Gill-T

Close your eyes.....picture your perfect day out on the water. West winds....check. Slight salmon chop...check. Right time of year for staging salmon....check. Cool water close to shore.....check. Lucky hat, skinny shirt and hand-me-down dorky pants from in-laws.....check. Launched out of Youngstown and headed for the drop. Set her down on the Canadian line with the intentions of showing a newbie with a new boat the red can area during derby time. First rig down was an eleven inch protroll and fly with a mag yellow NBK fix cheated above. Turned on the drop at 120' and hooked up before the second line was down. Pulled off the drop to fight the fish away from boat traffic and landed a lean 25 Lber to start the day which took the spoon. By the time we got back to the drop boat traffic was getting heavy with the usual crap that goes on there. Managed to take a double with another king and a laker soon after setting up. There is a nice pod of kings sitting right on the bottom near the canadian line on the drop and everyone saw them on their graph and wanted a piece. At 10:00 we left after we got pinched (newbie driving) and I had to scramble to clear two riggers and three dipsys by myself when we ran up onto the shelf. Met another friend in Youngstown at the dock and headed back out at noon to fish some quieter water away from the pack. Set up in 95' east of the river, sent a rigger down 12' with a flasher and fly.....with line in hand to add cheater the rod goes off. I think no way....has to be a brown or steelhead in the 75 degree water......then it starts peeling drag....King????? Yep. That started what turned out to be one of the greatest days of fishing I may ever experience. We went on to troll waters from 94-110' with temps down only 65'. The action was incredible. We hooked majors every 15 minutes! More incredible was we did not loose one fish all day. Every hook was BURIED and many down deep. Flasher fly bite. Riggers down 75-88', Size #1 dipsys fished off boards 300' back, Mag dipsys 180-225' back. Hot combo was green-dot SD with A-tom-mik pro/am fly with yellow UV beads. To add to the incredibleness of the day was we did not see anyone else and we pretty much straight-line trolled in a 2-3 mile area. This group of salmon going up the river is HUGE (our fish were 19-30 lbs) Anyway, what a way to cap the season. The boat is put away until spring got work to do on house before fall sets in.

Wind this weekend should keep the little buggers at bay.

Be aware when you add depth to shorter copper segments, they may get together with your divers. I run weight-added-copper WAY off on my otterboats to prevent the FUBAR.

Salsa and fish go great together. Fresh Lake O salmon or trout skin side down on grill, with pineapple salsa over top, covered with tin foil. Right before you pull it, sprinkle grated cheese over top. Serve with wheat thins. Easy to make and clean up.

Current plays a huge roll. Trolling off Oswego this weekend my blowback on my riggers, bend in the dipsy rods, angle of diver wire in the water LOOKED like I was trolling much faster than my subtroll was telling me. Best guess was the upper water layers were crankin' but in the deeper water layers....not so much. I know I was not hitting my usual depths with my divers and I dumped a 300 Copper into a mag diver out 300'......that should never happen.

I have caught Kings with verts and a j-plug or a flasher/fly trailing fished close to bottom. Usually wait until fish have moved in closer to try.

Had my Cannon manual riggers upgraded to electrics. The conversion was done at Screwy Louies and was 1/2 the cost of new.

Untapped resource. I gaurantee there are a ton of browns in the water east of Olcott and you will have the place to yourself.

Boat Doctors in Olcott will do it for you. Reasonable pricing. If you want the boat closer to home there is a marina on Campbell Blvd. on Tonawanda Creek that will offer the same.

Capt. Samia .....I think had some underwater footage of flashers rotating and noted the opposite of what is logical. I believe he noted the tighter to the ball the flasher was, the greater the rotation. Don't know how you could measure the rotation only observation.

http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/res/glcfs/glcfs.php?lake=o&ext=swt&type=N&hr=00 Bottom temps look cool inside. You may not have to go out far to get into fish.

Actually, now it doesn't look too bad for tomorrow. Just sleep in a little to let the lake settle down a bit and you should be fine.

Maybe 1-2' waves in the harbor...........

How big is your boat? With strong NW winds, expect large waves until sat.

Pennyanboats.com A couple of nice freshwater boats on site.