UpGrady

Wire and Wire Diver= Wire Dispy Diver setups, line counter reels allow you know how many feet of line is out 300 Copper= 300' Copper line setup 100' rigger= 100' deep on downrigger Forgot that my 10 Color Leadcore Setup with a Moonshine Mag spoon took a number of fish as well, so added that as another term! No worries, No secrets at all here!

Jack, I heard you were back on the water, Great news! I moved to Southpoint on the bay this year, better amenities for the family. Good luck at the new port!

Decided to fish the tournament this past weekend with the usual team minus the usual captain who was busy bringing his new boat home and added my brother in from South Carolina. 6/27- Set lines about 5:30 in the shallows off Webster to look for browns in preparation for Friday Species with little success. Decided at 8 that we should look north before that flat lake and sun might destroy the salmon water. Water was very stained from river flow out to 130fow, screen was good but did not pull a bite, turned back and all hell broke lose with a mixed bag of slob lakers up to 17lbs, steelhead and a few Kings. We felt confident in the 110-150 fow to get 3 species for friday by 10:30, so we turned north to check out to 300 just to know... pulled lines about 11:30 to run to Braddocks for information... trolled that water back to the river with some success but the screens were not there compared to Webster 6/28- We had our plan and confidence in 3 species but figured we had to be able to pull one brown first thing. Setup off shipbuilders and trolled down toward webster in multiple depth lines and back from 5:30-7 without a touch. headed north to grab our 3 species quick and figured we would dedicate the rest of the day to a brown if needed. water was similar to Thursday... Lakers, Kings and Steelies were active from 130-180. Wire diver at 130 with a green Pro troll/Sweet Pea went off multiple times with high teens kings, Biggest just shy of 20, Lakers were a bit smaller, 12 was biggest and grabbed a 5lb steelie by 10am. Pulled lines and ran into hedges area and worked east and then back from 25 to 75 fow for the next 4 hours with one laker and a slider rip to show for the efforts. Disappointingly we went to the scales knowing that a check was not going to happen without that brownie! 6/29- Again, we had high confidence in our water producing a 90-100 lb box that would get us in the running. The 5:30am morning started off as planned with great action on 300 and 400 coppers, 100' riggers and 130 wire diver setups. By 7am we had a pair of high teen kings and 3 fish in the 11-13lb class that needed to be upgraded. We had dumped another high teen king on wire diver that was on surface behind the boat when the copper took off screaming and cut off the mono (bad omen, but we had confidence that we would replace the fish). Continued to work the area and pull bites but by now we were a heavy meat and flasher program as it seemed that the bigger fish were preferring them over the past 2 days. Got the third high teen king about 10am and then the NW began to blow and pushed our stained water in closer to shore, the screen began to dry up and the bite slowed, about noon we pulled our biggest king at 21lbs on a wire at 225 with flasher, but we still had a 13lb king in the mix and about a 90lb box that needed an upgrade in the next 2 hours. That bite would never come and the omen loomed large! We still had confidence in placing knowing that the bite off Braddocks had dried up that morning. Ended up in 4th place with 89.16lbs, cash to cover our expenses for the weekend and a great time as usual with my teammates and the clan at the Rochester CIty Marina docks. Also, great to put faces with names at the weigh station and talk to people! Matt, Larry and Lucas and others that may of helped, thank you for you efforts to pull this together, Rochester needed a tournament and I hope that it can continue!

Temperature is a guide to get you in the ballpark, your screen will tell you where to fish. Speed and presentation are everything and is somewhat unique to your boat and lures being used. Take notes when rods start flying about direction of troll, speed at ball and SOG. I very rarely troll East/West unless boat traffic, wind or currents dicate it. I prefer a more northerly to southerly troll to mitigate the impacts of the prevailing Niagara current or in the case after an upwelling, a reverse surface current. Pay attention to how your rigger lines and divers are tracking behind the boat. If one side is pulling to middle of boat you are on a terrible track with the current and wind, correct it until they are tracking more inline with the boat, 9/10 times you will find the best presentations and speed by keying in on this item. Do not be afraid to experiment with anything until you get rods to fire and get confidence in a spread. Many days it is tough to know what you are doing wrong without the experience behind you to have the confidence that rods will begin to fire when you figure out the magic sauce that day. But that is why we keep coming back for more, every day is unique and needs to be figured out.

Thanks Rob, The Mike's Fleet are on my list! The Other two are Fortuna and Tease Me that seem to have great reviews.

Anyone fished out of here. Headed down there with a group of families in Mid Feb. I have a few Big Water Charter names that I am scoping out, but does anyone have any first hand info?