Yankee Troller

We use the 50 size for either a 10 color lead reel or a 300 copper. Very solid reel! I have used the snot out of them for 2 years now.

It was a good night! Nice weather too! This weekend looks like crap though .

8/28 – Evening trip We completely tuned up the boat in the morning, and tackled some odd jobs we wanted to get done. Little things like fixing the navigational light that blew, organizing some tackle, and tying new leaders. Jobs still waiting to be completed are measuring some coppers that have been cut short, and spooling up another 10 color! Anyway, I was kept up to speed about the fishing by my friend Eric who runs the Maniac boat throughout the day, and the idea of a short evening trip was on the table. 5 O’Clock rolled around and Eric and his son were standing on my boat waiting to head out for some evening fishing. We fished from about 5:30/6 O’Clock till about 8/8:30, and had a great time. It’s always fun to fish with different people, and when they have their own ride and crew it makes it tough. Anyway, we set down on the 27N line and trolled it north to the 29/30N line, and about 9W. We ran a very simple spread consisting of 3 riggers and 2 wires. We were out there to have fun! Especially when I found out that neither of them had DERBY TICKETS!!!!!! Throughout the night on the riggers were some DW Gators, Midnight Specials, NK Copper NBK’s, and Sea Sick Waddlers. Behind our Walker Deeper Divers we had DW/A-TOM-MIK combos in the 42nd and Gator patterns. Our DW Gator SS’s really had the spotlight on them for our evening trip. They took the first fish, which was about a 9-10lb Steelhead, and they would take 3 out of the 5 or 6 fish we would hook up with. On the way in we trolled into the 26N/25N line and saw a GREAT picture down below 100’ on our Humminbird. I threw a few things down there that Kings like to eat, but it was getting late so that program lasted about 15 minutes. However it gave us something to look forward to in the morning. By the way, our tune up which consisted of plugs, wires, and a cap and rotor really made a HUGE improvement in the performance of our ride. She really woke right up! Anyone who knows us knows that my father was the one who took care of this, but since his accident he just can’t do it. I guess we should have learned this stuff from him over the years! 8/29 – Charter We got a very early start because we were so anxious to see if we could get those deep kings going. We set down over 150 fow and trolled NE. The marks were there, and they were still deep. I put out a simple 6 rod spread consisting of 3 riggers, 2 wires, and a 600 copper. EVERY rod had a paddle/fly combo of some color combination attached to it. We marked fish from 150 out to 300 anywhere from 100-200’ down. We never moved a rod, but it gave us peace of mind that the Kings are there. My guess? They are probably sick of Mother Nature pushing water back and forth every few days so they are hanging out in more stable water. Once we figured out those fish didn’t want to play we pointed the boat due north and went in search of Steelhead. Out to the 32N line we trolled with no real WOW factor. Small Chinooks made up the catch the whole way out there. So small they wouldn’t keep, but our customers were very happy to see the time we put into making sure a 20†King gets revived! By about noon we were headed back in on a southerly troll with only 3 or 4 fish in the box. We just couldn’t get on a pod of Steelhead like we hoped. Lots of action, but lacking size. At this point we were down to 3 riggers, one copper, and 4 wires. On the riggers were DW gators, NK Copper NBKs, and a mix of other things that just wouldn’t get the job done on the third rigger. Maybe I should have thrown down one of the previous two color combos that were working! Anyway, on our deep wires we ran a DW/A-TOM-MIK Gator combo and chrome green dot paddle with an A-TOM-MIK Pro Am Glow fly. Both of which would go on to take the two biggest fish of the day. One being a 15lb Chinook Salmon and the other being a 15lb Coho Salmon. Our high wires pulled mag sized spoons, and took one shot on a Moonshine Bad Toad. We ran our low deeper divers on 1.5’s and out 225 and 250, and our high deeper divers were set on 3’s and set out 50’ more than the low wire. By the end of the day our box looked much nicer. We found a pod on the 26/27N line a tad East. First troll gave us 4 fish and the next two gave up 1 each.

Beautiful pictures

Lead core can't get down to 100'! Lol I ran 5 rods most of the day and when it wasn't to rough I tosses in copper. Don't worry about me until my boat gets "felluca'd" lol! [ Post made via Mobile Device ]

Great job guys!

This is exactly how I am setting up our next ride! It killed me to only have 3 riggers this summer fishing BT down East. Could have used another rod in the water.

You DON'T want the wilderness rods. These are a graphite blank, which means they are stiffer and less forgiving. The heartland is a fiberglass/graphite composite, and this is the choice of a lot of people fishing divers on Lake O. Priced at about $40's that's not a bad investment. I have been running 4 wire divers all year without twilli's. These are not to help reduce wear on the top eye. This is to help make the wire exit and enter the tip of the rod with less resistance. Once the wire gets any angle to it there will be some resistance. They are nice however! Just not needed.

Here are the settings Billy and I are using: Switchfire on Max Surface clutter 3 Water type salt (deep) Max scroll speed Take off any fish ID Run it on dual transducer If ther eis anything i missed I will update this thread on Monday.

Don't think that would have been a legal catch for the LOC, but nice fish!

We pulled some Lymans at the current Scotty out of Oswego. They took our first Salmon of the tourney! After that they just pulled some BT. We were running 2.0 at the ball, so it was a little slow for them, but it is always good to have one out there!

In your will who gets your boat? LMFAO!!!! Just kidding bud! I'm sure everything will go just fine. I'm the worst at anxiety! I pass out at the sight of a needle, but its funny how I can slice and dice fish and deer???

Your other problem is using the lengths in the directions that come with the boards. Im sure those settings work fine with leadcore and flat lines, but not with copper. 9.5" from the front hole to the knot, and 11.5" from the back hole to the knot.

Maniac has a Sabre and he went from 5 to 3 riggers on it last year. He is very happy with that decision. We have run 3 riggers for a while now, and other than when we had to BT fish this summer on the East end I didn't miss a 4th rigger.

Definitely a good coho paddle, but we did take a top 5 at a Sodus Pro Am when we were on the Am side with a 5" green spinny. We fished it off a SWR rig, and it took a lot of our kings. General rule is that your leader should be 3 times the length of the spinny.

Thanks guys! Back at it for about 3 more weekends and I'm afraid to say our lake season will be over!

Good to hear your back on the water!

Friday 8/20 (Big Fish Friday) – Headed out around 6am and worked West all day. We like the West 9 mile area when we are in O town! Well, it would end up being a very disappointing day. On the way down to West 9 mile point we would take 2 shots, and 1 on the way back for 8 hours of fishing! There was only 3 of us on the boat, so we ran a simple 3 rigger, 2 wire, 1 copper set-up. When we are in O town it is hard to even think about putting down a spoon! So, every rod had a Dreamweaver Spin Doctor, an E-Chip, or a Legendary Smart Fish on it trailed by an A-TOM-MIK fly. At one point we threw down a big 11†paddle with an MC Rocket, and I even put down a Tuna filled Super Cut Plug, but neither of those resulted in any hook ups. Our first shot didn’t take much more than 30 minutes or so, and I think that was because we were still in the Oswego River water. Our 600 copper fired with a Green E-Chip/Green Crinkle A-TOM-MIK fly. During that battle our corner rigger down 80’ would take a shot on a Marv’s Fatty Spin Doctor (Green Spin Doctor/Double Crush Glow/Green Dots) pulling an A-TOM-MIK UV Dolphin. We would land a 22lb Chinook on the copper, but drop the King from the rigger. Our last shot would come very late in the day while we were off our game. It was the 600 copper that took off again. This was one of those fish that rips about 50’ of line out and drops it like there wasn’t a hook attached to our lure. Oh well, we knew that there was a decent bite East of the Harbor, and we decided that we would head that way on Saturday. Saturday 8/21 (Day 1) – I was pumped to be in O town. I knew that we didn’t have to worry about guys going out and beating us with Trout! It was strictly a Chinook (king) Salmon tourney! Our forte! We ran a mile or two to the East and set up in 100fow. Screen was OK at best, but we set lines anyway. We worked the five stacks area East to the Alcan plant the whole day. Our best water was 140-160 down 60-90’. We ran a 3 rigger, 3 copper, 2 wire program. One of two King programs we like to run. We started off with Spinny/A-TOM-MIK combos on our corner riggers, a Lyman plug on our middle rigger set back 60’ and ran 10’ above the corner riggers. I like to call it a tail gunner. On our Walker Deeper Divers we ran Smart Fish trailed by A-TOM-MIKs out anywhere from 180-300 on a 2 setting. Lastly, our coppers were a 300 and a 400 fished off our Otter Boats, and a 500 run down the chute. On the 300 we had another Lyman plug, but the 400 and 500 both had E-Chip/A-TOM-MIK combos. Well, everything we put down in the morning rotted for us besides the Lyman fished as a tail gunner on our middle rigger. That broke the ice with a 3lb Chinook. Big enough for the cooler, but not what we were looking for! Little by little we started to change over paddle/fly combos. We saw the fish, but they just weren’t taking our rigs. Lots of streaking told me they were interested, but they just wouldn’t take them. As we were going through combos I put down a Chrome/Green dot Spin Doctor with an A-TOM-MIK Pro Am Glow fly on a corner rigger and stretched it back 30’. I literally turned my back after slamming it down to 80’ and our teammate Justin starts running for the rod. We put a teenager in the box, and got set back up. Well, not 10 minutes later that rig fires again. Another King! OK, so now we have something they LIKE!!! We scramble to find another combo and luckily we buy everything in even numbers. So we slam another one down to 80 on the other corner rigger. Those combos would take two more matures for us by the end of the day. The only other rig to take a Salmon would be a Green E-Chip pulling an A-TOM-MIK Misery fly, which would cull our first 3lb Salmon with a 4lb Salmon. With 20 minutes to go Our HOT combo would fire again with a King only to have him take 50’ of line and crack off our 50lb fly leader. That fish would have really given us a good cull! Even if it was a 20lb fish we had a 4lb fish we NEEDED to get rid of. We would end our day with 5 Salmon in the box, and from what we heard it was a tough day for a lot of the heavy hitters we are used to fishing against. About three times during the day we would go to pull the Lyman from our spread and find a 6-8lb Brown Trout on it. Any other tournament I guess it wouldn’t be a bad thing, but not in a Salmon only event. Anyway, these Lymans have some great action in the water, and if you are a troller you know that these type lures really start to shine this time of year. After all the boxes hit the weigh in stage we were sitting in 14th place. There were only 12 teams to bring a 5 fish box to the scales on day one. After we weighed in our fish we were in a mad dash to find more Chrome/Green dot Spin Doctors, but we would only end up finding one! During this tackle shopping adventure my brother would find Sunday’s HOT ticket! Sunday 8/22 (Day 2) – Why change anything when we were so close to a top ten, and we thought with the right bites that a top 5 was well within reach. When we set down in 90fow the screen just lit up! When I got done setting 2 riggers I realized we were pointed North and not in 90’ of water anymore. Not to mention our screen went blank. I had to let my uncle have an ear full! LOL We couldn’t get back in there with the traffic, so we went into search mode and started to head over to our trail from the previous day. Same program went down from the previous day, but as you can imagine there were a lot of green dot combos that saw time in the water. We didn’t move a rod for a while! We went through more paddle/fly combos than ever before. We saw the fish, but they were just not interested in our gear. At one point my brother takes a fly he bought at Fat Nancy’s Tackle shop on Saturday afternoon and sets it out on his wire. It didn’t take long and that Daiwa Saltist was singing! Of course he was screaming that his new fly took a shot at the same time. The combo was a Marv’s Fatty Spin Doctor pulling an A-TOM-MIK LBB Live. I must admit my brother made everyone in the boat see how cool this fly looked in the water before he sent it out to 200’, and we all were amazed at how different it looked. Well, at 10am we had one major in the box, and we had released a 12lb Lake Trout. Word had it there were some fish off Fairhaven, so we made the run. When we got to West 9 mile point we set lines and quickly the same combo that took our first King was back in action. This time it was a 10lb Coho Salmon that fell victim to the combo. That would be our last Salmon of the day. That same combo would go on to take two Lake Trout down off Fairhaven. Saturday was tough, but Sunday was even tougher. Even less 5 fish boxes were weighed in, and when it was all said and done we dropped 3 places to finish in the middle of the field. (17th Place) Congrats to the Popeye boat who won the tourney with an all women team!

Good job guys!!!!!

Thanks Gonefishing, but we have ours rigged good enough for the last 3 weekends. Electrics next year if we can find some extra cash!

Look at your GPS. There is a N and a W #. Take the N number and look at the second set of digits. That's the number your questioning. The mouth of the Oak sits on the 22N line. So the 29N line would be about 7 miles offshore.

Thanks Tim! I saw them on your ride when I was sitting on Cinelli's Battle Ship in May over at the Doc's.

Tim, The Ciscos are nice, but I remember seeing a company that made some that were various colors and all metal. Just looking for alternatives. Those Cisco electrics are not cheap! Then again what is? Yes, I have 8 of the single rod holders in a track. I love them. Gonefishjin, Didn't bow them up, I use them EVERY trip. They are 5 years old now and the handle on one fell off and stripped out, and the line guide on the other bent and busted off.

I run black sharks too. Actually its the only rigger that does this. I'm almost positive its your weight spinning. Does it happen on calm days, or rough days, more often than not?

Is it the same rigger your probe is on? My probe rigger was doing this in rough water. I put a Scotty pinch pad on it. My other riggers don't do it at all. It is from your ball or probe spinning.