rdebadts

Which port? The Fishin’ Physician Assistant

Big bait pods off the niagara river. Have only seen small pods in that 150-250 range on the west end The Fishin’ Physician Assistant

I kept seeing low marks, so I threw some cutbait down there. The water was cold... it was my probe rigger so I can tell you it was 40 degrees. The Fishin’ Physician Assistant

Hachimo, be ready to move. The guys that beat us Saturday were off the bar to in front of Olcott. Our fish from Friday moved like 5 miles overnight it sounds like The Fishin’ Physician Assistant

I will just start my saying.... wow. We fished the niagara pro am. Despite a disappointing placement, we had unbelievable fishing. Good god are there a lot of kings around. Friday- We had scouted east of Olcott Thursay afternoon and the results were good, so our plan was to work the plant 150-250. We set down in 140 off the tower and trolled ne towards the plant. We got instant gratification, with fairly large kings on a deep meat program (100-120 rigger), even though our bites on Thursday were on a high spoons program. We switched 2 dipseys over to meat and put them deep, and picked away at 10-12 lb fish with a few dandy kings mixed in. As the day progressed, the hits increased and so did the size, so we kept upgrading. By the time we were done, we had 44 hits, all on kings- and landed 29. Our best water was 160-200, but we got fish in as little as 130 and as much as 250. And to top it all off, the weather was gorgeous. Here are our "culls" We weighed a 21.6, 18, 17, 16 and 15 lb king, good for 87 lbs and a score of 137 pts. We had big fish for the day (and entire tourney, Including pros), as well as the biggest am box on either day. Needless to say, we felt good- especially since there wasn’t a boat within a mile or us alllllllllll day. Our program was pretty basic- a 10 color core with green/uv spoon, 300 copper with green/uv spoon, 100 rigger with meat, 150 and 200 chinook dipseys with meat, and riggers down 30-50 with uv spoons. Every rig took many hits. We didn’t go more than 20 minutes all day without a hit. I’ve never seen anything like it. We had 2 triples and 7 doubles. Truly, a day you dream about having. our "big 5" Saturday- We ran right to our waypoints in front of the plant from Friday, and felt VERY good about our situation. We accidentally set down in 230, a bit deeper than expected (though this turned out to be fortunate). With the exact same setup, we started with 2 triples and 2 doubles in the first 30 minutes of fishing, mostly on a deep (70-100 down) meat program, all on kings 8-13 lbs. It was absolute pandemonium... we did miss a decent teenage king due to a shoddy net job (by me), which would come back to haunt us later I think. We worked deeper all day, though our best water was 230-250 in front of the plant. We still caught plenty of 10-12 lb kings, but all of our bigger fish were gone. By 9 am, we had 5 fish 12-14 lbs, but none of the fish in the upper teens like Friday. We worked out to 350 (twice), as well as east and west of the plant by about 2 miles. All of the water was productive, but none yielded our needed upgrades. We continued to work meat 70-100 down and spoons 30-50 down, though higher stuff did better as the day progressed. Cutbait did well early, and Stinger green uv spoons did well after 9 am. We again had a GREAT day- 20 for 35- but couldn’t find our size. Sadly, I didn’t really enjoy it because I kind of knew we needed an upgrade or two to retain our lead. I was a nervous wreck all day. As it turns out, our 13 lb average wasn’t enough. We had a score of 115 for the day, and 251 overall, which was only enough to bring us to 6th place?! We missed 5th, and the money, by less than 1/2 a lb. It was a big disappointment... but we still cashed about 1g worth of cash and prizes for the big fish of the tourney, so that’s cool. When all was said and done, we ended up ~50/80 (seriously) in 2 days of fishing. That’s my 2 best days of fishing ever, on consecutive days. It wasn’t enough to win the am division this time, but I can live with that.... As always, I had a blast fishing the west end in the spring. I’ll be back next year... But for now, it’s back to sodus for the year. Tight lines and good luck everyone! Videos are coming- though it is going to take some time to sort through all of the footage.

I think it’s funny how spoiled we are, lol. My worst day was a dozen bites, majority salmon... and I view that as slow. It was mostly the inconsistent nature of the bite and the lack of rhythm that got to me. The Fishin’ Physician Assistant

Congrats, again The Fishin’ Physician Assistant

Lol, ours too after this weekend. The screens there were awesome, but the bite was super sporadic for us The Fishin’ Physician Assistant

Sounds very familiar! Congrats on the loc fish! The Fishin’ Physician Assistant

So every year, I see the Spring LOC board loaded with fish out of Wilson and lewiston. So after years of talking about it, we finally just came down a few weeks early to see what's up. This was primarily a LOC trip, and we were mostly in catch and release mode (unless I had a specific request for fish that day) Wednesday- we ran down to the bar and set up on the shallow side, in 50 FOW. we put out a random assortment of stuff, and pretty quickly caught a decent low teens king on a 10 color core with a spoon. We did a few more, but it was slow picking so we worked our way west, and down the ledge. The screens were absolutely, obnoxiously, absurdly loaded all day... but no takers out there. after a few hours, we came back in to 50-70 and had decent action on a pick of lakers and kings, but nothing exciting... we ended up with like a dozen hits. Thursday- we set up out front of Wilson, and worked east to see what was there. We found a nice class of mid teen kings in 60-80 FOW, though the pick was relatively slow still. we had a hit every 20-30 minutes, basically. There were a few lakers in the mix, but the bite was mostly kings. I was impressed with how thick the 3 years olds are already. we did mostly catch and release, but the handful we kept were jammed with bait. again, not bad action, but also not great with about 15 bites total. We had a horrid catch rate (this would become a theme) landing only 6 of the dozen kings we had on. We were fairly happy.... until we got back and heard it was a fire drill to the east of us by 5-10 miles, in the same depth of water. Friday- Based on the pattern from Thursday, we decided to work further east and again, we had a relatively slow bite. we continued to work primarily 60-100, mostly a spoon program. we did finally get a hit on a meat rig, but everything else was spoons in green, black and yellow. 10 color cores, 200-300 coppers were our studs. By the time we finished, we were to the power plant, working 60-90 FOW. The screens were gorgeous there, but the hits were ULTRA sporadic. the mix of fish was a bit more heavy on lakers, though we did land a handful of kings (and lost another 7-8 I think). It felt slow, but we had 18 bites, which I guess is good... Saturday- we decided to run right to the microwave, and had 3 big kings on almost immediately in 70 FOW... unfortunately we got spooled on a 10 color core (a first for me) and broke another big'n off. we worked the rest of the day in front of the plant, and ended up with 18 bites. we landed a whopping THREE of the 11 kings we had on, but of course stuck all but one of the lakers we had on... again, all spoon bite, though we ran meat and flies most of the day. Overall, a good experience. I have never fished Wilson, or the bar, so that was cool. The fishing was strange- overall productive but wildly unpredictable and super sporadic. I never did get these fish dialed in (or at least it felt that way). Im sure that the wet cold spring has things all sorts of screwy, though Ive never been west this early so... I guess I don't really know. Our catch percentage (roughly 50%) was by far the worst I have ever seen- and that was with experienced guys on the rods. We will need to fix that soon! On a positive note, the kings look to be in EXCELLENT health and there are a lot of three year olds around, just as we thought there would be. There is nothing in freshwater like catching a spring king... they are wild!

Wow, nice The Fishin’ Physician Assistant

Awesome. That’s what we expected out of sodus, but it was just too muddy. Congrats on a great day The Fishin’ Physician Assistant