Finders Keepers

Thanks fellas! We're heading out later this morning to see if this blow messed things up - I'll let you know what we find...

Dumped in at Fair Haven at dark o'thirty in the morning and headed NE out of the chute. Our sister Amy joined us so we could show her the ropes of how to run our rig. We set down over 90 fow with a blank screen, so we continued NE as we set lines. Soon after setting up the probe rigger set at 70 ft pulling a stinger seasick waddler mag with a free slider seasick waddler gets whacked and we put Amy on the rod. A few minutes later a 7lb laker hit the deck. We continued eastward from there working 100-200 fow still not marking very much. We had 50 degrees down 70 ft and the water covered from the surface down to 100 ft. About an hour later the starboard side deep diver starts singing. It was out 240ft and pulling a white/green dots spin doc with ultra green glow fly. Ten minutes later we put a 19 lb king in the boat. We swung back through the area a couple times without a touch so we continued our treck eastward. We then went 5 hours without a touch. By this time we had a pile of gear in the back of the boat that we had tried, but then again we hadn't marked much either and we were approaching the College. We decided to start working our way back towards Fair Haven, as there was one area where we did mark quite a few fish, but couldn't get them to go, so we thought we'd give that area a try again. They still didn't want to play, so we continued westward and then at about 2pm the screen lit up! Bait pods from the surface down to 100ft with suspended fish around and underneath them, and WHAM! The port side deep wire out 210ft gets hammered! Amy is on the rod and the king screams out to 610ft. She then learns what it takes to bring a hefty king back from that far out to the boat, but she handles it like a champ and after a 20 minute battle we slid the net under a beautiful 22 lb king! This one hit a UV gator echip/hypnotist fly. We put out several more of these boards plus a UV 2 face and it was GAME ON!! Down speed of 2.2 was critical. In the next hour we boated 3 more kings (21, 20, 12 lbs), all on UV gator echips with hypnotist flies. Then, as my brother was bringing a skip king to the boat, the starboard high diver out 400ft gets nailed, breaks the surface and rips out to 680ft. We had to back the motor down to a crawl before I could budge this fish - either it was hooked in the gill plate and was spinning, or it was BIG. After 25 minutes of a slow cat and mouse retrieve towards the boat, I had it 150 ft back and it was still diving deep - this told us it was a monster king. When it hit 100 ft it came up to the surface, did a little dance with one hard head shake and the hook pulled free. It turned sideways as it swam away and all we saw was a very large silver flash. I can't say how big it was as we never fully saw it, but based on the way it fought and felt - easily 30+ lbs. First king we've lost this year and it had to be that one!! Hopefully we'll see that one again coming up behind our boat in August after it puts on a few more pounds!! That one hit the UV 2 face echip/chasin' tail fly. Heartbroken, we set back up and a couple minutes later the port side rigger pulling Stinger UV Gator spoons releases with nobody home followed by the starboard deep wire taking off. Another beautiful 20 lb king hits the deck to finish the day for us at 4pm. We ended up 7 for 9 on the day and I was looking forward to getting back out in that area to hunt for the BIG ONE again!! All our hits came 70-90 down over 120-140 fow. While the kings are not here hot and heavy all over like last year, they are here schooled up, and once you find them the rods start flying! We didn't get out today with the NE blow - hopefully this won't totally mess everything up, but it usually does for a few days...We'll be out tomorrow (if the lake settles) and Wednesday...

Rumour has it we'll be bringing 4 of them this year!!

Happy B-day Nick!!

Frabill and Plano are coming through HUGE for this event! We'll show you the goods when they arrive - you'll be impressed!!

Thanks fellas! Yeah, this is looking like a typical year, unlike the last few where the kings were here earlier than normal and we got spoiled!! It should be good fishing from here on out. Jim - I definitely will give you a call if I'm looking for a partner! I'll be heading out almost every day and I doubt my dad will be able to.

Pre-fishing leading up to the event we checked out the Hughes to Pultneyville area on Thursday afternoon. We set-up over 80 fow with bait on the bottom, but no fish. So we worked deeper and found lots of pods of fish (4-10+ per pod) 60-90 ft down and it wasn't long before the 300 wire on 3 setting pulling a blue dolphin spin doc/hammer fly got hit: 8 lb laker. Then we doubled on the riggers set at 70 and 90 ft: dual lakers! After setting back up we tripled up: triple lakers! We tried going deeper in hopes the kings were hanging on the outside of the laker belt, but it was a desert, so we headed back in to the 100-140 fow range and hoped the kings were mixed in with the lakers - no such luck! We finished 14 for 20, all lakers 6-15.5 lbs (the largest hitting the deck just before 8pm, so it was released along with the others). Our spread consisted of the following: (2) riggers (60-120 ft) pulling Stinger UV Tuxedo mag spoon, UVblue dolphin echip/chasin' tail fly, steely dan spoons on free sliders (4) wires (180-500 ft out) pulling the following: white/raspberry spin doc/UV blue fly, blue dolphin spin doc/hammer fly, capt. valium echip/chasin' tail fly, wonderbread spin doc/glow blue hammer fly. Best down speed: 2.5 On Friday, since P-ville was a lakerfest, I headed out solo 17 miles nw out of Port Bay. I checked every 100 ft on the way out and each stop yielded the same thing: DESERT. So I set-up over 800 fow and worked the 700-800 fow area for a couple hours running one rigger and two wires, or two riggers and one wire, or one rigger, a wire, and a leadcore. All with no luck and nothing showing on the FF. It was glass calm, and I didn't see anything surface either. So I pulled lines and headed in to our deeper waypoints from last year off Sodus, again checking every 100 ft as I came in. I set back down over 400 fow and worked my way back in to the 170 fow area where I started marking fish on the bottom and suspended 60-90 ft down. I set up a spread of two riggers and a wire. Nothing wanted to play until the last hour when I did 3 skip kings on the riggers pulling Stinger mag seasick waddlers and UV Tuxedo's. So our plan for the Challenge was to go east of Oswego down towards the plant for browns then swing out for kings to try to upgrade them. So after DJ'ing all night at a school-sponsored event at SUNY Oswego for the seniors at my school, I met the team at Wright's at 4:30am and we headed out. We ran down towards the plant and set-down about a half mile west of the plant over 38 fow. It was 4:40am so we watched the FF as we readied the gear - it was lit-up with huge hooks! Could they be kings or monster browns?? When the clock showed 5am we started to set lines. I put down the probe rigger 25 ft with a Stinger seasick waddler mag and went to attach the free slider (another stinger seasick waddler stingray) when the line released and started pulling! FISH ON after only 10 seconds!! A couple minutes later we had a 21" skip king in the boat! So were those huge marks kings?? We were pumped! We got the rest of the spread out which consisted of (2) riggers pulling stinger seasick waddlers and NK black/green glow spoons, (2) wires pulling a wonderbread glow echip/glow hammer fly and white/green dot glow spin doc/ultra green glow fly, short copper with a stingler glow wonderbread stingray spoon, 5-color leadcore with a stinger glow frog stingray spoon, and (2) mono long lines with Stinger seasick waddler spoons. As soon as it started to get light, the screen we had disappeared and we went into search mode. We also noticed that we had heavily stained water. So we worked further east passed the plant to an area with Cold Steel and Praying Mantis. Our initial plan was to keep working east into Mexico Bay, but our first pass through yielded our first brown (4 lb football) on the 20 ft rigger pulling a Stinger UV Tuxedo Mag and we marked both bait and fish in the area, so we decided to make a couple more passes through the area to see what happened. We pulled the other rigger to change the spoon over and it had a huge 6" alwife on it! So we also switched half our spread over to UV Tuxedo's mags and stingrays and added two more long lines on the boards. On our third pass, we boated a heafty 9.5 lb brown again on a Mag UV Tuxedo on the short copper. Soon after getting the copper back out one of the long lines with a UV Tuxedo Mag got whacked and Jeff was tied into something BIG. After a little bit we could see a hefty brown coming up behind the boat and we knew we had not only a good fish for the Challenge, but a LOC fish to boot! This fish put up quite a fight behind the boat zig-zagging between lines and taking off a couple times, but we finally slid the Frabill Powercatch net under this beauty and it hit the cooler! At this point we had 4 fish in the box and 4 hours to go to get two more! We switched the whole spread over to UV Tuxedos and were ready to rock! However, we would go the next 3.5 hours without a touch! The fish were still there as we kept seeing them surface and splash, but couldn't get them to go. So with 45 minutes left, we headed to deeper water in hopes we could box a couple quick steelhead or skip kings. No such luck - 1pm came it was game over. As we started pulling lines to head in, one of the long lines took off screaming and nice sized silver started jumping and dancing behind the boat! While it was too late for the Challenge, we hoped it was a big steelhead for the LOC board. As it came up the shoot we could see its green back and we knew it was indeed a steely! A couple minutes later it hit the deck and we put it on the scale. Just shy of 9 lbs and not quite quite big enough for the LOC so it was released to fight another day. At weigh-in it quickly became evident that some of the teams had found the kings putting together very nice boxes. Our big brown weighed in at 15.25 lbs and was the biggest brown to be weighed in at that point. Later an 18 lb brown was weighed in making ours the second largest. We ended up in the middle of the pack at 25th I believe. We then ran to weigh-in the brown for the LOC and landed it in 2nd place. The food and atmosphere at the awards ceremony was awesome as always as everyone shared their stories and experiences on the water. Congrats to the placing teams and also to Tom for another great, well-run tournament!! I highly encourage everyone to attend it next year as it's a blast!! See everyone back in Oswego in a couple weeks for the Oswego Pro-Am!! Until then - tight lines everyone!!

Nice! What did the kings come on?

We're heading out in the AM to see what we can find. Give us a shout on the radio or see us back at Screwy Louie's any time after 1pm. Remember, anyone who stops by can get 10% off any new tackle!! With any luck we'll have the 1st place Summer LOC fish for everyone to see too!!

The Finders Keepers Pro Tournament Team will be hosting an open-forum seminar at Screwy Louie's Sportshop in Fair Haven, NY on June 15th from 1-5pm. Stop out and ask any questions on how to run gear, spreads, electronics, etc. for salmon fishing on Lake Ontario. Screwy Louie's will be offering a 10% discount on new gear for anyone who attends and Finders Keepers has some Plano storage tackle boxes to hand out.

Just a reminder - the event is this Saturday! See ya there!