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Well, we have been up all weekend, but between preparing for next week's Salmon Slam and the nasty wind we have had, we haven't gotten out yet. The forecast for tomorrow looks good though. Reports have been mixed with temps down deep, but up higher in 250fow. Kings are around, but still not in great numbers. The evening bite has been better than the morning bite, likely due to the full moon. We have added a new pink pole to our boat (as well as 3 other boats) for a bit of a side bet... we hope to live stream a lot of it tomorrow on the Lake Ontario Fishing - Ruff Rider facebook page, but will also post a video here afterward as well.

Today is last call for signing up for the Salmon Slam dinner on Friday @6pm. Below is the list I have. Please let me know by 5pm if you want to be added/removed...

It really comes down to coordination and Theresa and I not wanting to deal with different scales, disputes, etc.

Ok folks, we have nearly one week left until the Salmon Slam! We have a lot of boats signed up for BFF and as of now the weather looks great. Folks can still sign up for BFF and remember you can fish from ANY PORT on Friday as long as you drive your fish over to Arneys for weigh in. With all the kings being caught out West, I'm surprised to not see more boats out there wanting in on what will likely be a $500+ award. Also, remember that $25 of your entrance fee is tax deductible as a charitable donation!

Go get them!

Also, there is live feed video from the weekend on the Lake Ontario Fishing - Ruff Rider facebook group page. I for the life of me can't figure out how to link it here.

Btw, one thing I forgot to mention was the steelie we caught had several gobies in its belly! First I have seen that...

We just figured you slowed down once they saw your number, bummer!

Awesome fish! Just imagine... most fish they say will gain 5lbs in the next month... with the amount of 25lb fish we saw this weekend... I am super excited for August!

Nice job getting 3rd place and it was nice meeting you! We will be gunning for ya next year

I'm beat, but wanted to give a quick update on how the ProAm went. Pics will follow later.... Thursday: Jack from Echo One and "Little Wayne" from Reel Outlaw (not to be confused with "Big Daddy Wayne" from Green Dolphin), joined Theresa and I to prefish. After seeing all of the great reports from out West we decided to run west. We ran to 26W nearly out front of Irondequoit, the farthest west we have ever ran and it was a haul! The weather started out nice, but quickly turned into a strong west wind and large fast moving waves. We had almost non stop action, but mostly lakers with scattered kings, but most not large. We worked our way back east trolling mostly 100ft-250ft. Water temperature was ~50F down 50ft over 150fow to start. By the end of the day, we had trouble finding temp down 100' over 150fow! Our 600 copper took our only 20+ king that day on a bloody death spinny with purple squids and cut bait. It would be the ONLY fish we took on cut bait all weekend, even though other teams hammered them on cut bait. We had no real all star, just a steady pick. Every rod fired at least once. We probably had 20 bites, but half were lakers if we dropped any lure into cold water. Nothin but lips! Friday: Beautiful day on the lake, but the rough lake the day before took its toll on our team. Jack stayed in to recoup and Theresa slept down below for a good part of the trip. My goal was to use the flat lake to scout. I trolled from 80fow to 250fow and was hitting good fish to the west of port, not quite to Pultneyville, where I had been fishing the previous weekend. Knowing those fish were there, I didn't want to bother them too much and headed north. My plan was to find colder water as the inside had 60F down 110' over 150fow. I trolled North, marking fish all the way to ~300fow. Temp was the same. I knew that somewhere deeper, the water had to stabilize/cool, so I trolled.... and trolled... and trolled. My screen was "king free" from 350fow to 750fow. At 750fow, the temp was within 1 degree of what it was in shallow... I was dumbfounded. I trolled all the way back in to the East not marking another king until 250fow. There were a lot of steelies out in 750 down 20ft, but I had a lot of trouble getting them to bite reliably... but it was a back up plan. Once I got back into 250fow to the East, there was a pocket of smaller kings that I hit... another backup plan. Saturday: Well, it's the Sodus Pro AM... of course the weatherman was wrong and we were greeted with 3-4s from the west. We spent the first 40 minutes running West before saying forget it and fishing the spot I had fished the previous weekend. We tried trolling West and were getting rocked pretty good. Finally we turned around and trolled with them for a break from the battering. It wasn't until 9:15 that the deep rigger took off and started SCREAMING line. Theresa was on it and brought in a 26+lb king! We were stoked, but knew we needed more. So we turned and tried trolling back to our spot... due to the wind and current, it took twice as long to troll West as it did East and we wasted a lot of time trying to troll back. We started to pick up and run West (slowly) so we could troll East. We picked up a 22lb king, and a 10lb king on each pick up and return... all trolling East. Then the bite died and we quite frankly were pretty beaten up, so we just kept trolling East towards port to maximize our fishing time. We finally put out a deep diver to try to get near bottom and were rewarded with a small steelie. That was it for the day, 4 bites and 4 fish. We thought we were in trouble, knowing there were a lot of fish out there, but thought we were in good shape for the "3 Fish" tourney with two decent fish to weigh. At weigh in, we were somewhere around 8th with nearly half the field within one fish of us. Team Roll With It (from Arneys Marina, yay!) were in first with a 40 point lead. Team Dipsy Ranger were in second with less than a one fish lead and were ahead of us by 3 lbs in the "3 Fish" thanks to a monster 30lb king! Saturday Night: Time to plan for the next day. Do we go back to our spot that produced the big kings and get one more in hopes of taking 3 fish, or do we go to our spot to the East with numerous small fish, try to box 6 and then run West to get a big guy? I decided to start East with a plan to run back West if it didn't work. Sunday: We left port and ran straight out and headed slightly East to our spot. We set down and had a loaded screen. Fishing began and our 120' rigger with a spinny/fly and a black spoon with a glow back, silver ladderback front with glow eye cheated 9' up was ON FIRE. We quickly landed 3 fish, all in the 7-10lb range and then dropped a smaller fish behind the boat. The next fish was a nicer fish and Theresa was on the rod. It came up to the surface went nuts and gone We reeled the line in and the spoon was missing, the leader was missing, the alberta clipper was missing! Either it broke, or I forgot to clip it shut. It took us the next two hours to find a spoon that would work. A green with white dot glow back spoon finally started to fire, only problem was, each fish was tiny and not legal. We finally made the decision to run back West. We setup in 120fow and started trolling North to find some fish. The screen was blank, nothing was firing, and I thought we were in trouble. Finally about noon, we hit 230fow and the screen lights up with big hooks. Our 120 rigger fires and Jack has a slob on. We can't budge it. We pull the starboard side lines, throw a trolling bag out, and start to circle as slowly as possible. 30 minutes later, we finally get the fish up with a hook in its mouth and the line wrapped. What we thought was 30lb+ turned out to be 19lbs. We were bummed, but we were back on fish. We started circling that spot with only an hour to go. We had a shot, but never hooked up. We circled again and the 120 rigger started screaming. We landed another teenage king and had a box of 5. We were still marking good fish, but ran out of time and headed in. At weigh in, the fish we lost hurt us and dropped us to 4th place, which we were stoked about! We missed 3 Fish by 3lbs and tied Hook-n-Up for 2nd in the AMs down to the tenth of an ounce! Shark Tank Pro Winner I also really enjoyed the "3 Fish" part of the tournament this year. Sometimes the ProAm can become a brown fest and it gave us an option since we don't fish browns At the end of the day, we could have basically fished with one rod during the tournament. Our 120ft rigger took every fish except 2. I think the fish we were on were all down below 100 and our dipseys and copper just weren't getting down deep enough. My probe rigger stops reading at 110ft and never took a fish even when we had it up high going for steelies. Overall, it was a great tournament and a ton of fun as usual. If you haven't fished it before, you should really consider it next year. Just remember to have fun and not take it too seriously!

Two more weeks folks! We had one boat drop out this week, so we have one opening left. If you were on the fence about joining, here's your chance! Thank you Eagle Eye for filling our last slot!

Thank you Michigan Stinger for joining as a sponsor to our event this year!

Thank you!

Thanks Mike! Sorry we didnt see you to say hi!

We couldnt find the kings. Ton of lakers though. West wind blew hard and brought warm water in

It is very rough.

I am very proud to announce that we have reached our goal of 40 boats this year! Thank you to everyone whom is donating their time to this cause! Also, the Big Fish Friday pot is growing nicely! Remember, you can fish BFF from ANY port, so those of you nailing kings out west right now, feel free to get in on the action!

Nah back to work. We will be back up Wednesday night, but no reports until after the Sodus ProAm