Legacy

With the Sandy Creek Shootout planned for Saturday, I headed down to the boat late in the afternoon on friday to get the boat ready. I wasnt planning on fishing but I was inspired by the amount of activity in Sandy Creek on a friday afternoon. From dockside I saw alot of guys, that were fishing in the tourny, headed out or headed in from prefishing. So we left port and headed out to "spot" check some water. We motored to Devil's Nose and setup in 50fow and trolled north in search of a screen. We found some active fish, a mix of bait, good hooks in 90- 120, and a down temp break in 130 fow and so we knew what our starting spot would be saturday morning. Plan A. We headed north looking for a deeper screen and found it between 180- 240fow. Some fish and zero bait but either way we had a Plan B. We tested a few baits in the process of looking at water and couldnt keep the 300' Blood Run copper with a Spin Doctor and a martini fly in the water. Saturday morning we left the dock at 445, headed to our water, setup, and trolled it west to Eagle Creek. The screen was almost void of big hooks and bait but we worked what we did have for half the morning. Not till the sun came up did the action improve. Fighting through the dinks on the riggers (loaded with NK mag Spoons), we did managed to put a couple of fish in the box including an 11#+ Steelhead (fish #1) and a couple of small Kings. 140' divers and 300' coppers with SD/fly. The lack of big fish forced us out to look at different and deeper water. 220 fow (fish #2) and 185 fow (fish #3) both put teen Kings in the cooler for us but the choice to pound waypoints proved again to be a mistake. A concistant big fish bite was no where to be found for us. Late morning I made the decision to move back in and drop in the shallow water again for another look. We could maximize our fishing time, hopefully find our screen from the night before, and take advantage of the late morning bite. We managed to find our best screen of the day in 85- 100 fow and pulled a 27# King (fish #4) from that water. Spin Doctor and flies were the ticket for us today. The BR 300' coppers were both pulling gator SD w/ Martini flies. The diver were pulling Captain Valium SDs with Legacy Flies. The riggers took 3 good hits (which I personally dumped) off the riggers off a NK mag green/ glow alewife along with a few Steelhead and alot of dinks. We had 35-40 total hits so the fishing for the most part was great. The weigh in resulted in Team Legacy in third place (with 70# of fish and 110.5 points) following Team Yankee Troller in 2nd and Team Trout-n-About in 1st. Team Legacy Atommic Big Salmon winner 26.9# King .

DEC Team Weigh in

We had a few bugs last year to work out but we are hoping with the changes made, that this years Shootout will be better then the first. The changes made all derived from opinions shared from those who participated in the first year of the shootout. Originally we wanted the shootout last year to be in July but multiple factors kept us from doing so. July and early august are prime time for sandy creek so it only makes sense to hold the tourny during that time and Im hoping that we can continue to host the tourny on that weekend from here on out. The decision to not to include other ports is a tough one but ultimately it is the SANDY CREEK shootout. I was actually against opening the port of Braddocks to the tourny last year but i was actually out voted. Policing more than 1 port is not something we are looking to do and including Braddocks only gets guys to question why their home port also isnt included. Teams leaving from the same port all have the same water to choose from and all risk the same fishing time by traveling to find "better water". Creating a level playing field and creating a format that gives everyone an equal opportunity makes for a great tournament and keeps it going strong. This tournament has been a idea we have had for years and im sure others have had the idea before us. It was created based on the lack of and the desire for a tournament style format from our home port. Our ultimate goal is to create the best tournament we can for Sandy Creek, so any input from participants is welcomed and please feel free to email me.

Well put Keith!

Snuck out last night for a few hours and it was well worth it. Good mix of kings and steelies right out front in 170-190 fow 55-90' down. riggers with green dot NK mags, and the divers and coppers loaded with Spin Doctors and a mix of flies. Great class of steelies 7-10# and the kings were also about the same size with one 24#. Temp was 59 degrees down 50 but the majority of the fish came from the 40s with 44 degrees down 90'. Overall reports from the creek for the past couple of weeks have been incredible! Hoping to see some good boxes at the shootout in a week!

planning on being out tonight... give me a shout on72

Anticipating the western blow, we headed west out of port and set up in front of the park inside of 100 fow with hopes to ride the current back home later in the morning. The current was strong out of the west and was a struggle to get speed right all day. The riggers spent the day loaded with spoons and DW ss green halo down 50' was the first to fire and put a 21# king in the boat for us. Next the 300' Blood Run copper dragging a green dot Spinny w/ a Legacy fly starts screaming and puts another low 20s King in the boat. The deep rigger dragging a Stinger stingray along the bottom put a pile of Lake Trout in the boat and kept Hunter busy this morning (resulting in a 1.5 hour nap when we got home). As the morning went on the flasher/fly bite really turned on for us. 150' wire diver w/ a green halo Spinny, 300' copper w/ green halo spinny, 300' copper w/ green dot Spinny, and 160' wire diver w/ a green crush Smartfish all took fish for us this am. Lots of 50 degree water out there with some bait inside of 90 fow. We fished as far west as Devils Nose and ended east of the "can". West of port (where down temp was 5 degrees colder) and 75-85 fow was, by far, the best for us today. Fish were not hooking up real well today, and as a result we dropped 7 fish this morning including 4 good kings.

congrats Billy!

Okuma Convector 55 is great for copper 250-450'. smaller size copper, an Okuma Convector 45 will do. Okuma leadcore/copper rods (Classic Pro GLT Rod - CP-CL-862M) seem to team up very well with the reels. Copper is flatlined and ran like leadcore. The length and weight of the coppper line determines its depth.

crazy... but cool

5' per color is general rule of thumb.

no not at all. I run a ten color down the chute alot and we adjust the number of colors depending on where the bite is.

everything listed is still available

double willis knot is a great knot for connection between backer leadcore and leader. Inline boards are a great setup also.

Decent reports of mixed bags and numbers from saturday out of the creek. Sunday morning we had hoped the east winds hadnt screwed things up too bad. We found a fishable screen w/ bait and hooks in 60-100 fow (w/ 74 fow being our best). The day started with mix of browns and skippy kings until mid morning when the laker spoon bite just ignited. A mix of DW ss and Stinger spoons off the riggers, 10 color core, and the divers produced around 22 bites. All which kept my son busy this fathers day morning. No Lake Trout in all of the lake was safe from him this morning.

bump

congrats