Billy V

Thanks for the report Al. Glad you got into them a bit. We'll be up for the weekend.

Definitely my favorite highlight was watching my oldest son William reel in his first salmon, with the help of his Grandpa. Now that was cool! I have a ton more great memories from the season, but that takes the cake for me.

We've been lamenting the smaller class of fish out of Fair Haven all season long too. I think that the shorter gorwing season theory might hold a lot of merit. I never made it down to the Bar this spring, but from what I've seen on all the message boards, it was definitely a very late start down that way. Overall it's been a fantastic season for us, just a bit disappointing in August as far as the size of fish goes. Thanks for posting those numbers Pat. Very interesting. I never would have guessed that 31.15 would win the LOC after the pig that won last year!

I'm with Chris on this one. 50# Seaguar is our fly leader of choice. 20# Vanish will do just that....vanish!

We found the same mixed up water & waves that you did on Saturday morning John. We managed 9 bites for the morning, best set-up for us was a new gold Northern King NBK spoon fished behind our chrome Sharks down 60-70' out over 80-110FOW. That took 4 or 5 hits. Next best was a Dreamweaver Super-Glow frog behind the Sharks at those same depths. Our Wires were fairly quiet, but the couple of hits they produced came on Green Spin Dr/Siggs Hypnotist flies on a #2 setting out 180'. That set-up took our biggest fish of the day, a 21# King. All in all a fun day, but tough conditions. :? :? :?

I run P-Line Fluoroclear for my dipsy leaders and love it. It's held up beautifully. Seaguar is another fantastic fluorocarbon...spendy but worth it. Now Vanish is another story....my experiece with it was bad and I'll never run it again. Why are you running leaders on your mono rigger rods for kings? I run straight 30# Big Game right to the lure. No leaders for kings on my boat.....browns in shallow water are another story. I personally don't think you need it when fishing for Kings. In my opinion it's just another thing that can fail.

Youu can have the drags re-worked in the Okuma's if you want to keep running them. As far as the Daiwa's go, the Sealine's are great. I have some that are 12 or 13 years old that have never had to be repaired in any way. The old Accudepths were an OK reel, but the drags were suspect. Some guys had bad luck with them, but I never did. The new Accudepth Plus is actually Sealine drags, gears, clickers, but with busings instead of bearings. It's just a different frame. I have four on board and have been running them on my wire divers all season and they've lasted beautifully. I wouldn't hesitate to run more of them, especially at $50 apiece.

Here you go:

Your Dad was pretty animated over this topic YT. :shock: :shock: It was pretty funny! Just my personal $.02, but here goes. Take from it what you want. I know YT's Dad thinks I'm nuts and maybe everyone else on this thread will too. But it's how I do it on my boat. When I'm King fishing, the first thing I do when I'm setting up is I look for 38-40 degree water with my probe. When I find it, I set up with at least one rig in that ice water, and then set the rest of my rods up higher from there. If I'm marking fish at that depth, I'll put more rigs in that ice water. It's my belief that the biggest kings typically come from that colder water. Most of the season I tend to fish temp first and the graph second, although as the season wears on I'll fish the graph more and more since the fish don't seem to hold in temp as much as they do over the summer. But if I can reach it, I always keep at least one rig down deep. I agree with YT's Dad in that most of the Kings we take at this time of the year don't come in 38 degree water, but from my perspective, it certainly doesn't hurt to have a bait or two down in the ice water. Keep in mind that this is just my initial set-up. If we're smasking the fish in 55 degree water, I'll put more baits in that water to try and maximize my catch, but I'll hardly ever give up my one ice cold water bait and pull it up higher. Here's just one example: Last Friday in 180-225 FOW we had 50-52 degree water down only 50 or 60 feet, and there were hooks down there. The 38 degree water was down close to 100'. I set up most of my spread 40-70' down and we took multiple fish off of those sets, but I threw a 500' copper rig out the chute just to get down into the ice water. We took the two biggest Kings of the day off of that rig. I told a couple buddies of mine that I had that rig out and they told me I was nuts, that I didn't need to fish that deep. Ok, maybe I didn't need to be that deep, but the two folks on board who took the two biggest fish of the day sure were glad we had a rig that deep. Same thing happened for us the next day too. That's what makes this sport so cool. YT's Dad has his way of doing it, I have my way of doing it...everyone does it a little bit differently. None of us are wrong. We're all trying to get to the same result, we just go at it different ways.

Sparky, We always enjoy having you guys around. Wish we had more time to just sit around the campfire and shoot the bull. We look forward to your visit again next year.

Nice job searching them out Tim. Let us know how you did this afternoon if you get back out.

The fish moved off the beach after the NW wind on Saturday night. We had a fantastic day on Sunday after the blow out front in 115-140 FOW, and they smashed 'em yesterday out there as well. Today they're getting them out in that depth again but not at the same frenetic pace as yesterday. We worked out in front real tight all week long like Richard did on Saturday and did pretty well until Friday morning. When we set up on Friday morning our fish were gone so we moved and found fish out deeper way East late in the morning on Friday and filled the box in just over an hour. We went back to that hot spot on Saturday for the Challenge hoping they'd still be there and they were gone. Guess we shoulda stuck close like Richard did. Good move Richard, it sure paid off for you! Congrats on the strong finish.

LG, Give me a call before you go up and I'll see what I can do to help you out with the stuff we've been using. You still have my number? Doozer, We were in 115-145 FOW. Guess they killed 'em up there again today too.

Sorry I haven't written any reports lately...been at the lake all week with pretty limited internet access. I'm back to the normal grind again this morning. Yesterday we got blown off the lake until about 1:00pm, but once we got out we found the fish stacked up out front..where were all these fish late last week?!?!? Spoons off the riggers in superglow/green and just about any flasher/fly combos down 30-55' fired for us all afternoon long. Flasher/flys were most consistent for us off of the wire divers out 120' on a #2 setting. We took a bunch of kings, but not much for size. 18lbs was the biggest of the day. We took a nice steelie that we weighed for the LOC that came in at 9lb 15 oz....we just missed. We had a great day and even though I was toast from the week's fishing, I didn't want to come in and close up camp to head home...it was just that good yesterday. I just talked to a buddy of mine who is up in Fair Haven for the week, and he already had 8 in the box as of 8am this morning, so it sounds as if things are finally shaping up. If the weather holds, it should be a strong finish to the LOC for Fair Haven after a fairly slow start last week.

Hey Jax, I need a 4th guy to fill out my Pro-Am crew next year...you interested bro???? We could've used a little bit of good charma on day 2 in Sodus this year.

Hey Sparky, Thanks for the report...it was fun teaming up with you to tag team the fish a little bit. Look forward to seeing you guys up in Fair Haven again later in the season.

Please tell us about Oswego Jax.....I wanna hear it!!!

There were lots of skunks out there yesterday, so don't feel too bad about it Charley. What a difference a day makes. Hope it turns on REAL soon!

Today we had to work hard for the fish that we got. The consistent bite that yielded 11 kings yesterday was gone. The pack was in close first thing, but that picture disappeared quickly and everyone dispersed, with most of us heading out deep. We took a 25# King first thing in the morning in 80FOW, and then worked out as far as 650 FOW for the rest of our Kings. A Mtn. Dew spinny/Siggs Rigs Green Dolphin combo, our Maui Wowie, the Dalmatian/Siggs Blue Dolphin, and Black Death all took rips today. We found 40-42 degree water down 100' all day long everywhere we trolled. Our most productive down speed was 2.6-2.7 mph.

This was Mitch's first-ever Lake Ontario King. The fish weighed in at 18 lbs. He was so stoked on this King that he just had to kiss it for us...whaddya think...is he hooked for life or what??? This fish and Mitch's reaction made my entire weekend!

Sorry no pics today..at the lake with limited internet access today. There was no upwelling as some had fearded due to the East wind, and the fishing (and catching) was great today. 100-280FOW down 100 saw a constant 42 degrees today. The Original Hammertime, Dalmatian/Hammer, JV Cheerleader, Maui Wowie, Black Death, and an R&R watermelon w/grape dots spoon all took multiple fish today. Wire divers on a .5 setting out 250', and a 500' copper rod did most of the damage. The 100' and 50' riggers also took multiple hits. Gotta run, be back out tomorrow morning. Best of luck to you this weekend.

Guys, I just came off the water in Fair Haven, and there was NO UPWELLING here. The fishing was fantastic today, and the temps are very stable. I'd fet out here if you can this weekend...should be a good one! Bill

It could just be the pitch of the prop that's making it hard to troll it down. When I bought my 24 footer a few years ago, I had a hard time getting it to troll down. I had it in to my mechanic for some work and told him that I wanted to troll down slower with it. He took it our for a ride and told me that if I put a different prop with less pitch on it that I would a) find it a lot easier to troll down, and b)gain top-end. We put a new prop on it and I was able to troll down a lot slower, while running the boat at higher RPM's (which is much better for the engine than super slow RPM's), plus I gained another 400 RPM and 5 or 6 mph on the top end.

I have twin 350's in my boat and troll with one of them all the time. My last boat, which was a 24 footer had a single 350 in it and we trolled it all the time too. You'll definitely get better fuel economy out of a kicker motor though. I'd take it out and see how it trolls down.

Thanks for the report Musky. Keep at 'em...they're bound to turn back on sooner or later...lets hope it's sooner though!