a 10 color core and leader with room to spare.

OK, I'll be in touch Chris. Thanks! If yo can't wait till early next week, no big deal, I'll either keep it as a spare or send it back.

Chris, If I find another cable elsewhere I'll sell the one from Stamina to you. You just work down the street from where I live I think...Triphammer Rd. in Ithaca? I'll get in touch with you after the Pro-Am.

I try not to air my grievances on these message boards, but today I've had such a negative experience with Stamina that I had to vent and tell you guys to beware of their shady practices. On Monday I ordered a 300' coated cable to replace the probe cable on my rigger. I've ordered from them in the past and they've always gotten my product to me in a reasonable time frame and I've even gone so far as to recommend them to others. However, this time I was in a bit of a hurry to get the product here because we're fishing again on Friday. I placed the order on Monday and paid for "3 day" shipping. I fully expected it to be here on Thursday morning. I didn't get an email from UPS until Tuesday night at 7pm telling me that they hadn't received the shipment from Stamina until 6:03PM on Tuesday. This morning when I checked the UPS website I'm seeing that it won't arrive until Friday afternoon. When I called Stamina to ask why my "3 Day" shipping was going to take 5 days I was given some run-around by the owner that I missed their deadline for shipping on Monday. Nowhere on their website does it state that there was a cut-off for shipping, but OK let's assume I did miss the cut-off. That being said, even if I did miss the deadline on Monday, in my mind Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday still comes to 3 days. I told the owner of the company that a) he ought to make his shipping policy more clear so that people can get things when they need them, and b) that I thought that he should ship me another spool of cable via overnight express at his expense to make up for what I see as mis-leading information and the fact that they didn't even get the order that I had placed on Monday to UPS until 6:03 PM on Tuesday. The owner of the company told me that it was my fault that I missed their cut-off on Monday and that the three days doesn't start until they take it to UPS (very late in the day on Tuesday evidently) and that he wasn't willing to pay for the overnight shipping to get another spool of the cable to me. When I pressed him and told him that if he continued to argue with me about shipping time that I would post this info on a few fishing forums he went to look to see if there was another spool in inventory. Surprise, surprise, apparently he sent me the very last spool of coated cable and he couldn't send me one anyway. Funny, but the customer service rep that I spoke to prior to him had checked inventory and indicated that there were plenty in stock. When I asked about what they call "Next day" shipping I was told that if I ordered on Monday that the product wouldn't be here until Wednesday because it won't leave their facility until Tuesday. Maybe I'm nuts, but every time I've paid for overnight shipping on something it's been here the very next day, not the day after that. Here's what their website says at the screen when you choose your shipping options: "SO IF YOU ARE IN A HURRY FOR YOUR ITEMS, SELECT AN APPROPRIATE AIR SHIPPING METHOD. Air shipments are shipped same day (if ordered by 9am central) or next day if ordered after 9am." In my head shipping the next day would mean it shipped on Tuesday during business hours. The fact that they didn't bother to take a time-sensitive shipment to UPS until after business hours the day after the order was placed shows me that they had no intention of getting it to me in 3 days. So the upshot of the deal is that I'll be looking for a coated cable elsewhere and I'll definitely be sending this shipment back to Stamina. Oh, and I'll never order from Stamina again, and I'll also warn as many people as I can about the way this situation was handled. I've had bad customer service experiences before , but today the owner of this company was just bordering on being abusive.

My condolences Bob. I'm sorry to hear of your loss.

LG, The afternoon/evening bite out of Fair Haven can often be better than the morning bite. We generally find that the last hour of daylight is the go-to time for taking Kings. Just stick with what you know catches fish given the conditions of the day and you'll likely do well.

Sorry to hear about Bob's Dad. I'll keep him in my thoughts & prayers. Rather than bother Bob at this time I sent you a PM. Definitely count us in. Thanks!

Guess we won't be entering since I won't get up to Sodus till after we fish on Friday. Is there a way we can mail payment & registration?

How do we enter?

It wasn't slow for us on Sunday, but it wasn't a slaughter either. Just gotta know where the usual haunts are for the fish I guess. The weird weather definitely has impacted the King fishing for almost the entire Eastern end. Give it a week or so and my guess is that it'll be better than it was this past weekend. We took all of our fish on Sunday in 180-240FOW. Lots of the very best boats on the Lake struggled with the tough conditions over the weekend, so I wouldn't sweat it. When was the last time Thrillseeker came in with only two fish on a Pro-Am Sunday?

It took us about 30 minutes to get to our waypoints.

Yeah, but we were salmon fishermen on Sunday and did OK!

On Friday (prefish day) we left Fair Haven and started working our way East towards Oswego. We found a very nice school of Kings out in 300FOW and plucked three fish out of it in just over an hour. We wanted to keep eliminating unproductive water so we left those fish and worked our way out deep only to find an empty screen. Even with the empty screen we managed to box a nice King that came on a Northern King copper NBK fished off of our 600' copper set up. We came into the Fat Nancy's Shootout with a total weight of around 35 lbs for our biggest three fish. On Saturday we headed out to the same spot where we had 'em nailed down the day before only to find that they were gone. We worked that water for a couple of hours with only a 15" skippy to show for our efforts. I called a quick team meeting and we talked about either going West towards Fair Haven to fish our home waters for Kings or running in and fishing in closer for browns. The Kings hadn't been particularly cooperative in the past few days, so we opted to go for browns. We ran into 100FOW and before we even got completely set up we whacked a beautiful 7 lb brown on a Dreamweaver SS Area 51 fished of of our riggers. Right after that fish hit the deck we hooked up again on a NK Die Hard fished off of a wire diver only to lose it at the back of the boat. :x Then the clouds parted and the bright sun came out......oh great. We kept pushing towards Oswego where most of the browns were being caught and over the course of the rest of the day we hooked and lost another 6 browns and boated one more on a NK glow frog. We came into the weigh-in with two browns and sat somewhere near the bottom of the field. Needless to say, I wasn't very happy with my decision to fish browns, and I was even more upset with my decision when I found out that the leaders boxed out on Kings in my home waters of Fair Haven. :x On Sunday, we made the right choice and headed back to Fair Haven and fished our every day waypoints. We weren't set up for more than 5 minutes when we hooked up and landed a double. The first fish came on a Dalmatian Spinny/Sigg's Rigs Blue Dolphin on a wire diver out 300' on a .5 setting. The second took a Sea Sick Waddler down 100' on our riggers. We got set up after the mayhem and immediately had a major rip a ton of line on a Green Double Crush Glow Spinny/Sigg's Rigs Green Hypnotist fished off of our high diver out 350' on a 2.5 setting. We handed the rod to 14 year-old Cooper and the battle was on. Cooper did a great job handling the King, but in the end, the King managed to find a way throw the hook. After that we circled back around and worked what has historically been a productive area for us for the remainder of the day. We had a steady pick for the rest of the day and ended up going 10 for 12 on the day with 7 keepers. We took fish on every rod we had in the water....divers, riggers, and coppers. We came back to the weigh-in a lot happier than we were the day before. We leap-frogged several teams with one of the better boxes of the day and ended up in something like 15th place. More importantly than where we placed though is the fact that we came back to the dock with three teen-aged boys who are now completely and utterly hooked on Salmon fishing! We had a great time in Oswego and we're looking forward to next weekend in Sodus.

I've fished on Jerry's team before when we've crushed the browns and that was a big part of the decision to fish for them the second half of the day on Saturday.

We made a really nice comeback today after I made a bone-headed decision on Saturday that put us near the bottom of the leaderboard. We had something like the 5th or 6th best box on the pro-side today and jumped ourselves over a bunch of boats and finished a spot or two behind Yankee Troller. Next time I think about going brown fishing during a Pro-AM someone please remind me about this past Saturday and our lousy results. :roll: :roll: I'll post a full report later. Here's our box from today:

I can't take credit for that knot. I learned it from Tim Brommund several years ago. Here's the link to it: http://www.lotsa.org/Wire%20Line%20Knot.htm

I'm with Yankee on this one...38-39 degrees as my deepest set and then work my way up from there. What's a Laker???

Wire is a fairly touchy material to work with. You have to keep tension on it all the time or it'll pigtail and kink. Once it kinks, it's doomed to break. We trim off a few feet whenever it gets to looking ratty and re-tie it. Without question, wire takes the majority of our Kings each and every year. It's definitely worth the learning curve. Once you master it you'll wonder how you ever fished without it.