Yankee Troller

Thanks Pete! There are many days out there that we slay the heck out of the fish, and days we can't figure them out. I knew Billy was out front of port, so there was no need to go beat up those fish on Friday. I was looking for other water near the river.

Happy birthday Dick!

Great job Dave! We look forward to participating in this derby.

Nucleus, It is a 28 Carolina. I was on it this weekend, and Yvan has that thing decked out. Not to mention it is very clean. Great Lake boat for sure with lots of room.

Nice job Glen! Fishing for Kings hasn't been as easy as previous years, but I know a few guys that SMOKED them for the last two weeks. My patterns haven't been that good either. Hoping that changes this weekend. I thin the super warm spring we had and mild winter allowed tehse fish to spread out faster than normal, but what do I know?

Looks like you guys had a good time! Congrats on the LOC fish. That was not an easy task this year.

Congrats to all! You guys banged some hogs out there this Spring.

Yes, Leo Roth took it from my photobucket account. I took that picture last August out of the Oak.

Michele is correct. It is an NK Diehard blank with stacked black and glow ladderbacks. I forgot to get a picture of it this weekend. I didn't think it would have gotten this much publicity off Billy and my post or else we would have taken pictures of it last week. Mr. Penn Yan 88 on this board was the creator of the tape job, and it has been a solid producer for us. I know Billy is down on his boat all week, so maybe we will get a picture at some point.

May 7th (Practice) - Our team left the dock at 6am, and the game plan was to head West to the 4 mile creek area and work the waters between there and the border. We didn't get our rods set, and they started to fly. The first fish took a 175' wire diver pulling a black double crush glow Smart Fish and an A-TOM-MIK hammer fly. While that fish was in play the corner rigger started to throb and I was on that rod. As I popped it from the downrigger I could tell it was a nice fish. However, about 10 seconds into the fight I could tell the fish went under my low diver. We tried to fix that, but nothing was working. So, I put the thumb down on that fish and never let it get more than 20 or 30 yards on me. What happened was the cheater caught the wire line on the way up. We fixed that problem and proceeded to put that fish in the boat. It was a very healthy 20 pound Salmon, and as I was pulling the Dreamweaver Moon Cricket out of that fish the fish on the 175' diver hit the deck. That was only a 7-9lb Salmon, and we sent it back to grow up. We boxed the 20lb'er because we were in the Dreamweaver Big Fish Friday tournament, and preceded to set the rest of the lines. We fished a 3 rigger, 4 wire, 3 copper program. Soon after getting all the rods set up our 500 copper down the chute takes off singing! Joe jumps on the rod, and he was in for a battle. This fish played with us by taking a few nice runs. Generally on long coppers one or two runs are the norm, but this fish didn't want to stop. After about 30 minutes of hoping it was big, and bustin' Joe's chops for allowing this fish to whoop him the Salmon hit the deck. Disappointment set in as this fish would hit the scales at 18lbs (not bigger than the 20lb Salmon already in the cooler), so we put him back to be caught another day. On the end of that 500 copper was a wonder dot Smart Fish trailed by an A-TOM-MIK Hammer fly. In the next hour we picked up two Coho's and at 8:45am our bite was over. We trolled until 1pm with just one more fish to add to the count. The predicted winds started to pick up out of the East, and we called it a day. The 20lb Salmon I battled. Joe taking a butt whoopin! May 8th and 9th (Tourney) - For the first time in 14 years both days of a Scotty event were canceled. The Gale Force winds on Saturday were spectacular! The piers in Wilson were submerged in HUGE waves. Not a chance we would have made it out there, and I applaud the tournament directors for making the right decision. The winds continued on into Sunday, and we even had some snow flakes to top it off. Just a miserable weekend for Lake Ontario.

Tom, How do you ALWAYS get your fish to sit still for photo ops? LOL Nice catch bud!

Thanks for the kind words Anthony. We had a great day with the exception of the bugs. My brother and I spent 2 hours cleaning the boat, and we still have some work left to do when we get back up there.

So was it a he or a she?

The weather this weekend was AMAZING! However, if there was ever a weekend I wanted some wind this was the one! There was a gnat hatch out there, and boy was it one of the worst ones I have ever seen. We had GLOBS of gnat's on our flybridge. We couldn't even think about going up there. A few made their ways into our noses, mouths, and ears, but we never stopped fishing for a derby winner! Check out some pictures of our boat from Sunday. By the way....these pictures do it no justice. Sunday May 2nd - Today we ran a charter with a friend I met on Lake Ontario United. This was Anthony's third trip with us over the last four years. He really wanted to put his name on the LOC Derby leaaderboard, but we just weren't successful at doing so again today. The good news is we fell just one fish short of a couple dozen. I couldn't get the rods in the water this morning! We tweaked our program from the prior day, and it worked out perfect. We started off with more Lakers than Salmon, but that slowly switched as the day passed on. An NK THAT spoon took a few fish, but it didn't come close to the Dreamweaver Moon Cricket's performance. Boy was that HOT today. A few fish also took a Dreamweaver Roy Boy. Riggers were parked between 30-45 for most of the day. The flasher/fly bite on our wires died late morning, so a Dreamweaver green dolphin mag on one side and a Dreamweaver blue dolphin mag on the other side took a few more Kings. 125' was our hot number on the wires again today. Check out a few pictures from the day. Saturday May 1st - After last weekend we were looking for a little revenge on some Salmon. Well, we got it! We spent Saturday looking for a fish to place on the derby leaderboard. We weren't successful at our goal, but we took enough fish to have some fun for a few hours. A great mix of Salmon, Cohos, and Lake trout. The Lake Trout we have been catching off the Niagara Bar have been some real beauties. 14-17 pound fish almost the norm. I might even go out on a limb and say they are becoming aggressive! We were taking them at King speeds, which really makes us shake our head. Dreamweaver's Roy Boy and an NK THAT spoon in a 28 size were the hot set-ups on our riggers parked at 30-40' down. On our wires we ran a Smart Fish (white with green dot) pulling an A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist, and a Dreamweaver Spin Doctor in a gator pattern with an A-TOM-MIK green crinkle. 150' wires were taking Lakers, so we pulled them into 125' and the Kings started to feast. We tried 5 and 10 color cores off the boards with little success, and a 300 copper run short down the chute, and that resulted in the same low success rate. Here is a nice picture of me and our largest King of the day. The Scotty Wilson tourney is going on next weekend. 52 boat field is what I am hearing, so there will be some fierce competition out there on top of all the derby fishing going on.

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet. If we r going there then I schooled him on 90% of what he knows. You two gave him the 10% on Lakers part. [ Post made via Mobile Device ]

I guess all that practice paid off!

That's why I bought my lifetime license!

LMAO!!!!

Thanks guys! GF was looking for B-day gift ideas. My Rapala knife is nice, but it dulls so quick!

Thanks Tom! [ Post made via Mobile Device ]

I was told that they make a great knife. Billy has the 10" Cimeter and loves it! However, that knife is listed under the "butcher knife" section (Forschner model number 40539). Under the fillet knives section I see they make a 12" Salmon Slicer (Forschner model number 40643). Anyone have any experience with either of these knives?

Beautiful Tom! Keep up the good work. There is a TON of bait out there!

Didn't know about that one. Always launched at the fort with no problems.

Great video Dave!

South...North was too shallow. [ Post made via Mobile Device ]