Gill-T

Great looking fish. I would be interested to know stomach contents of the one you kept. They look well fed.

For Gambler’s picture it looks like chronic feeding on Gobie-mouth or the laker tasted itself.

Awesome! This is the year to do it.

Just had to ask......where they caught on a two-face spoon or flasher??

I hook a bunch of kings on my big 6” spoons under the chin as they like to roll on those big baits. Somehow they get all three hooks buried. It usually involvolves quick surgery with a fillet knife to get the hooks coming out.

Thurs was an afternoon recon day. Greeted by a cold water roll over we went out to look at the fishfinder and check temps. There was a slick line with seagulls out at 130’ that had a slight temp break. There were some hooks on the break and at least presented an option for the Friday event. The large upwelling event was creating wicked currents and plankton blooms on the fishfinder. As is often the case during roll overs, the bigger class of kings get pulled by currents off the deeper basin depths onto the shore. On inshore structure, bait gets pinned into the thin band of warmer water along the shore presenting an opportunity similar to staging. The locals in-the-know were working inside on a north-south troll picking away at them as shallow as 60’. Not knowing the structure nuances like the armada inside, we set up on the break at 130’ ish and ran a more East-West game (less stressful) and picked away at fish during the morning. With the full moon we saw late lifting of kings over our water about 9 am. We hit a sick flurry for two hours then went mostly dead afterwards. After weighing our fish at 3:00, we decided to head offshore to find a more consistent bite for Saturday’s event. Flat glass water inshore can make for a tough bite, and when we got offshore we found weird rollers and active kings. Setting down at 225’ we trolled NE hitting small bait pods and kings around slick lines. The lake was changing quick and by the time we came in, the surface temp bumped 10 degrees. The sat event had us set up on the close break around 150’. We picked away at the kings that loved the cold water - jumping like steelhead and reaking havoc around the net. As the day progressed we found better fishing deeper, again around the slicks. We had a 17 lber to take to the scales for pictures knowing from radio chatter that you would need a 24 lber to win, so at the final count down I decided deploy the tactic of burying the net in the cuddy. Clearing lines one at a time, our wire diver takes off with 5 minutes of fishing time left. After a long battle we upgrade our fish only slightly. Our vet had a blast - most important. After hours was catching huge carp off the dock on corn, including a 20+ lber that took me 20 minutes to land. Always a great time to be had in Sodus. Best spoon by far was a black faced spoon with glow cup

Are you asking about the wounded warriors salmon slam fishing? There are some posts on the subject in the tournament section of LOU.

I own an ‘88 trophy. I like the blue stripe you added.

Thanks Nick for taking the time and putting this event on. Our vet enjoyed two days of dancing with kings.

Agree with Pappy plus we shot offshorre this evening and lit them up NE of port past 250’

No muddy water but frigid temps inside.

Nick, can I leave the $50 with Arney’s in an envelope?

I confirmed the same from a Boat that came in.

Nick, Arney’s wanted you to know ice will be available in the morning.

Nick, does the free derby ticket for veterans include Friday’s event?

The additional cost of bait strips can be a "no-brainer" to charters when you examine gas savings per hour if meat helps clients get their limits faster. As a weekend warrior, if I can catch fish on spoons or flies......why bother. Part of the fun of fishing is fooling them with artificials. Derbies and tournaments I do have some meat in the boat, but it only comes out if the fish are not biting and I have gone thru plan A, plan B and plan C.

That is what I call a “boat slip”.

Hammer used to be good for me but now sits out of the rotation due to a three year underperformance.