Finders Keepers

Take 'er easy fellas, those of us who fished these events are still recooping from them!! I got an average of 3-4 hours of sleep every night for the past two weeks!! We'll get our reports up, along with the results when we can, just be patient (I'm just now starting to think straight again)!

It really depends on your definition of "Pro". I believe there are two strains of "Pro's": 1. Like Nick said, licensed captains who run charters and/or guided trips and who fish for a living, and 2. tournament anglers who are extremely good at targeting specific species and put fish in the box even in the toughest of conditions and who participate in many tournaments in a given season. Until recently, the second type have been very scarce to non-existent, but we (Finders Keepers) are trying to bring our amazing fishery into the spot light by capturing the attention of major sponsors/companies worldwide while promoting our fishery and helping those just getting into the sport to be successful on the water. This will hopefully allow for more "Pro Tournament" teams to emerge in the Great Lakes. Neither my brother or myself are licensed, but we have a very tight program that puts fish in the boat virtually every trip out! Either way, you don't have to have the biggest boat, fanciest gear, or every kind of lure (although having multiples of the hot rigs helps), to be a pro. What is required is skill, experience, and dedication to the sport. If you want to know how we became "pro's", there is a thread on the "Finders Keepers True Ontario Story".

We'll be going out the day before to sniff out the waters and will post what we find and what we find them snappin' at! Nick - We'll be trailering our rig in and there is usually plenty of parking across from the state launch. I have the 2 dozen bait heads Rhys Davis sent, will you be up next weekend? Let me know when you'll be around and I can drop them off to you. Also, we will be giving a seminar at the Sodus Point Lodge on running meat rigs after the big event wraps up at Arneys. All are welcome to attend!

Aw, c'mon Nick, that was a nice salmon chop yesterday! We also caught a lamprey about 2 feet long and 2" in diameter! We let him go - luckily their not like starfish!

Good luck to everyone fishing the Pro-Am this weekend! It should turn out to be an interesting one with the current east blow underway!!

Nothing fancy, simply a Mercruiser V6, but the boat itself is a lighter boat. We can fly on calm waters, but give us some waves and we're pounding!

We didn't target the higher marks, just ran the deep program. We also marked lots of high marks too!

Should have gotten out this am, we had a very good bite going on majors and ended at 12:30 7 for 13, biggest just over 25 lbs. It was tough keeping them buttoned in the surf!

On Sunday that was us - we were the only Pro boat headed past Fair Haven (the other two boats somewhat keeping up with us stopped east of Fair Haven). We top out just over 50 mph.

That is much different from this am!! We had 3-5's with an occasional 6! Let's hope the wave forecast holds true this weekend!! Good luck and have fun! See ya at weigh-in!

Congrats! Hopefully she'll have good sea legs!!

Can't wait!! This year's derby should be fantastic!!

We've been putting quite a few in the box this year on meat! With the bigger fish this year, we suggest having at least one bait rig down all the time!!

We will be presenting a short (1-2 hour) seminar on running different bait rigs (sushi flies, teasers, whole bait, etc.) on August 4th after the conclusion of the Sodus Bay Healing Waters Salmon Slam at the Sodus Point Lodge (probably around 7 or 8pm). We'll be demonstrating the various set-ups, discussing leader lengths and materials, hook types and combinations, running speeds, use with and without attractors, "tuning" the heads, and much more!! The event is free and space in the lodge is limited so anglers only please.

Fast & Silver is right. You don't need the highest end equipment to do well. It boils down to the decisions you make and how well you can adapt to the changing conditions Lake O throws at you. Learn your boat, how to effectively run your gear, and continue to learn from others!

Nice job Wayne!! That fish was a beast!! Hopefully we'll see lots of those hit the decks this weekend!!

I'd like to note that the new format of the Pro-Am's is a winner! We were a little skeptical at first, but now really like the new format. It spreads the money out, gives you more chances to place (even if you have a poor day-1), and adds an element of strategy for the different boxes. For those teams on the fence about participating or not wanting to go against the "big boats", take this into consideration: both the Niagara and the Oswego Pro-Am's have had divisions won by the smallest boat in the tournament! Just some food for thought...

This weekend was nothing short of DYNAMITE!! We pre-fished out of Fair Haven on Wed and found a decent class of fish in fairly good numbers (we went 15 for 20 that morning and ended with all 6 rods firing ). On Thu we pre-fished out of Oswego and found very scattered fish (browns in close, steelies out deeper, with kings sitting on the bottom over 300-500 fow). Earlier in the week we had hit Sodus and had no problems putting fish in the boat - good numbers and good size. So our plan was to hit Sodus on Fri. Friday morning we hit the water at 3:30am in Oswego and shot up to Sodus, setting lines a little east of port. Unfortately the bite had slowed significantly since earlier in the week and the fish were smaller in size. So we made the decision mid-morning to shoot back to Fair Haven and work the more scattered, larger fish. We banged one good king right off the bat about 20 lbs, and we thought we made the right decision, but then we washed lures for a looooong time. It seemed our area had turned into a desert, so we began working eastward towards Oswego in search mode. With about an hour to go, we finally marked two nice marks on the screen and soon thereafter, doubled up on 20+ sharks! We ended the day 9 for 14 and headed to weigh-in. Our 3 kings weighed-in at 64.__ lbs and landed us a 6th place finish! Saturday our plan was to work the same area off Fair Haven, except this time get in on the early morning bite. Unfortunately, one big disadvantage we have as one of the smaller boats (the smallest for the Oswego Pro-Am), is that any rollers can really limit our ability to fly to any location. The lake looked flat, but there was just enough of a roll coming from the west that it limited our speed and it took over an hour to get to our starting point off Fair haven! We set lines and in the first hour we had 6 hits, but only put 2 teenagers in the boat. The bite seemed to die-off so we went into search mode working deeper. We found the kings in small pods and would get 2-4 hits per pod, but the pods were very few and far between. We decided not to go after browns and focus on our Trophy Box. Luckily we were able to get 5 good fish in the box plus a smaller king when it came time to pull lines and head to weigh-in. After we weighed-in, we had a 119.__ box and put us in third! We nervously watched as team after team weighed-in and when the last team came through, we ended up in 7th place for the Trophy Division! Since we had focused on the Trophy Box, our Classic Box was lower in the ranks at 17th place. For Sunday, we did a lot of researching and came up with the plan to head to Sodus, despite the poor catches that had come in the day before, mainly because we knew the numbers of fish were there, and since most Pro boats wouldn't be targeting there Sunday, we hoped the kings would turn back on. In order for our plan to succeed, the lake was going to have to be flat in the morning so we could fly there without losing much fishing time. To avoid the washing machine from all the wakes, we made sure we were one of the first boats to the lighthouse and luckily for us, there was a light SSE breeze and at the shotgun start. So we flew towards Sodus and were very happy to see the last two boats following us set-down just east of Fair Haven. We were on our target zone at 5:40 setting lines, not too shabby for the 28 mile run! It wasn't too long before the first rod fired and it was GAME ON!!! For most of the morning we followed the same mile and a half line picking up one or two fish each pass, all kings, and all decent sized. The hits were very aggressive and we only missed a couple haeding into our last hour of fishing, which at the time we had 9 kings in the box. Other boats in the area had seen us tracking that line and had moved into the area shutting the bite down. So we moved a half mile east and doubled up! But the rigger fish came off! The other was a beautiful 18 lb'er. After setting back up and with only about 15 minutes left to fish, we doubled up again, only this time the wire fish dropped it, and we were able to land the rigger fish, a 15 lb king that hit the Shark Spoon! While my brother fought that fish, I pulled all the lines so we could run our box in, despite being one fish short of boxing out. Our plan had worked so far and we hoped everyone back in Oswego had targeted browns and that the salmon bite was still very slow and scattered. As we approached Oswego, we saw many boats in shallow targeting browns and we were feeling very good about our box! We tagged the larger fish with the zip ties and started putting them back in the cooler. When we got to the last two fish (the largest of the box), they wouldn't fit! So luckily I had planned ahead for such an occurrance and we added a second cooler. We then headed over to weigh-in where we turned some heads when we pulled both coolers out of the truck. Our largest king was just over 25 lbs and our total weight ended up being 88.78 for the Trophy box, and 137.87 for the Classic box. We finished with 5 titles: 7th place trophy box (day 1), 1st place classic box (day 2), 3rd place trophy box (day 2), 3rd place overall trophy box, and 8th place overall classic box. Here's some shots after the awards ceremony: A few days off then it's back on the water preparing for the Sodus Pro-Am!! See everyone there and good luck! Only one week left of the Summer LOC!!

Gotta love the amazing fishing this year! Nice job!!

That's a great 2-hr trip!! Congrats!

Way to go Kyle and Jon!

Good fishing Dale! Love that spoon!

Hey Rick, I would have thought the same, but Davenport's has said they have caught pickeral before in Sodus, so we figured we would include them in the event in case someone knows how to target them. For panfish we are looking at sunfish and bluegill. You can leave the gobies on the ice for the seagulls. Pike are on there and will be the main large fish species targeted along with perch.

Right on!!

Yeah, it's a little steep for quite a few people. However, I must say, I do like the new format!