UpGrady

I was out Thursday night... check my post under the Fishing section... setup about 100' and troll north, fish the screen riggers in the 70-90' region should be good, had a bit of a NE out there today so stuff might be a bit higher... there were MANY fish on the screen from 100-200 fow east of Ibay last night, park your riggers where where you're marking the fish is the best advice I can give. I can mark my weights on the screen at trolling speed and can adjust them to where I am seeing the fish. You would have gone crazy chasing temperature last night it was all over the place. Gps speeds around 2.4-2.7 with NK weight spoons and spin doctors and you should catch fish. There are some high steelhead so a 10 color core should be good for a fish or two out there as well. Also, do not forget sliders on at least two riggers. Good luck

Fishing Report Your Name / Boat Name: ============== TRIP OVERVIEW ============== Date(s): 7/14 Time on Water: 5-8pm Weather/Temp: Wind Speed/Direction: Waves: calm Surface Temp: 74 Location: LAT/LONG (GPS Cords): =============== FISHING RESULTS =============== Total Hits: 15 Total Boated: 9 Species Breakdown: Kings, lakers, steelhead, coho Hot Lure: glow NBK's and clown wonderbread spoons on riggers, green spinnie/hammer on divers Trolling Speed: Down Speed: 2.5-3.0 Boat Depth: 150-220 Lure Depth: 70-80' ==================== SUMMARY & FURTHER DETAILS ==================== Many temperature bands, down temp at 80' was changing from upper 40's to low 60's directional, overall depth and area dependent. All that mattered was fishing the graph. Parked the riggers in the tight band from 70-80' where the fish were primarly marking and that was all you needed to do. Bait and fish everywhere last night. Fished east from shipbuilders to webster park. Riggers were best, mag diver at 200' on a 2 with the green spinnie/hammer took 3 fish (2 lakers). Rigger at 70' and slider (Glow NBK's) took the steelies an coho. Rigger at 80 with glow wonderbread took some kings (dumped a few decent ones and boated one about 20lbs). Slider on that rigger had one fish too. Great night on the water!

To answer a few questions that I overlooked, the Ugly Stiks are model BWD1120, Medium Action, Two Piece, no line weight rating.

I have four 7' Ugly Stik Rigger Rods with Daiwa 27H's, they are spooled with 10lb Big Game and were just torn down, cleaned and drag washers replaced 2 years ago. I have only used them a handful of times since. They are in great condition with light use for their age (approx. 1990). $150 for the set of four and prefer not to deal with shipping if possible.

Good job guys! Thanks for reminding me that there are still fish off Rochester for me to catch if I ever get back out this year!

So many of the Oak pioneers are no longer with us...just sad... many of these people were a big part of my teenage memories and beyond out there... "Just got another one on that Pearl and Purty!!!"- here's to ya Bernie... catch a few more up there on the Chinook I!!!

Chris, Sorry to hear about the problem... was out on Sunday for a ride and saw your boat was missing from Mayer's and wondered. The every year on the impeller as well as dropping your lower unit is the safest bet for you with a single I/O and all of the trolling hours you amass during a season. I push my twins to every other year, but if I was out every weekend and putting hundreds of hours on per engine, I would do everything yearly as well. You also have the worst thing in that area with the weed and moss coverage at Mayer's. It could have been the perfect storm where you sucked something into an intake that helped to smoke your impeller as well. Back when I had my old boat and docked there, I could not make it past the channel without reversing to unbind the weeds on my prop, it was horrible... Good luck and hope you're back in soon!

Thanks everyone!

Jerry, Wish those brownies were just a bit bigger for you... once again... Salmon are not ALWAYS the ticket! And that Steelie was awesome, never managed to actually land one that big... kudos on your game plan!

Team Devonian Fishing Report First off- kudos to the guys willing to run the distances to win this tournament. We figured that a number of the teams would be willing to run alot of miles to take advantage of the fish well West of the Oak last weekend. We made a team decision to stay within reason of the Oak and let the cards fall where they may. After three days of prefishing from the Oak down to Somerset, it was very clear to us, that we did not need to run very far to put together a 12 fish box comprised of Steelhead, coho, lakers and kings of all sizes. There was a nice temp break up and down the lake from the 25-26 North lines that was holding fish from the surface down to 90'. So we felt comfortable that we could put together a nice box of fish right in front of the Oak. The bite continued very good even on Friday's East winds. So with that game plan in place we left the harbor Saturday morning only to find that the break had moved north about two miles, but the deep temp had come up shallower, the east wind was starting its upwelling effects, so we set lines and trolled south with very little action until we got back into the same 25-26 line as previous days. The surface was not breaking, but was holding about 61 degrees and the fish were there but far more scattered. We ground it out to the tune of 8 fish (2 teenage kings, 1 laker and 5 coho). A Slive/Pink Stinger Slider on our 30' out and down accounted for 4 of the 5 coho. We boated 3 steelhead, but unlike the 10lb class we were on all week, they were undersized and went back. Also unlike all week, the skipper kings shrunk to 15-16", so we turned back about 10 of those and the abundant lake trout on the break only turned up 1 for the day and it was only 4lbs... so we limped into weigh station with a 132 point box but sitting in 14th place. Day 2- after the upwelling beginning, we determined that we need to try to generate a nearshore king bite early morning and maybe a brown or laker as well. So, we scoped out the nearshore waters and setup in 50-70fow off the pump house. As Mike Waterhouse was announcing we could set lines at 6am, the port engine dies, as well as the entire electrical system on the boat! Fortunately, we started the starboard and were able to keep moving, but all electronics were dead as well as riggers. While captain Mark figured out the problem, the team set EVERYTHING manually and within about 10 minutes we were fishing and had determined an alternator issue, but got the system back online... WHEW!!! With that excitement out of the way, we got to fishing and not seeing much of anything, we tucked into 50 fow once again and then headed on a north troll, ready to vacate the area when the wire diver at 125' with a white spinnie goes off smoking line... 20 minutes later we have a giant king aboard that ended up taking Big Fish for the tournament at 27.85lbs. We made two more passes thru the area and resumed our north troll. At about the 24.5 line we pulled a mid teen king on a 40' rigger, made a few passes in that area and resumed the north troll. Once again when we got to 25-26 line the action picked up with some skippers and small 4lb king, enough for us to begin working that same water. The rest of the morning was a slow pick thru some undersized kings, but was highlighted at about 10am when our starboard out and down at 35' bumped ever so subtly and by the time we got to the rod a huge Atlantic salmon was exploding five' out of the water 50' from the boat. The aerial show went on a few more times before we hauled the nearly 18lb hog aboard the boat. After that, we rounded off our box with another mid teen king on an 80' rigger and a laker. So, we figured with the conditions that we had bettered ourselves with nearly a 150 point box and were hoping to be in the money. After all of the weigh-in's we sat at #8 and it felt pretty satisfying considering the distance that many above us needed to run. Attached are some photos from Sunday of the Big King and Atlantic as well as the team, Capt Mark Lewis, Myself, Rob Martin, Mike Lewis and Gary Cappon. You can see our team shirts this year are highlighted in pink as we were fishing for a cause in Breast Cancer Awareness. Captain Mark's fiance, Michelle is a recent survivor. Mark has a number of shirts still available for a contribution to the cause. His 27' Tiara "Devonian" is docked at Lake Breeze Marina on the Oak, so look him up if interested.

UGH!!! I knew I should have been offshore on Saturday rather than fighting the boat traffic on the beach!

Nice job Foster.. we'll give you the credit and not Craig!

Awesome! Great to see kings in the area too...

AndyCapp, Glad you had luck shallow and tight, very feasible in some boats, but I am certain that you are referring to the larger boats including charters, most of which will not go in under 7 fow and are running 3-5 lines off each board. Therefore, they rely on the boards out a mile to cover that really shallow water. It is a double edged sword because it takes a while to turn and to stear clear of others, but the bottom line is that I was working that entire area all morning without incident, it comes with the territory and spring fishing. Rule of thumb is to yield to the charters and give them the depth they want. I sacrificed many passes for charters on Saturday but looked for openings to turn and get back to my water depth. I know we all have a right to the same water, but these guys are trying to make a living and without them and their lobbying efforts, we would not have this fishery today. Actually, there were two bigger problems out there than boards way out, one of which were a few small boats without a clue on speed, puttin' along at about a 1.5 clip and clogging things up. The second were the boats deciding to stop dead in the middle of the pack to fight a fish. These two things alone can cause immense issues in this type of fishing and these guys need to be more aware of their surroundings.

Fishing Report Your Name / Boat Name: UpGrady ============== TRIP OVERVIEW ============== Date(s): 4/30 Time on Water: 6-12am Weather/Temp: Wind Speed/Direction: light nnw Waves: less than 1' Surface Temp: 47-49 Location: LAT/LONG (GPS Cords): =============== FISHING RESULTS =============== Total Hits: at least 20 Total Boated: at least 12 Species Breakdown: 7 coho, 5 brown Hot Lure: Trolling Speed: Down Speed: Boat Depth: 8-15' Lure Depth: ==================== SUMMARY & FURTHER DETAILS ==================== Fought all of the boats from Shipbuilders to Webster Park all morning for some pretty good and consistent action. Nothing big, coho were all small, browns were 5-7lbs. Most orange and green stickbaits (Bombers and TSticks) were going on the boards with an occasional rigger bite too. Several doubles and triples during the morning... great way to start the season!

Ditto here... I have a fully compliment of 9' Rigger Rods, all are 25+ years old... I think that speaks volumes for durability, they handle Big Kings yet are limber enough to fight smaller fish as well. My brother even used them in the ocean trolling for mackeral and ended up landing a 60lb Blue fin after a two hour battle a few years ago! They are worth the extra money up front, I have seen too many rigger rods take a permanent bowed set after a few years of use as well.

Anthony, My brother runs a marine services business in the Charleston, SC area. He assesses the boat prior to quoting the job, but will generally charge in the $20-25 per foot range to wash and detail a boat dependent upon condition and configuration of the boat. I would venture to say that given the configuration of yours it would be on the low end of this range. Just to use as a point of reference, a detail cost plus washing cost on your boat approaching $30/ft seems high, my brother would be charging that rate for a larger flybridge boat that also possessess plenty of saltwater crud on it!

Rich, That's a vision that nobody needs!

Just heard this news yesterday too... RIP Franny, you'll be missed...

Tom, Sorry I did not see you posted it as well again... that's the photo I was looking for... on my computer desktop now... helps me daydream that much more!

pm sent

Thx for sharing Rich, gotta see all of them sometime.

Me with a 30lb 8oz King from the Oak June 1993- Led Summer ESLO until last weekend Father and Son with a nice Double on Kings (Biggest 34lbs) on the Shongo at the Oak June 28, 1990 Capt. Dennis "Shongo Butch" Tiberio with a 35lb King July 18, 1990 at the Oak Me with a 32lb King on Bob Stevens Sunrise II August 13, 1991 at the Oak Me with a 17lb 12oz Rainbow placed in the Orleans Derby August 15, 1992 Jason and Tony Cornetta went out with me on my dad's boat and hauled in a pair of 33lbers August 23, 1988 at the Oak (Not big enough for the ESLO!) Me with a 17lb Offshore Steelhead September 7, 1992 at the Oak Me with a narly 29lb wall King at the Oak September 12, 1993

We should all be taking off our Alpha lower units every winter and having them pressure tested and replacing impellers as preventative maintenance. The presence of water does not mean that the drive is shot, as there are many failure modes possible. Simply take the boat to a reputable mercruiser mechanic and they will assess the situation. I have a pair of Alpha drives on my boat and I have typically had them removed and tested every other year, additionally, I have oiler jars inside the boat to help keep an eye out for water intrusion during the season. If the unit is shot, then the mechanic will help you out, a replacement mercruiser certified rebuild is going to run you at least $1500, but the mechanic might be able to discount it some for doing the work. SEI units have gotten good reports as well and are a cheaper option than a Mercruiser unit, but unless you do the work yourself or find an independent mechanic, you will likely be locked into a mercruiser replacement.

I too am generally running a 4 rod spread in the spring and summer and my goto setup is normally a pair of riggers with spoons and free sliders on each along with a pair of wire divers. I do not run copper, but will run leadcore at times. In my opinion I start with this setup because it is easy to find speed and direction with the combination of the rigger cables and the divers if you do not have down speed. But even with downspeed you sometimes need a judgement call with rigger cables and divers. Everyday is different and to have other options in your arsenal is always a good thing to try when your goto setup is not working. The spring can be the most difficult when you might want to target deep kings and surface steelhead/coho, so you need to adapt your setup. and nearshore browns obviously dicate board lines and riggers. I can tell you that even in the summer the few times I have 3 or 4 people with me, I seldom run more than 2 riggers and 2 divers... less can be more MANY times!