Yankee Troller

After the St. Catherine's event Team Yankee Troller was looking for revenge. We felt we were better than a 35 place finish! The team for this event consisted of myself, my father, my brother, uncle Eric, and Jeremy Sage. In our favor we had two solid days of chartering allowing us to find, and figure out the Salmon. Day one we blasted off and ran to our waypoints from the previous two days. We were met with hungry fish eating the program we had been running the previous two days. Only difference was the fish were running a tad bit smaller than we had been catching. 5/9 - We trolled the 140-250 depth hitting our waypoints and here came the fish! Again our program consisted of 4 wire divers pulling a combination of SmartFish and Spin Doctors trailed by A-TOM-MIK flies. Our divers were parked at 300 and 325 for the inside divers and 350 and 375 for the outside divers. We ran 3 downriggers pulling various spoons anywhere from 75-180' down. Our BEST spoon was the Dreamweaver SS Dave;s Salmon Slapper. We couldn't get a Sea Sick Waddler to go for the first time in I don't know! Lastly we had a 600 copper down the chute with my favorite set-u! A SmartFish on a 9 O'clock setting White on White pulling an A-TOM-MIK Ultra Green Glow Fly. After everyone hit the scales we were sitting pretty in 7th place! We had about a 15lb average in our cooler, but we lacked that kicker fish we had pulled the previous two days. 5/10 -We were met with high winds and we were hoping that the tournament would be called and we would cash in 7th, but when the lake was checked it was fishable. Once we started fishing it wasn't fishable anymore! We still gave it our all and immediately after we set up the 600 copper took off followed by a screamer on the 375 wire. We ended up 0 for 2 very quickly! We would end the day with 5 keepers and a bunch of lost fish. Not a 15 pound average like the previous day, but we tried! Same program as above, but the size went down for our boat. We would get bumped out of the top ten and finish in 11th place. Just out of the money, and by 4 pounds! That hurts, but the guys above us were all very solid fisherman and my hat goes off to them.

So, after the previous weekend I was a little bit worried about the Salmon bite. But, just like years past that first week of May is hit or miss. So We had Nick, Nick, Gaylord, and Phil out for two days. Last year they were met with some bad weather and only got to fish one day. This years trip more than made up for that! Their best trip in 3 years (as far as BIG Salmon go). Typically, they were met with a few nice Salmon and a bunch of Coho and Steelhead. 5/7 - Took us no time to hook up with a BEAUTIFUL 10lb Steelhead. It took a 2 color core pulling a Dreamweaver SS Orange Slurpee. That spoon has been my best producer for fish on the surface during May. After a little searching we found the mother-load of Salmon along with what the Salmon wanted to eat. Our program was quite simple, yet effective. We did about 20 fish during the 8 hour trip with many teenage Salmon hitting the deck of the boat. A pair of 19lb brutes really made the box look pretty good. Our set up consisted of 4 wires. The inside/deep wires were set on .5 with the Dreamweaver large diver ring. One was out 300 and the other was out 325. We pulled a SmartFish White on White with Green dots/A-TOM-MIK Ultra Green Glow fly on one with a Wonderbread Spin Doctor/A-TOM-MIK Hammer and Glow Hammer. On the high/shallower divers we set them on 2.5 settings and had them out 350-375 feet. We pulled the same flashers on those with some variation. At times we would toss out the Black Double Crushed Glow SmartFish with an A-TOM-MIK Hammer, or the Black Double Crush Glow Green Dot Spin Doctor out with an A-TOM-MIK Green Hammer. Our riggers were parked anywhere from 75-150' down. Sea Sick Waddlers took a few fish, but the spoon of the week was definitely the Dreamweaver SS Dave's Salmon Slapper. We concentrated our efforts in 130-150' of water, so we were basically pulling these fish right off the bottom. Without the help of our 15lb sharks this would have been a chore! 5/8 - We went right back to our waypoints from the previous day and the fish hadn't moved, but they were eating well. So after a few passes we slid right out to the deeper stuff finding more active fish out in that 200-250' of water. Once it started it was pandemonium! We hardly ever hooked up with just one fish. Every time one rod fired so would another. Again we ended with a pair of 19lb brutes, but we couldn't pop that 20lb mark! Same program as the previous day. Nothing changed as far as depths and lure choices. That made my job pretty easy!

Thanks Shade! I tried to pursued the tourney officials from letting us go on Sunday. I wanted billy to get the win!

6th biggest box on Sunday:

We gave it our best! We thought that Canada was the place to be so that's where we headed on Saturday morning fishing from 7am-3pm. We crossed the Niagara River to find clear water, which means cold water, and not a very good picture. We tried it and had about an hour of action in which we took 5 solid hits off the Welland. All 5 hits ended with NO FISH in the boat. Yeah, we lost them all! Oh well, it wasn't tourney time. We finished the day 2 for 9 with a Coho and a Laker to hit the deck. The Coho took a Dreamweaver SS Orange Slurpee (a no brainer for coho) off our 5 color, and the Laker took a White SmartFish with chrome colored prism tape pulling an A-TOM-MIK White Hammer fly. The fish that came un-buttoned fell victim to our NK Sea Sick Waddler, Dreamweaver SS Glow Froggy,a NK Mullato, and a Dreamweaver SS Salmon Slapper. All of which were fished off our downriggers.

Team Yankee Troller will be there donating money to 10 LUCKY people!

Once it starts to warm up in March we beat up the Small mouth pretty good in that low water. WE fish Spencerport to Brockport and 50 fish days aren't uncommon. Small lipless crankbaits and ultralights work best. Fish arent gonna hang out somewhere they cant survive. Im sure most follow the current out, but A LOT still stay behind. WE have taken Crappie, Walleye, Carp, and Pike in there before they raise it back up.

Ditto! You in the Scotty?

Well yea ya goof! LOL Anyone could have went out and raped the surface for Cohos! Where are ya gonna enter those in the LOC? The Salmon bite wasn't as good as it was last week! Cohos were great for your charters. Just givin it back to you bud!

Nice job guys! I thought I heard you on the radio. We struggled this weekend. I hope we do much better this weekend!

You and your family are in my prayers bud!

Ditto to what Gamble said.

Nice job bud!

Sunday morning we figured we'd stay close to home. We pulled out of Wilson and saw a GREAT picture in 60-80 feet of water. It took an hour for the first rod to fire and it resulted in a small King. He hit the wire out 125 on a 3 setting pulling a Northern King green glow Mag. About 30 minutes later we took a small King on a NK Mullato down 50' on our center rigger. That would be it for a while. We picked up and moved West to some water that was holding fish the day before and picked up 2 more fish. We took a Lake Trout off a SmartFish pulling an A-TOM-MIK Hammer. Our last fish of the day took a Dreamweaver SS Gator fished off our 50 rigger. EVERYONE struggled today. Well, at least the boats I talked with did. Fish are here, but they aren't very active yet. This weekend coming up should change! We will be out Thursday-Sunday.

Nah, it was slow for everyone! Only a few had programs on Sunday.

RR, I certainly appreciate your hard work on this.

Good point! I still owe you Eric, and Jay $3 a piece!

I'm sure they will be up there soon. Other than that I'm not sure where to check.

Biggest 5 SALMON. So you can fish with a buddy if you want. We have 5 people on board to help with expenses. If you have 5 guys on board you can keep 15 fish. You weigh your biggest 5. You dont have to keep anything. If its small you put it back. 8 rod max. Its very fun and well organized.

Custom, Everyone was fishing 35-80fow. Leads varied from 6' back off the riggers (cheaters) to 75'. Dipseys we tried 50-125 feet back (with no success). And various lengths of core. Bigeasy, I fished it more for its Bass. There is a large tourney out of there the last weekend in April. usually draws 100 teams.

The stinger Penguin is the Sea Sick Waddler with a white base coat and an orange dot. I'm sure you have some! Might not be a Stinger brand...... It is where i got the SSW pattern from. A great spoon off a 10 color up west for us the past few years.

We tried out the Scotty event for the first time this year. Usually I am in Connecticut fishing Candlewood Lake this weekend, but with 18k on the line it was a no brain'r. These guys put on one heck of an event. VERY well organized, and everything went fast from the Captains meeting to the weigh-in's. So here's how it went! Friday (Big Fish Friday) - The Canadians weren't too quick with fishing license delivery for my father and brother. They ordered them on March 23rd and haven't received them yet. So, they had to go over Friday morning and find a place to get their license. This set us back a few hours along with the drive down the lake. So we got about 4 hours of fishing in. We thought after our practice that we had something figured out, but we couldn't find the larger Salmon. We did 14 bites on various lures. Both sticks and spoons seemed to be working with cohos higher in the water column. Biggest fish we took was 14lbs. The hot spoon for the Coho's seemed to be the Dreamweaver SS Orange Slurpee (again), and the Northern King Black Mamba and Beefeater took the Salmon off the riggers. Saturday (Day 1) - We got a tip from some friends that there were some bigger fish a little further West of where we had been on Friday. So we take off for those waters. Wind 15-25 out of the SW was tough to fish in, but all excuses aside we couldn't put a program together. We threw everything at them. We had our tournament limit on, but a case of the dropsy's only allowed us to bring in 2 teenage kings on this day. The set-up that saved our butt and got us 4 bites was a Stinger magnum Penguin off our 10 color core down the chute. A Dreamweaver SS Dave Salmon Slapper and a Dreamweaver SS Glow Froggy took the other two bites. So we sat in 54th place at the end of the day out of 72 boats. Sunday (Day 2) - We changed up our plan, especially after the HARD West winds on Saturday night. We ran around a little before we set down to fish. Once we did it was non stop action for a couple of hours. We started off with a quad! That's four fish on at once. Within 40 minutes we had our five fish in the boat and we were starting to increase our weight. We knew we had some NICE fish in the box. First fish took that same set-up that worked for us on Saturday. A Stinger Magnum Penguin off the 10 color down the chute. Next to go was a NK Sea Sick Waddler off the corner rigger. Then the Dreamweaver SS Glow Froggy off the other corner rigger, and lastly the NK Mulatto from the center rigger. We boated 3 out of the 4 with one being over 20lbs. Set back up and rods started to fly again! The Sea Sick Waddler took off again on the corner rigger. Then again with the Mullato off the center rigger. It was FUN! The last few fish came off the Stinger Penguin and a Smithwick Rouge on a 5 color core. We ended up getting off the water about 11am with a nice box of Salmon. The bite died for us once the NE winds started to blow. We had the 6th biggest box of the day averaging 18lbs per fish. We finished in 35th place (half way). So, we didn't win any money but we all had a great time.

You can count on us being there! Haven't missed a Spring in a bunch of years. Wilson Boat House!

This ones easy! White on White SmartFish set on a 8:30-9 o'clock setting swivel to the right 22" lead on an A-TOM-MIK Ultra Green Glow fly. This set-up took 3 LOC derby fish last year! I also got on a kick last summer where I was running a #3 Green Mongoose J-Plug on my 300 down the chute. It was a HOT set-up.

Tell me about it! If someone would buy my bass boat I might consider it.