rdebadts

Olcott or Wilson I would day

Gotta love the variety of fish you can target in this lake! You guys do really well at mixing it up when the initial game plan doesn't work.

There's a ton of little perch and yoy alewife patrolling the shore in front of my cottage

Not one of the 28 kings I caught this weekend was skinny. The only skinny fish I have caught all year was a spawned out steelie on Saturday

Those were some impressive boxes for sure. You are on fire this year man!

You go east on Sunday?

what a weekend at Olcott! first time fishing there and first time fishing the Niagara Pro am, and what a blast we had! We trailered the boat out Wednesday night super late (after a blow out on one of the trailer tires that delayed us for several hours). I got out Thursday late morning to reorganize the boat and retie everything, as everything I had was leadered down for brownies. we got out briefly Thursday early afternoon just to get a lay of the land, and found a ton of marks and bait in 70-100 in front of the red barn- only could catch small ones but at least we had a starting point for the first day of the pro am Friday May 20- we set down in 70 FOW a mile west on a NW troll, heading to our way points from thursday. we had a very wide spread of stuff out, covering from about 20-80 down (lead core, riggers 30-60 down with free sliders, Dipseys 180 and 240). as soon as we got in front of the red barn it was game on- and on really good fish too. We took 4 good kings by 9:00, including a really nice 24 lb and 21 lb king, so we pretty much immediately knew we were in good shape. we worked mostly 120-180 FOW on a NW/SE troll, and meat on the twinkie rig down DEEEEP was doing most of the damage. Despite not marking much down there, our 260 dipsey with meat and a 80-100 rigger with mag glow spoons were good. we ended up 12 for 13 on all kings, and were able to successfully release a bunch of smaller stuff. Our box was the biggest of the day (and entire open tourney) at 88.49 and we had big fish of the day (and the open tourney) with a 23.9 lb beast. Saturday May 21- we worked pretty much the exact same program again, with very similar numbers but much smaller fish. we did get a few hits in closer, (70 range) and a few hits out deeper (~200), but stayed right off Olcott from the barn to the channel. we ended up 12/14, mostly kings, but with one laker and one steely today. again, the meat bite on wire was good, and so was the lead core today with mag spoons. we ended up with 60.31 pts, good for 8th saturday. Sunday May 22 I went out with every intention to stick with the game plan, as I saw a lot of the other boats struggled a bit saturday. However, it just wasn't the same and I struggled all day to get my act together. we started the day missing two big screamers which really hurt, and really never recovered. we tried shallower and deeper today, but pretty much out front to the red barn again. we did 6 for 10, but with mostly lakers and smaller stuff. my box wasn't an improvement from saturday so I didn't even bother weighing in. We ended up with 148.9 pts overall for the western cup, just one point behind the winner, who was the last guy to weigh in. However, for our troubles we ended up winning $1700 in cash and another 900 in tackle! we lost big fish of the tourney by just 0.06 lbs, which kinda stunk but oh well. I will definitely be back. There was an impressive field (29 open/am boats) so to get first even one day was great. Glad to finally get my first win... The new cut bait (forget the name, think it is S&L) was superb and I caught multiple fish on one piece. I need to find out how to get my hands on some in Sodus!

Good stuff right there. A very welcome change! Hearing about more and more happening offshore...

Admittedly I don't keep a ton of lakers, but they more often that not have something OTHER than alewives in their stomach. They have a hell of a lot more diverse diet than a king, which eat pretty much exclusively alewives all year long. Listen, I agree that if the dec is so worried about bait, that filling it with tons and tons of long lived lakers doesn't make sense. But I think they occupy 2 very different parts of the ecosystem with relatively little overlap.

Lakers get a bad rap. They are not my preferred species by any means, but boy is it nice to have them around for the mid day lull from April- June... And it is always possible to catch a 20+ lb fish, which is a pretty rare thing in just about any other body of water. I kind of doubt they have a huge bearing on the alewife situation. It seems me to that they are only a part of their diet, as lakers appear to have a pretty diverse diet.

Cowbells, mag spoons, or dodger fly trolled really slow in 70-120 fow, within 10 feet of the bottom

So their recs are based on eating the WHOLE fish, including head, guts, bones, etc. they do this as some cultures will grind the whole fish. What data their is about filet only is scant, but the toxins in question, pcb and Mercury, have been in steep decline, although studies show wide variability. I work in medicine and know how to read a study, and find the available data confusing at best. The most interesting recs are the ones pertaining to women and children. Essentially, the "alarm" threshold is lower than for adults, and in many cases our fish fall well below this- but as a blanket policy, if there are any fish or contamination issues on a particular body of water, they make all fish in that whole area "unsafe" for children. I honestly don't know if I can feed my daughter (she loves fish) salmon filets