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Great info thanks!

MIA: one otter boat outside of pultnetville. It says Redneck III on it. Let me know if anyone finds it!

Headed up to the lake now. Reports are of extremely warm water and scattered fish. I'm hearing that temp is down 100+ft. Folks are catching fish, but it hasn't been fast and furious. The forecast for the weekend is of calm seas, but east winds, so we'll see how the fish bite. I managed to hurt my left shoulder last weekend, but I'm hoping it's good enough to keep on fishing! It will likely be a good weekend to fish offshore. I'm thinking I'll start in 100fow and point her north until my lines start singing their lovely song

That was nearly 20 years ago... There were 40+lb kings back then too. I guess I am just saying that these days a 30lb king is huge and a 19lb atlantic is huge.

Not in Lake Ontario

The Atlantic in Oswego was caught aboard TK Charters, by Henry Corchers party.

I believe this was the fish at this weekend's Salmon Slam that the DEC, who were at the Salmon Slam taking samples, said they believed was a hybrid between an Atlantic and Brown. You'll notice the tail is flatter than your usual Atlantic...

Tim, Jeff, thank you guys for all you do to help bring sponsors to this event as well as the preparation for it. Every year I hear from the Veteran that went out with you and how much fun you made it for them. I did forget to slip Craig a pair of ear plugs before he boarded though

My Veteran was ok staying out longer, but I was having trouble keeping the dipseys set even with trolling bags out. We were only in 250fow and it felt like we were on a skateboard half pipe! I can't imagine what it was like out deeper!

Mike thank you and your family again for all of your help in putting this event together, without people like you, it wouldn't happen. I spoke to the Project Healing Waters coordinator and he said the Veterans were all smiles and fish stories on the way back home! I'm sure we provided memories that will last a long time with some of these guys.

Crum, I know your team loves rough water, so you should have felt at home this weekend

Rod thank you for joining us this year! Hopefully, next year will bring nicer water conditions!

A definite huge thank you to Sammy and PNC for their contribution to this event. I am glad to hear that folks enjoyed the Captain bags and prizes, I always worry that there isn't enough, especially as we get more and more teams each year.

I will say that smallmouth will be added to the event, prior to adding lakers

Great job out there Roy! I'm glad you had fun fishing with Sodus Point Sammy! Thank you for all your help last weekend as well. You forgot your fish grip, it is on my boat for the next time you are at Arneys.

oh and I also wanted to thank Jack and Janet from Echo One and of course Mary and Chaz from Indecisive for their help and long hours this weekend! Chaz was our burger flipper along with Mark from RFH Hideway. Chaz earned a new nickname this weekend... "Yellow Jacket". Can you guess why?

We returned to port and prepared for weigh in and a BBQ. The grill was fired up and burgers and dogs began cooking. RFH’s Hideaway brought salads and other items and there was some great food. Weigh in began and there were a lot of nice kings caught by the Veterans! After weigh in, we had our prize ceremony and prize raffle. I don’t have all of the pictures uploaded yet of the Veteran raffle… I will try to add them when I get them from the person who took the pictures… The Captain’s prize drawing followed… This was our 4th annual Sodus Bay Healing Waters Salmon Slam and it was by far our best yet, even with the rough water. Many of our visiting Veterans stopped by to shake my hand and let me know how great their Captains were and how much they truly appreciated everything that was done for them and the time and energy people put into building a relationship with them this weekend. Everyone that participated should be extremely proud and know that they made a difference in people’s lives, mine included. Thank you everyone for your help, support, and dedication to this year’s event. I look forward to seeing you all at next year’s event. It is with great pleasure that I announce our 5th annual Sodus Bay Healing Waters Salmon Slam will be held on Saturday, August 6th, 2016. I hope to be able to enjoy this time with you all again next year!

430am came too early and the alarm went off. We crawled out of the boat and were met by a buzz of fishermen and volunteers, all of whom were as excited as we were for the Salmon Slam and came early to see if they could help in any way. It was awesome. We all got ready for the event and the lines of Veterans and Captains began to form at the check in table. Gift bags were handed out and Veterans were assigned to their respective boats. A quick Captain's meeting and the teams boarded their boats. We assembled in the bay outside of Arney's Marina and were greeted by the Sodus Point Coast Guard, fire departments, and sheriff. The Coast Guard announced on the radio that they were going to provide us an honorary escort for our Veterans and teams out through the pier heads. They fired up their lights and off we went. As many of us approached the 5mph no wake zone, we began to slow down... much to our surprise, the Coast Guard, fire departments, and Sheriff kept going full throttle! WOW! They brought us straight through the chute at full speed, an honor I've heard stories about, but never been able to partake in until then. What an amazing moment, lights flashing with 32 boats going on plane through the channel. It is a sight that I will never forget. It was a bit crazy with everyone's wakes, but it was A W E S O M E! We passed the pier heads and received a good luck signal from our escorts. We were off, the Salmon Slam had begun! It was a bit rough with 2 footers, but it was definitely fishable. About 45 minutes passed and the radio was pretty quiet. I started to get nervous that the fish weren’t going to show up and it was getting rougher by the second. Then a few boats started to report hits, then more! Some boats were in 500+ fow, some were in 100fow, but many were hooking up with fish. Our Veteran, Dave, turned to us and said, I always catch my fish on purple when I’m with you guys, can you put out some purple? So we put out the blood death board and fly on the dipsey, let it out to 300 on a #1 setting and I headed back to the wheel. I didn’t even get there and the bloody death starts screaming! Dave is hooked up! Theresa had a bit of trouble netting the fish and I got to enjoy hanging off the back of the boat and pulling the fish in with my stainless fish holder, but we got it in! At that point it was getting so rough that I couldn’t really get a picture of the king, let alone have Dave try to hold it. We gave it a bit longer, but the waves were getting to that 8ft range and were pushing the boat so hard that the dipseys were popping and taking out line. We decided to call it a morning and head in to take a tour of Sodus Bay. A couple of the boats that already went in called us and warned us that we were going to have fun trying to get in… As we got closer, we saw why… the port looked like it had teeth and there were about 50 sailboats making their way through the bay and out of the chute! Between the rough water and sailboats taking up most of the channel, it was a scary ride in. We had a few close calls with sailboats sailing through the chute instead of engine power, but we made it through. The DEC was there to do a creel survey at the end of the chute, so we stopped to give them our information. They finished and I looked up to see a sailboat barreling down at us! I quickly hit the gas and got out of the way. We took a run around the bay to let my nerves calm down and relax a bit. The bay was beautiful and we were able to show Dave where he had dinner the night prior (Dockers) from the water.

Wow, what a weekend! First, I would like to thank everyone who made this event happen. Our volunteers and captains are the ones who make this event possible. Without you guys and girls, there is no way we could continue to grow this event every year and help heal more and more Veterans. After a long week at work in North Carolina, I flew into Syracuse and Theresa picked me up at the airport. I turned airplane mode off on my phone and I knew immediately that it was Salmon Slam weekend. 12 missed calls, 8 voicemails, and 16 new text messages... yikes! (My apologies to anyone I didn't get back to quickly or may have forgotten to get back to all together!) We drove over to Screwy Louies and met up with Brendon to purchase some prizes with our remaining budget and then headed into Sodus Point. We met with Dick and his wife at the Sodus Point Fudge and Gifts Shop to discuss options for their donation to the event. We checked in at Arneys Marina and blocked off the corner of the marina we use for the event so that folks heading out for a weekend trip wouldn't park in the area we needed for the weekend. Then we headed over to Chaz (Indecisive's) house to pack the Captain and Vet gift bags. We had a small army of volunteers there to help us pack the 32 Captain bags and 35 Veteran bags. We finally finished around midnight and Theresa and about that time the wave forecast for Saturday changed to 1-3 building 2-4, not good! Friday morning: I woke up groggy and stepped out of the boat to a stiff West wind. I took about two steps and an older gentleman started complaining to me about the marina blocking off space in the parking lot to have a party. I explained to him how we were having an event for wounded and disabled Veterans, but he must have been having a bad day, so I walked away thinking, great this isn't a good start! I checked my phone and had about a dozen texts... they fit into one of the following categories: • It's really rough out! • Is BFF still on? • YEEHAAAA! From the sounds of it, there were 2-4s out there, which is never fun to fish in, but yes BFF was still on with the forecast of it calming down. Several of us used the time to start setting up the ez-ups and other items for the Salmon Slam. A few boats ventured out as far as the light house and turned around deciding to stop by the marina and help setup instead, which was really nice. Many of us ventured over to Nick's Diner for breakfast rather than fight the waves. About 10am, the wind calmed down and many folks that stayed in, headed out to the lake. I decided to take Theresa to the nursery to pick out some plants for the event instead of taking her out in rough water. We returned to the marina and were greeted by Jeff and Tim from Finders Keepers looking to be the first to be weighed in. That was of course the time I realized I didn't bring up the stand to hang the fish from and weigh them. Roy (Mudflat) had a good idea to use a ladder as an A frame, so we borrowed one from Arneys and began weigh in. A lot of fish were caught and it was obvious that there were some large fish around with multiple 20+lb kings caught! At the end of weigh in, team Hairy Bee took home the $550 prize! Once weigh in was complete, we headed to Docker's Restaurant on the other side of the bay for dinner. We had 80+ fishermen, families, Veterans, and friends join us for an amazing meal of prime rib, chicken parmesan, and haddock casino. Dockers did an amazing job and by the volume of the crowd it was pretty obvious that everyone was having a great time! After dinner, we headed back to Chaz's house to finish up prepping for the Salmon Slam the next day. We finished up the gift bags, packed the cars with the bags, prizes, and supplies and we were ready to go... and it was only midnight! This was also when the wave forecast changed for the worse. 3-5ft with gusts up to 25mph. However, it looked like we would have a window in the morning where it wouldn't be as rough, which was good.

Results from yesterday's Salmon Slam. Congratulations to Bear Creek Bandit!

Team Hairy Bee took the $550 cash prize today with a 24lb king! There were a few teams that came close as well.

Looks great Mike! Thanks for putting it together again this year!

If anyone has a large cooler we can borrow for tomorrow/Saturday, I'd appreciate it! Also, if people have fish tomorrow they don't want, please bring them to weigh in and we will store them until Saturday for the Veterans that want more.

Just a reminder everyone, BFF entry fees must be in my hand/paypal account prior to me leaving the dock at 5AM Friday or you will be disqualified. The list on page 1 is updated as of last night with who I have payments from.