Finders Keepers

It's called a Hot Tamale Stinger Echip, whole board is red with one large yellow prism eye on it. Got them at Screwy Louie's a couple years ago, pretty sure they still have them... although probably not for long after this post!! LOL!! Here is the board with our 26 lb'er from yesterday: The 28.14 LOC fish was also caught on this rig.

They were checking boats somewhere towards Oswego yesterday too... in the harbor I can see when we're coming in or going out, but while fishing?? C'mon, seriously?? I hope you pass inspection Nick!!

We've been fishing the Salmon River area and while we haven't lit the place on fire, we have generated double digit bites each trip and 3 LOC fish so far - had a real nice box yesterday (28.14 LOC, 26, 22, 18 lb kings and 8, 12 lb coho) going 6 for 10. Hitting it one more time tomorrow to see if we can boat a Tyee this year! When targeting staging kings we use predominantly Rrrred echips with Hypnotist flies as the red color agitates them and they hit out of aggression. Coho's love this rig too so we usually will pick up a few of those in the mix as a bonus, especially when run higher in the water column. Some other rigs that can often produce hits: Chaquita boards with Packer flies, white with green dots boards with ultra green glow flies early, J-plugs, and bright colored mag spoons (mixed veggies, anti-freeze, Hawg Wild). Just some food for thought...

X2 the X4D it's a great unit!!

C'mon Nick let's see that new LOC leader today!!

We've experienced the same thing as of late, except most of our fish have been on FF's.

Thanks Steve! Two big females loaded with eggs. Rrred echip with an Atommik Hypnotist fly has been hot the last several outings taking multiple hits each trip - makes the staging kings hit out of aggression. Hopefully we can find that 34 lb'er we've been looking for by Next Monday!

Nice video! Hey Nick, you might want to give your hits a good quick jerk to set the hook, especially on your rigger shots. The kings' jaws are so much harder now we give a pretty hard hook set to sink that barb in. Just food for thought, although I don't know if your rods can take the abuse!

While I agree that numbers have been way down last year and this year, it seems the North shore has been pretty good. I remember a few years back when we had a banner year, the north shore really struggled. Maybe (hopefully) this is the case where for whatever reason the bulk of the kings hugged the north shore leaving us to search for a few each outing. Time will tell....

Good luck to all the teams fishing the Fair Haven Challenge this weekend! We will be running the scales again this year as well as setting up the PA system, displays, and demos. Plano and Frabill came through huge again this year with large product sponsorships for the event, particularly for the raffle. If you haven't fished this event before, it's a fun event with proceeds going towards the stocking programs and a great way to kick off the Fall LOC Derby!! We hope to see you there!! Team Finders Keepers

Hey Nick, we fished the Atommik Invitational yesterday in 4-6 ft seas off Oswego and managed to put 4 kings, an Atlantic and a laker in the boat. Best rig for us was a white/green dot spin doc pulling a Hijacker Atommik fly out 450 on the wire on a 3 setting (took 5 of the fish). We were going 2.0-2.2 down speed on the Fish Hawk.

Always a good time!! We actually have racing headphones now for anyone who may have sensitive hearing.

We always look forward to this event because it has so many positive attributes, from the directors (Nick & Teresa) to all the volunteers to the captains to the community support to the very special guests the veterans - we feel honored to be a part of it all! Going into the event we were up in the air as to what our gameplan would be, especially if the winds kicked up earlier than forecast leaving us to fish the bay! So we brought a full arsenal for the lake and the bay! We were teamed up with Craig who was ready for the challenge and had no problems with facing Lake O and rising seas. So our plan was to see what the lake looked like when we came out of the shoot and either head straight out if it was already rough and play the inside waters, or if possible, shoot west and fish with the waves as they built throughout the morning. After following our escorts full throttle through the pierheads (that was an experience in itself) we were greeted with a stiff SW wind, but only a 1' chop over gentle swells from the west, so we motored west until we got to the other side of Hughes when we decided to point her north sideways to the building waves all the way out to 500 fow where we set down. As I was letting out the 3rd diver with the Salmon Slam Flasher/fly past 150 ft it began screaming out and we were hooked up! Craig battled the fish like a champ and brought the first 16 lb king to the net! We started setting up again and the port side 150 ft diver pulling a super UV Wonderbread Spin Doc/Shredded Glow Hammer fly gets nailed! Craig once again fought the king like a champ and we all had a good laugh when it came surfing the waves towards the boat! 17.5 lbs topping our first king! (See video here: ) We would continue a steady pick all morning going 6 for 7 (4 kings, a steelhead, and a coho) as we worked 500-600 fow and targeted the active fish in the top 60 fow, as we couldn't get anything deep to go. Once we made it back in front of Sodus, we doubled up while checking the wires and decided to call it a day since we already had 3 lines in the boat and the waves were pushing 6-10 ft. We were the only ones to catch a fish on the Salmon Slam rig, had the 3rd largest steelhead, and 10th largest king. But what mattered most was that we were able to provide Craig with an exciting, successful, fun trip! Thank you again Nick and Teresa for another fantastic Salmon Slam event!!

Nice job Nick!! We've seen more hits on the riggers lately with short 3-8' ft leads off the balls too. As per the dipsy question, depth will vary a bit depending on currents (upper, mid, and at lower levels), water density, etc. but we depth checked our wires several years back with a flasher/fly and it was pretty dead-on with a 3 to 1 ratio for a 1-setting and 5 to 1 ratio for a 3 setting, and we put them back as far as 650 ft and they were still getting deeper with the same ratio. Case in point with the currents altering the depths, with the currents we have had this year, a couple weeks back our 3-setting dipsies were hitting bottom 400 ft out (normally 80 ft down) in 120 fow going east and have no problems going into 80 fow heading west.

Good luck Nick! We'll be down in O-town looking for the new LOC leader...

Good to see you joining in Woody! You going to be sporting the new ride?

LOL!! Do they monitor underwater operations?? If so, then yeah, might have some issues...