Yankee Troller

LMAO I never put two and two together. Did not know when you talked to me at the dock that the green sportscraft was you guys. I was also in half in a food coma from the prime rib/sea food buffet at Tillmans, and half asleep from staying up late the night before. So, I apologize if I was out there when you stopped by.

8/19 (morning trip) – This morning we had Big Lou, and Little Lou, Ferrari owners of Lugia’s Ice Cream in Spencerport, NY with us. If you live on the West side of Rochester you’ve heard about their gigantic proportions of ice cream they serve their customers! With the one day three fish tourney the following day I wanted to check the inside waters to see if any Kings were in that “staging†phase yet. We set up in 100’ of water right out front of port and headed East/North East. We fished less than 200’ for the entire morning with a decent picture, and plenty of action for the two guys we had on board. We ran our typical spread minus a chute copper. We ran spoons on our three Cannon DT10’s, paddle/fly combos on the wires behind Walker Deeper Divers, and lastly a 400 and a 500 copper off our Big John Otters. The 500 copper pulling meat, and the 400 pulling a Wonderdot Smartfish/A-TOM-MIK Shredded Glow Hammer. The 500 was our big fish taker, along with an A-TOM-MIK Bobble fly (A-TOM-MIK # 121) behind a chrome dot Dreamweaver Spin Doctor or a white dot Dreamweaver Spin Doctor on the wires. That has been a great fly for us recently by the way! The fly was picked out by my brother at Fat Nancy’s in Oswego because he “liked the name!†We found what we went looking for, and figured we had a starting point for tourney morning! We cleaned 3 Chinooks all right around the 20lb mark, a nice Steelbow, and a couple of Brown Trout. The skips were plentiful, and gave us constant action while we looked for those big bites. 8/19 (evening trip) – We headed out around 4pm with a little bachelor party action with a good group of guys and their beer. We headed out to the same waters we fished in the morning, and we were attacked by skips. We saw the big fish down there and gave it our all, but all we could manage for Big Kings was one on the wire behind a Walker Deeper Diver. Again, it took Mr. Bobblehead behind a chrome dot Dreamweaver Spin Doctor. We did slide out a little bit and got into some Steelbows on our sliders to help put some meat in the cooler. Overall, a slow trip, but the screen on the inside got better as the night went on. I knew the morning was going to be a good one! 8/20 – I was very proud of the bachelor party this morning. Figuring they would have went out and party it up the night before, but they fooled us. They were at the boat nice and early, and ready to tackle some Lake Ontario beasts. We got out to the fishing grounds very early, and we were able to get all the rods in the water over an amazing picture on our Humminbird 1157. Once that picture started to disappear the rods started to fly just like last weekend. This morning we were looking for 3 big fish, so we ran a meat rig deep on our center rigger, and magnum spoons above it on the other two. On our wires we pulled Walker Deeper Divers followed by paddle fly combos, and lastly a 400 and a 500 copper off our big john otter boats. A mirror image of the previous day minus some of those skips, but we added in a few more big guy bites. We worked the 140-200’ range, and had a great morning bite followed by a late morning lull. When that lull hit we pointed it north and found a nice pod of fish about 25N where we almost quaded up on smaller Salmon and Steelbows. Knowing we needed one more “big guy†to get into check territory we slid into that 120’ range late in the day and the screen just lit up. Not long after we settled in there we were doubled on majors. A Northern King Sea Sick Waddler fished off our middle rigger, and the Bobblehead fly on the wire. We got the last fish we needed, which was an 18lb fish to replace a 16lb fish. When our fish hit the scales we were in 3rd place, and by the end of weigh in we had slipped into 5th place. Our three biggest totaled 61 pounds anchored by a nice 24lb brute, and only 2lbs away from 2nd place. First place ran away with the tourney with a three fish catch weighing 79lbs! 8/21 – We knew where the big guys were, and we had a nice three generation charter joining us on this morning. We got out there nice and early, and deployed the same program we had been running all weekend. This time we started a tad bit shallower than the previous two days, and ran a 300/400 copper instead of the 400/500. The 400 copper was the MVP today! It took 4 shots in under an hour, and possibly put the largest, or second largest, fish on our deck of the season. The highlight of the day/weekend was a nice 29lb male which ate a meat rig on the 400 copper. The screen was absolutely amazing in the inside waters, but only a few boats had them dialed in the rest of the morning, and we weren’t one of them. We teetered on making the run offshore, but I am glad we didn’t because about noon we were chased off the water by some big thunder boomers. Our catch for the morning would consist of a few kings, a nice Steelbow, and a Brown Trout. Not a limit catch on this morning, but the customers were overly excited about boating that huge 29lb brute, and were even more thrilled when they saw the amount of meat that came off it.

Cool...I saw you guys coming in on Friday or maybe Saturday. Can't miss your boat! Glad you guys did well.

I swear 40% of the boats get hauled out after labor day at the Oak. It will be pretty quiet.

Cool pics Dick!

Shhhhh [ Post made via Android ]

Yes, the ones that come with a tourney rig are smaller than what we use.

I have a 5yr rule, and I haven't ever got past 2. Sooooo, prolly never???????

I'm pretty sure.....I'm trying to compare them to the trout beads size.....

She's a gold digger.....

Adam, Dave's GF gave him "The Ultimatum." Soooooo, that money he gets for the ride is most likely going towards a rock.....

Some of the best fly fisherman in Oswego run yellow beads on 95% their tourney rigs. Me personally, I like to use different colors, and stick with 10mm beads. We use 3 in between the treble and octopus.

Thanks Ray! I hesitate to ask people about hunting on their land, so it looks like I will be fishing this fall instead of hunting again. Damn, I miss my old lease.....

We had a few females. The 29lb fish was a female. The two mid twenties on Saturday were both males though.

26 and change. It was short and fat! [ Post made via Android ]

Saturday August 13th (Morning) – We left the dock nice and early, and when we shut down on the 26N line the screen was packed! Bait and fish EVERYWHERE, but after about 30 minutes of fishing it diminished considerably. Never the less there were plenty of bait pods and fish to be had for the next eight hours. We worked the 26N-28N line for the morning with a nice family from Rochester. The Kings were on the feed, and we had what they were hungry for! Our program consisted of our three Cannon DT10’s, two wires pulling Walker Deeper Divers, and a copper on each board. A simple, yet effective, 7 rod spread. Spoons were run on the downriggers, while the wires and coppers pulled attractor/fly combos. Our 400 was a hot rig first thing in the morning pulling a Wonderbread SmartFish/A-TOM-MIK Shredded Hammer. Our riggers would take over with Dreamweaver Moon Crickets, Moonshine Carbon 14’s, and Northern King Sea Sick Waddlers. We tried a Lyman on our center rigger on the initial set-up, but no one wanted that erratic action at this point in the game. The wires were quiet for most of the day, but they did manage to produce the second largest fish of the trip, behind a Glow Froggy diver pulling a Dreamweaver green dot Spin doctor/A-TOM-MIK Bobblehead fly combo. Our biggest weighing just over 26lbs came off the 400 combo early in the trip. As the day would progress our 500 copper pulling a meat rig began to take MVP honors, but nothing pushed or exceeded the 20lb mark. Saturday August 13th (Afternoon) – This was a memorable trip for sure! Three of the four were retired professors from Geneseo. One of which was 80yr old Myrtle, and she was no stranger to charter fishing. I had a blast watching her fight fish, and just enjoy being out there with her friends. I can only hope to have her energy, and look as good as she does at that age. She even stepped up to the plate to fight a small King on the 500 copper meat rig, which I truthfully didn’t want to give her. Those long coppers are tough. You don’t want to run them, but they just take big fish! On this trip that 500 copper was our savior! Taking two or three big fish, but as the afternoon progressed our riggers, and even our wires, started to out produce it. The hot wire combo was a green dot Smartfish/A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist combo behind a metallic purple diver back 250’ on a 2 setting. On our Cannon DT10’s a Moonshine Carbon 14 mag, a Dreamweaver Moon Cricket mag, and a Northern King copper NBK took most of the shots. Sunday August 14th – We had a bunch of dairy farmers, and a few guys who sold them their feed. A very good customer of ours brought them out for the day, and this might just be the funniest group of guys we have ever had. I learned that dairy farmers are no dummies! They are very smart people who have a passion for what they do. We went right back out to where we ended on Saturday evening, because the picture we had on our screen was almost as good as it was during the first 30 minutes of our morning trip. However, when we go out there we struggled to find fish. With T-storms threatening in just a few hours the decision to head off shore wasn’t a good one. We stuck it out on the 25N-27N line and took what we could get, which ended up being a very decent day given the lack of fish on the inside. Our program stayed the same for the entire weekend with a 400 and a 500 copper off the boards, two wires pulling Walker Deeper Divers, and spoons on our Cannon DT10’s. The 400 and 500 coppers were our hot rigs. The 400 copper with a Smartfish/A-TOM-MIK combo (Wonderbread/Hammer in the morning, and a green dot/hypnotist in the afternoon), and the 500 copper with a meat rig took their fair share of fish. However, the big guy of the trip wanted a wire diver, and was one of only two fish that would take a ride on the wire on this day. When it hit the floor we knew it was a great fish, but we guessed it at 25-26lbs. Before we sliced it the customer asks “Hey how much that thing weigh?†On the digital scale it went, and I was floored when it read 29 pounds and change. Boat record! On the riggers the normal spoons were cracking fish. Dreamweaver Moon Crickets, Northern King Sea Sick Waddlers, Dreamweaver Dave’s Salmon Slappers, and a Moonshine Carbon 14 were a few of the spoons that pulled fish.

Yes, the date is set. We will be letting that out soon.

BUMP

Bump

I do wish the scales were a little better, and I wish the size was a little bigger, but it has held up well, and taken some nice fish. I want to mention we have used the Familiar Bite stuff too this Summer, and the first batch or two wasn't great, but Warrens in Sodus had some new stuff around the Pro-Am time that held up pretty good. Either way I think we are finally getting meat that is useable! Thanks to the companies trying their darnedest to get us what we want!

We are tossing a few ideas around, but since this is the "fisherman's tournament" it's up to you guys to decide to change it or keep it how it was in 2011. We are keeping this a one day shootout, but we want to put more emphasis on the Friday event. Here's is what we tossed around: * Up the entry fee from $800 to $1000 - This will increase 1st place to $25K, push another $5k into 2nd through 10th, and lastly add $5k to the Friday event given we obtain our full field of 75 boats. Also, if anyone knows of any potential sponsors please have them call Kevin Jerge @ 716-863-1001 or Rick Hajecki @ 585-704-7996

Definitely would have rather seen your wife holding it.........

I didn't know they made it again, but Captains cove has some Erie Deerie that is vacuum packed and it has been working and holding up real good all summer for us.

You can fill mine too while your at it! LOL Nice report.

This is a heck of a boat guy! My brother and I have fished off it many times. It's too bad Jeremy is getting married and needs money to pay for the wedding, personally I would have found a chick whose parents had more money, because this boat has treated him very good!