Yankee Troller

Fishing the Toronto Islands is something I think every Lake Ontario angler needs to do at least once. You wont fish a better shoreline, or a prettier one for that matter. The structure is similar to the Niagara bar, and the fishing can be some of the best you will see on Lake Ontario. For some reason the Kings over on the North shore seem to fight harder than when they are on the South shore. I wish I could explain why! Practice - We checked out some water to the East of Bluffers Park Marina first thing Friday morning. The screen was never there. We gave it a few hours looking in tight and out deeper, but we couldn't buy a bite. We picked the rods and headed West to the filtration plant and set back up trolling West. The further West we got the better the screen got on our Humminbirds. The gap seemed to be the best picture for us all weekend. Throughout the rest of the day we would go on to pick a few mid 20lb Kings, and an annoying amount of Coho's. We never "crushed" them, but we had a game plan to start with on Saturday morning. Tourney - We headed right for the Toronto Islands at blast off, and our picture wasn't bad. We put out our spread which included all three of our Cannon Downriggers, two wire divers, and a 500' A-TOM-MIK copper. Flasher/Fly combos were on everything except the copper, which had a meat rig on it. The bite wasn't there right away, and it took 45 minutes to watch the first rod go. After that we dialed in on the fish and would end the day taking nine shots. Five of which we boated. Four were in the low 20lb range, and the fifth was a 8lb King. Our hot presentation was our divers on tourney day. They accounted for four out of the five we weighed in. Those four diver shots all were pulling an A-TOM-MIK Glow Blue Hijacker fly. Two shots came with it behind a Hammertime flasher, and two came behind a Double Crush Green paddle out 275-350' on a 1.5 setting. The fifth fish took an A-TOM-MIK Hammer fly behind a Hammertime paddle. We missed a couple fish on meat rigs throughout the day. One was on a deep rigger, and the other was on a long copper. While we fueled up the boat, after dropping off our cooler, we started to hear how tough it was for teams who fished in many different areas. We knew we had a good day given the tough bite, but we were still short one fish from our tourney limit. When the fish hit the scales we slid into 3rd place, but by the end of weigh-in we would end up falling into 5th place. That worked for us! Anytime you finish in the top ten in a tourney you did well!

I was kidding! Get those greasers out of this lake. Save the food for Browns and Kings! Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Lake Ontario United mobile app

I can't believe you killed that GREAT specimen! You should have let it go back to keep it's gene pool going!

I wouldn't get crazy with junk lines. Instead try going to a 30lb wire on your divers. You can cover more of the water column because the wire will allow the diver to get deeper, and tripping them is much easier.

I'm not going to go there. That's something I don't think we can ever scientifically prove. I did watch a Coho go from the surface to a 90' rigger one day to whack that spoon. I've heard of stories where it turned someones day around by putting them in the water. I guess it comes down to your confidence in something.

Some of the Sandy Creek guys do it. They say it works, and spreads out their 4 divers. I don't see a need for it, but that's just me.

It really depends on the situation. For example my brother and I run charters together. The boat is ours, and so are the expenses. Everything goes into the same account. If you feel like they did a great job tip them both! I find it awkward when Captains have signs up about tipping. Most mates I know make between 50-100 plus half or the whole tip. It also seems like guys on the West end make more than guys on the East end. When it comes to tipping it's similar to a restaurant. If you are wow'd by the service you tip more. Even if they work their butts off for 4 fish. It's the guys who put out one set of lures and never change you want to resist from tipping.

Another reason why you want a slim profile knot for joining two lines is for cheaters to slide past.

I'd say that's the part we are most proud about Brian. Being able to succeed with two totally different programs. Deep Salmon one weekend and high Steelies following that up. My .02$ is that fishing all over the lake has really helped us excel, and you pick up little pieces of programs at each port. Some guys say they will never fish tourneys for one reason or another, but I think they make you a better fisherman.

Carl - I think it means if 10 boats fish we will pay the top 3. If 30 fish we will pay 9 spots. For anyone interested here is the FB page for Oak Orchard tournaments - https://www.facebook.com/groups/457578327629533/

The Albright knot will definitely work, but according to knot wars I thought the Blood knot and Uni to Uni were the strongest for joining two lines. I'm not a fan of the Uni to Uni because its a bulkier knot, and I notice it when reeling it through the guides. Remember to never make a leader long so that it goes into or through your levelwind. You'll be pissed when fleas or cottonwood find that knot and jam up your reel when a big boy is close to the net.

Uni to Uni or Blood knot will work for joining mono to flouro. When it comes to braid and you are connecting to mono or flouro I like the albright knot. We use a flouro leader on most of our rods. 15lb when running spoons for Salmon and 20lb when we are running meat and flys. When fishing BT we leader down to 8lb flouro.

We ran them for a few years. WE found that the A-TOM-MIK torpedos tracked better at deeper depths. I know I'm comparing a 13lb RR to a 15lb Torpedo, but for the money the torpedos just work and track great. We caught a lot of fish behind those RRs though. We still have a pair, but they haven't seen the water in a few years.

There is still time to convert you! LOL

We hand cranked them for 4 days straight. We don't let our customers reel in anything over 400 usually, so these rigs only get brought out in tourneys. It sucks, but if they produce ya have to have them down there!

I'd like to say thank you to everyone for the kind words. We definitely worked our tail off, and this has been a goal for us for a long time. Congrats to you too Dick, and Ace also. You never let down either weekend, and had just as consistent of an event as you can have given the conditions. Your one of the nicest guys on the trail, and I wouldn't have been upset if you took first. We are looking for a ride to jump on in Oswego ourselves. I have to send my brother and another teammate because I have 5 trips that weekend.

Well said! With all the guys out of Sandy that fish the open division during the Pro Am you guys should put a team together and get in the Classic and Trophy divisions. You guys would have no problems catchin' them!

Niagara Pro Am Our charter bookings were great during the month of May out of Wilson Harbor, so we had a lot of time on the water to dial in a solid program. Looking back our program didn’t change much after the first weekend of the derby. Nor did our location! Both days of practice was spent probing the waters a few miles West of Wilson Harbor fishing deep King Salmon. We also found a nice pod of fish between Olcott and the power plant, so we kept that as a back-up in case our primary area dried up. Thursday seemed to be better than Friday, talking pure size, but each day we had our bites. The waters we worked ranged from 150’-350’. Our spread for the weekend consisted of three long A-TOM-MIK coppers. We pulled a 500 and a 600 off the boards with a 700 down the chute. The coppers pulled meat rigs the entire time, and were our hottest tickets when it came to big fish all four days. We also ran our Cannon Digitroll 10 downriggers with 20lb Shark weights to probe the 125’-275’ part of the water column. Dreamweaver Spin Doctors, and Stinger E-Chips, were primarily used down there to get the attention of the Salmon that were lying on the bottom. Our best flies were A-TOM-MIK Big Fin Glow and Ultra Green Glow on various flashers. Marv’s big Fatty was a good in the mornings, but the Hammertime flavor was easily the best for us. Our chute downrigger pulled a Dreamweaver Sea Sick Waddler Mag, and was a work horse chasing the few fish in the top 100’ of the water column. That chute downrigger went up and down all weekend long chasing marks typically in the 40-60’ range. I’d go out on a limb and say it took 1/3 of the fish for the weekend. Most of which were small Chinook Salmon or Coho, but they helped our box tremendously. Last but not least were our wires. These were HOT for us Thursday-Saturday, but dead on Sunday. We didn’t change out the combos too much, because we had two studs that were taking a majority of the shots. A Dreamweaver Hammertime Spin Doctor pulling an A-TOM-MIK Glow Blue Hijacker fly, and a Stinger frog E-Chip pulling an A-TOM-MIK UV190 out 250’-350’ on a 1.5 setting. When the weekend was over we had brought enough weight to the scales to take first in the Classic and Trophy divisions! Our team couldn’t have been happier with the win, and that’s when the pressure hit us knowing that the Western Cup was ours to lose. Orleans Pro Am Our lips were sealed all week long hoping we could fish the same program we fished in Niagara, but Thursday’s big NE blow iced the waters down a lot and flipped the lake. When we made it out on Friday for some practice we ran North until we found warm water. That water happened to be out on the 31/32N line a few miles West of Oak Orchard were we found 52 degrees on top. That’s where we began to dial in our offshore Steelhead program. We also checked out the Brown Trout waters off Green Harbor and Johnson’s Creek Friday afternoon, but the inside waters were so chock full of bait it was unbelievable! Alewives were jumping out of the water behind the transom of our boat trying to get away from the downrigger cables, and our baits were constantly snagging them. When the event began on Saturday we headed offshore in some dense fog and deployed our Steelhead spread. Our three Cannon Digitroll 10’s never really went deeper than 60’ and all three had sliders attached to their main line. We ran two divers and sometimes we had wire in the water while other times we had mono slide divers in the water. For junk lines we started each day with surface lines off the boards, but eventually changed those out to 5 color Stealth Cores. Our chute junk line was a 10 color stealth core which we played with reeling in and letting out a few colors until it fired. Dreamweaver Super Slims seemed to be the ticket for us during the Orleans Pro Am. Those Steelies wanted it fast, and they wanted the spoons small. The new DUV series has been HOT for us this Spring. The Green Dolphin and the Lemon Ice DUV were our studs on Sunday. Saturday was overcast, and the Sea Sick Waddler took most of our fish. When the weekend came to a close our team ended up third in the Orleans Classic division and fourth in the Trophy division. More importantly we were able to hang onto, and even gain points on everyone for, the Lake Ontario Western Challenge Cup. The Western Cup has been something we have been chasing for many years watching some of the greats like Cold Steel, Thrillseeker, and Top Gun take home many times.