Yankee Troller

WOW....nice fish!

Great job, and if you think we believe the rain story your out of your mind!

That sucks! We were thinking about fishing the last KOTL tourney, but I think I'm all set now. This is ridiculous!

I think Gump from Yankee One fished there last weekend. His FB status said to save your gas money. However, a lot can change in a week, and I am sure you can get on some great BT action.

I come from the BASS world and we never had constraints on how far we could run other than a lock in some instances, which is an enforceable boundary in my opinion. I competed at the state level in a 17' bass boat for a few years, which was one of the smaller ones, and stayed competitive with the rest of the field in their 18-22' bass boats that could go 20-30MPH faster than me and also had a longer range with more fuel. I personally would not want to monitor my GPS to make sure we weren't outside of county lines the whole day. US/Canadian boarder is bad enough in my opinion, but at least there is a line drawn out on your GPS for that. This argument is not new, and seems to come up every year at the Orleans event because of a few Captains who feel it should be fished inside Orleans County waters. When we won it in 2007 those same Captains tried downplaying our victory at the launch as we were pulling our boat out of the water. They were asking our opinion on county boarders, and how we shouldn't be allowed to go outside of them. The only argument I can see for this is to keep the money spent at a tourney inside that county. For example, the boats that docked elsewhere in practice, which we were one of them who fished down on Thursday. That was one night of dockage spent outside the county of Orleans. However, we made up for it in fuel a few days later! The only rule IMHO that needs to be changed is the NO COMM rule, and maybe letting us use more rods

There are two groups of guys when it comes to planer boards. The ones running Otter Boats, and the others who run Paul's Planners or the traditional planer board. Both will work just fine in most cases. We use the Otters exclusively with the dual keel and they pull out to the side very nicely. When they dive they come right back up and WONT flip in the rough stuff. We have run them in 6+' waves and if your willing to do so they will run for you. If you buy the otter boats two things you can do to elongate their shelf life is to perform some of the modifications above, and secondly keep them out of the sun when not in use.

If you jokers at Sandy are wearing Speedos then I don't want our balls busted for sporting Crocs!

LMAO!

I like it!

Good stuff guys! Thanks for all the comments.

Thx Bri BW - she is an 1985. I think we are ruined for life by the roominess and beaminess of that ride. I'll have to look into the stingers. Thanks!

We have recently had a meat/ MC Rocket fisherman on our boat during practice for tourneys and we give this guy a rod or two to try and get us a kicker fish using meat and/or MC Rockets. Our hook up percentage has been HORRIBLE! They are taking shots but we might land 1 for every 5 shots we take, and it may even be a worse batting average than that. The rigs we have been using have a single treble. I don't think a tandem rig would work and it may hurt the "roll." Anyone have any tips on putting more fish in the boat using this presentation?

Surveys generally run less than 500 bucks. GET ONE if your looking at a Penn Yan! We looked at many in the last 3 or 4 years before we realized 99% of them needed some sort of structural work.

We had one built for us this Winter at Atlantic Towers. If you order one over the Winter they can give you "show pricing." Everyone was amazed at the workmanship of this arch on the welds and measurements. They had measurements for our boat on file, so it was easy to order. We ordered ours with 14 rod holders and the price seemed to be very reasonable! Let me know if you have any questions about the Atlantic Towers. We have received MANY compliments on it this Spring!

Thanks guys!

What a TANK!

Same here!

Get to work Case!

Your gonna be dodging water balloons now punk!

Your gonna see Team YT and their Trojan at the state launch Friday night! LOL We have to bring a genny so we can run our A/C. LOL We can't wait. It sounds like a great time!

Awesome video! Can't say we dont have a good time! [ Post made via Android ]

We have those things going at least 250-300' sometimes

6/9 – We left Wilson bright and early looking to troll down to the Oak and fish the “West†stuff on Thursday. We shot straight out to 100’ of water pointed the boat NE and zigged and zagged from 100-250 the rest of the day. Fish were plentiful, but size was lacking. Our spread consisted of rods on our Cannon DT-10s, two wires pulling Deeper Divers, and three junk lines. We went through a mix of spoons and flasher/fly combos throughout the day, but nothing was a smoker like that Dreamweaver Moon Cricket the previous weekend. The picture wasn’t there either, which had us a little concerned. We finally picked up at 30 mile point around 2pm and headed for the Oak. Some fish please no because there wasn't much after this! 6/10 – Big Fish Friday (Condor Memorial) – We left our slip very early looking to capitalize on an early inside bite with a few big guys. We had heard rumors that a few big ones were lurking around the front door inside the 25N line. We set our gear and it didn’t take long to get into some fish. Mostly a good class of Steelies, but we did manage a few small kings. We had a 20lb King to the back of the boat, but a teammate decided it needed to grow up some more and hit it in the head with the net. That may have cost us a check, but it is what it is at this point. We never really saw the picture we were hoping for as we fished out to the 28N line, so we picked up and ran down to Shadigee. We worked those waters offshore, and eventually slid in late in the afternoon where we found a decent bite with some decent fish. When fishing slows we find a friend and water-balloon them! 6/11 – Day 1 of the Orleans Pro/Am – We knew where we NEEDED to be, and we knew our new ride could get us there safely and comfortably. So, when they released us at 5:30am and we broke the pier heads we pointed her West at about 25mph and took the 1:45 minute ride past Wilson. We set down a mile West of Wilson, and the screen wasn’t there. While we were teetering on the thought of picking and moving a little further West the Corner rigger with the Dreamweaver magnum Moon Cricket fires and we are tied into our first King. A few flips, trips, and slips later and he was back to fight another day. We would also go on to boat a skipper that was legal, but we just weren’t feeling it, so we rolled a few more miles West on plane. We set down at 6 mile creek as we noticed warmer temperatures, and headed over to the same waypoints from the week before. Just as we got to 4 mile, where those waypoints were, we got into them HOT and HEAVY! The only problem is every single fish that hit was coming un-buttoned within the first minute of the battle. We were amazed at how bad our batting average was throughout the day, and it wasn’t long before 12pm came around and we had to get going in order to make it back to the Oak. In the end we would box 4 fish (2 steelies, a coho, and a king), loose 12 Kings, and 6 or 7 other fish in the four hours we had to fish. As sick as it sounds after the 6th or 7th lost fish it just go to be a joke on the boat. There really was nothing we could do about it, and it just kept coming! Our 500 copper pulling a meat rig took 6 or 7 shots alone and we never saw one of them! A real brute took our Walker Deeper Diver pulling a Dreamweaver Magnum Moon Cricket for a ride twice only to shake off so someone could battle him another day. The real knock outs of the day were a Dreamweaver Magnum Dave’s Salmon Slapper, and that same Dreamweaver Moon Cricket Mag. We would end up at the scales with four fish, heads hung low, and informed that the leading box was pulled from the same waters we were in. Could we have been leading after day 1? We will never know! 6/12 – Day 2 of the Orleans Pro/Am – Sometimes too much information will hurt you and in this instance it did. It was blowing East for a few days, and we knew we were fishing water right near the border. We watched the NOAA Coastwatch Saturday night into Sunday morning, and it showed that the 58/59 degree water we had on the surface was clear into Canada. At the last minute before we left the dock our plans went from running to the bar to checking out the Shadigee and power plant hoping there was some fish that wanted to play still there from Friday. When we set down in there the screen was blank and we trolled it from 60’ out to 600’ with a few straggler skippy’s and 4 other keeper fish to show for. No MVP’s on this day, but a Dreamweaver SS Green Eyed Ghost did take 3 of the 4 fish we boxed. No temp breaks (like Coastwatch said there was off the plant), and no fish! We ran in around 11:00 to see if we could pick up some Brown Trout in close and that plan was about as good as our first one to go offshore and work temp breaks for steelies. We would find out that the water was still on the bar to a point, and some of the teams that went down there were able to catch a few kings. In the end we made some bad decisions on day two, and when it comes down to tournament fishing making good decisions are what put you in the top 10 consistently. In the end we all had a blast fishing together, the YT3 ran like a champ, and we ate GOOD! WE are taking a week off from fishing, and then it will be back at it every week through September!

That Atlantic was nice! Good job guys!

6/1 – We headed out of Wilson at 5:30am. It felt good to know we had 3 days of practice for the Niagara Pro-Am. When we left port we knew there were some offshore fish right straight out of port, but we wanted to head a little West to see what else was out there. We took a NW heading and ran out to the 6 mile creek area and set down in 150’ of water. We pointed the boat towards the NW corner hoping to get out there eventually because there looked to be a pocket of warm water in that corner. We didn’t make it very far and we had rods flying. With only 6 rods to play with we ran 2 wires pulling Deeper Divers, three rods on our Cannon DT-10’s, and a junk line down the chute. Everything went back with the exception of a beautiful 24lb Chinook Salmon that committed suicide smashing all over our back deck. It looked like a war zone back there by time we got the hook out. Our top spoon of the day was one we have never taken a single fish on. Dreamweaver’s Bloody Death SS took 75% of the fish, and the big guy took a 10 color pulling a Stinger Stingray Double Crush Orange, which is another spoon we don’t typically run. That Dreamweaver SS was a suggestion by the “new guy†that jumped aboard for the day because it has been his top producer lately. Well, it worked for us! It’s always nice to get other fisherman aboard to see what works for them. I find that sometimes I get stuck in a narrow minded program, and keep down what has worked well for us when sometimes I think you just need to change it up a little. Even when the fishing is good! 6/2 – We woke up nice and early to a stiff NW blow, so back to bed we went until about 8am. Then it was time for breakfast at Lucy Lou’s inside the small town of Wilson. Great people there by the way! Once breakfast was over we figured it would be a good time to install our on-board chargers we bought from Minn Kota to keep the battery powering our downriggers at a full charge all day long. We spent the rest of the day in Olcott between the Hideout and Maverick boats just shootin’ the breeze. Finally at 4pm we figured it had calmed down enough to get a quick evening trip in to see what the big blow had done to the water. We put her on a northerly troll and trolled out to a serious break offshore where the green water and black water met. A significant temp break, and not too many fish. So, back in we trolled where we finished the night off in about 100’ of water picking fish the whole time, but the size was concerning. Nothing bigger than about 10lbs hit our deck, or sniffed our lures, on this evening trip, which included people from 3 different Pro/Am teams. Lots of fun was had, and the Trojan handled the 9 person outing with ease. 6/3 – Big Fish Friday (Don Johanas Memorial Tourney) – We motored right out front of port bright and early and set up in 75’ of water. Our program today was a typical 8 rod program for us. Three rods on our Cannon DT-10 downriggers, 2 wires pulling Walker Deeper Divers, and 3 junk lines (two of which were pulled off our Big John Otter Boats). We got lines set, and trolled NW. When we hit the 130’ area our screen lit up! Sharks, and lots of them, had moved in overnight. We spent the whole day working the area between the Gazebo (West of Wilson) to the Red Barn (East of Wilson) smashing Chinooks all day long. This is the type of day we had been waiting for, and how the Spring King fishery around the Niagara Bar is supposed to be! We would end up working the waters from 130’ to 175’ the whole day with mainly a spoon program. Northern King Sea Sick Waddlers, Dreamweaver Dave’s Salmon Slappers seemed to work the best. Another program we are trying to dial ourselves in on is the MC Rocket program, which are pieces of rubber that are being used as a replacement for meat rigs. These took some good shots on our junk lines, which helped our box creep into the top 10 for a check in the tourney. We have tried to stay away from the numbers thing recently, but when you can say you had 35-40 kings hooked up in a day that’s worth bragging about! 6/4 – Day 1 of the Niagara Pro/Am – We knew right where we needed to be at 6am when they allowed us to drop our lines for the start of the tourney. However, when we got there the picture wasn’t nearly as good as it was on Friday, and we had lost a few degrees in water temperature. There were still some fish in there, so we gave it a shot. We quickly got on the dink bite, and figured out that this wasn’t a good thing. So, we pointed the boat NW and out we trolled. We got back on them a few miles West and out in the 200-225’ range. We also started to dial in the program that gave us a nice jump on day 2. With the skippy’s being an issue we started to pin our cheaters 5-10’ above our main lines on our Cannon DT-10s. We also went to a Magnum Spoon Program. We have been seeing some rather large Alewives in the stomachs of these Chinooks while we are cleaning them for customers. We also thought it would deter the smaller fish from taking shots at them. The Dreamweaver Moon Cricket in a mag size was starting to take over for the top dog in our program. It was set on our 85’ rigger, and our 325’ wire. Others like the Northern King Sea Sick Waddler and the Dreamweaver Glow Frog contributed too. We would be back to the dock by 10:30 with our box of 12 Kings, and we weren’t the only boat back, so we knew others had to have had a knock out day too. When we finally hit the scales we had about a hundred pound box, and noticed there was a lot of those going around. We figured ourselves to be outside the top twenty, and we knew we had some ground to catch up on day 2, but we knew it wasn’t going to be hard as long as we could dial in the big guys like we had late in the morning. Those morning skippy’s really hurt us, and we realized that there were no Dreamweaver mags to be found at any tackle shop in the Niagara region! 6/5 – Day 2 of the Niagara Pro/Am – When we got out to our water and scanned it we saw that it was blank, again. That’s the problem with a big blow and the huge river that dumps into that end of the lake. Nothing stays the same for very long! Temp dropped a bit, and the screen just wasn’t there, so on plane we went heading West towards the bar. As we passed the six mile area we started to watch the surface temps creep up. We shut down at four mile and the screen lit up. We put down our Mag program, and rods just started flying. Fish after fish hit the deck, and our cooler started to pile up with Kings, and they were all pretty good sized too! We tried to run the same program we ran the last few days with riggers, divers, and coppers, but we just couldn’t get it all in. Our riggers were firing at 60-125’ down, our wires were out 275-325’ on 1.5 and a 2, and the coppers from 400-600. Those Dreamweaver Moon Cricket Magnums were on fire so bad that we had to retire one because the tape was shredded and coming off the spoon by the end of the morning. We finished our box at 8:27, and we took a nice ride back to the marina. When our box hit the scales we had the second biggest box of the tourney weighed in at a little over 270, which is a 150lb box of fish. By the end of the tourney we had the third largest box between the two days and jumped from 25th to 5th place out of 50 really good professional boats. I have to give it to my brother for dialing in that magnum program. He started with one of them down on his rigger, and quickly hawged the only 4 we had on the boat by Sunday morning.