Big Water

Thanks for the report. That's what I found out at Wilson on 7/14 & 7/15. Just a slow grind all day and fish spread out. Still we managed some good numbers. Interesting thing was we were set up and trolling before daybreak both days and had some amazing screens and rods screaming before there was a hint of light in the sky both days.

Fishing Report Your Name / Boat Name: ============== TRIP OVERVIEW ============== Date(s):7/9 and 7/10 Time on Water:7/9 5:00 pm to 8:30 pm 7/10 7:00 am till noon Weather/Temp: Hot sunny low 80's Wind Speed/Direction: NE Waves: <1 ft Surface Temp: mid 70's Location: LAT/LONG (GPS Cords): =============== FISHING RESULTS =============== Total Hits: 7/9 - 4, 7/10 -7 Total Boated: 4 & 5 Species Breakdown:Kings & Steelies Hot Lure: 42 Second F/F, Green Dot Spinnie w/ green fly, Chrome Froggie w/ meat Trolling Speed: 2.2 - 3.4 Down Speed: 2.2 - 2.6 Boat Depth: 100 - 400 Lure Depth: 70 - 125 ==================== SUMMARY & FURTHER DETAILS ==================== Went for a short trip and only fished Monday evening and Tuesday morning with my wife and my best friend, Mr Autopilot. Fishing had slowed from a few weeks ago and the temps were all over the place with the NE wind. Found 42 degree water 100' down in 150 FOW. As we trolled NE and deeper, the temps continued to rise into the upper 40's at 400 FOW. Bait scattered here and there from 40-50' down to 110' down. Set up a five rod spread with two wire lines set at from 150 to 300 pulling spin docs. One had a fly and one had meat. The riggers went down pulling spinnies w/ fly or meat from 60 to 125 over the two days, but the best depth seemed to be 80-90. The 300 copper pulled a couple of steelies on some green/silver spoons and took a lot of hits with no one home. Monday evening we took three steeleies up to 8 lbs and a 12 lb king. No hot action, just a slow grind. Best depth was 300 to 400'. Tuesday we decided to start at 100' early and see where the fish took us. It wasn't long until we had a 15lb king on a 42 second F/F. Continued out NE and picked up a few steelies on the copper and a Carmel Dolphin F/F set at 75'. When we hit 325', the 250 dipsey with a green dot spinnie & fly took a hit and was off to the races. 20 minutes later my wife landed a 16lb king. Not too bad, but here comes the heartbreaker. Before going out Monday afternoon, I tied 250' of 30 lb Flea Flicker onto the 30 lb mono rigger rods. Figured I'd never have more than about 200' of line in the water on the rigger, so the rest being 30 lb mono should be fine. I tied blood knots between the lines and had my wife help me cinch them down. Even added a couple of overhand knots for good measure. Pulled hard to test it and there didn't seem to be any slippage. I was content. That was until today just before noon. In 350 FOW, the 85 rigger with the 42 second F/F took a hard hit and was off to the races. I tried to hand the rod to my wife, but she was still played out from the 16lb king. This fish burned past the 200' mark in an instant.......then 300.....then 400.....then 500 and still wasn't showing any signs of tiring. I yelled to my wife to clear the rods, because I thought we were going to need to chase this one down. After it hit 600', I started putting a little more pressure on him because I thought I was going to get spooled. I finally got him stopped at 685' with not a lot of mono left and more pressure on the line than I wanted. We played tug-of-war for a good ten minutes and he wasn't budging. My wife was working at getting the last wire line in when I felt that sickening PING. Reeling in I could tell the rig was gone and when I got it in far enough, I saw, so was the Flea Flicker. Just a nice little pig tail where it used to be. I need to research and maybe go with an in-line swivel or all FF line, but this was the best fighting fish I had ever hooked, bar none, and a hard lesson learned on knots.

Better to run a few lines first (4 or 5) or you're going to run into an ugly mess. Slowly work up from there when conditions permit. This isn't Erie. If you run regular 20lb mono in flea season (now), you'll have big problems. Go with 30lb or Cortland Flea Flicker Line. Go with 30lb wire on the dipseys. Mono has waaaay too much stretch unless you're only running them 30-50 feeet out. You'll be be running them out to 350 ft or so. Definitely pick up Spin Docs and Flies. Stop at a local tackle shop and they'll tell you what's hot. Varies day to day and time of year, but start in 80-90 FOW. Sometimes they are in 400-500 FOW. Talk to the locals about this. 2.2 to 2.8 mph at the ball is a good rule of thumb, but if you're using GPS speed, remember that the currents can impact down speed appreciably.

According to the guy at FISHUSA, I bought the last two spools of 30# this past weekend and they don't expext more for 4-5 weeks. FWIW

Another advantage to shorter leads is the ability to "jig" the Spin Doctors up and down to entice fish. If the lead is too long, moving the ball up or down 15-20' has little immediate affect on the SD. This tactic doesn't always triggers a strike, but there are times that it works just like slowing down and speeding up your boat.

There have been days when my copper and lead core have easily produced the most fish. I'd say overall, those lines probably outproduce the riggers, but again, every day is different. If the fishing is slow and you have someone to clear the copper quickly, then by all means use it. You'll find out how bad it can get when you double or triple and are trying to keep those fish apart though. Be prepared for some extended untangling and cursing, but it's worth it.

Science Teacher!! We'll need to discuss String Theory when you get some time. You know.....wire vs copper vs mono!

Good Job!! Those are the days that keep us coming back.

Had an interesting weekend where the Carmel Dolphin Spin Doc pounded the others by 10 to 1. Caught over 30 fish and lost many others including a heartbreaker that grabbed the fly and set off on a 400' run like a locomotive. Snapped my leader and was gone. Only thing that came close to the Carmel Dolphin SD was the Crazy B*tch SD and it wasn't that close. When I went through my two Carmel Dolphin flies and then a Crazy B*tch fly behind the Carmel Dolphin Spin Doc, I started to use whatever fly I had and it seemed to make no difference. Whatever fly I stuck behing the Carmel Dolphin Spin Doc took a pounding. So my question is; does the fly make that much of a difference? It didn't seem to this weekend. Doug

Had an interesting weekend where the Carmel Dolphin Spin Doc pounded the others by 10 to 1. Caught over 30 fish and lost many others including a heartbreaker that grabbed the fly and set off on a 400' run like a locomotive. Snapped my leader and was gone. Only thing that came close to the Carmel Dolphin SD was the Crazy B*tch SD and it wasn't that close. When I went through my two Carmel Dolphin flies and then a Crazy B*tch fly behind the Carmel Dolphin Spin Doc, I started to use whatever fly I had and it seemed to make no difference. Whatever fly I stuck behing the Carmel Dolphin Spin Doc took a pounding. So my question is; does the fly make that much of a difference? It didn't seem to this weekend. Doug

My boat has two main outboards AND a kicker and I still worry about this. Does BOAT US actually have crafts available to respond 24/7 in a reasonable time? Thanks, Doug

Thanks, it's a Hewescraft Pacific Cruiser. A west coast boat. I wanted a larger aluminum boat with amenities, so this fit the ticket. After looking over a few boats at the dock, I saw one that actually had Walker downriggers mounted in a way that they were being used as planer retrievers. Think I'm going to find a way to take my old Walkers and mount them to a pulley on the rail for an electronic system. Need to get those boards out to increase my spread and clean things up.

Got a better fishfinder on the boat this year and when I set it for low noise rejection I can actually see the slider spoon for the first time. Surpised the heck out of me but running 30lb mono on a tight set, it was running around 2/3 of the way down. See you there in about 6 hours!

Since getting my new boat, I'm looking at a way to take my old Big John Planer Mast components and mounting them on the new boat. I think I can take the reels off of the mast and mount them directly to the 1" rail than runs around the perimeter of the boat roof (see image), but my question is whether the metal guides posts with eyes attached to the reel assembly will be strong enough to just feed the planer line straight off of the reel to the otter boards. I suppose I could also mount the pulleys further down the rail, but wondered if you thought that was necessary to mount the pulleys to support the board pull. Thanks for any advice.

Tom, I have looked at the bathymetric map in the past, but after reviewing it again, I think there may be some correlation between bottom structure and areas holding fish. Definitely worth further review. Tim, Exactly! When I'm done at the end of the season, it looks like I sprinkled pepper in a few areas on the chart. Nick, I'll stop by this weekend. I think there has to be more to it than coincidence and self-reinforcing behavior. It's like running the 42 second spoons the last three weeks. With 9 lures in the water and that spoon taking much more than it's share of fish, there has to be something there. Have a great week! Doug

Damn, you found it!

Good choice! 42nd was hot for us last weekend... We concentrated our efforts from the red can - 4 mile point...there's bait and targets there. or was? If we had one spoon that was most consistent the last three weeks at Wilson, it was the 42 second. Out-fished all others probably 5 to 1. NBK, Diehard and Sea Sick Waddler have honorable mentions.

As a relative beginner to Lake Ontario and only having two years of experience out of Olcott and a few weeks at Wilson, I have a question about fish locations. The past two years at Olcott I have noticed there were very distinct areas that held fish while others were barren. These areas could be somewhat large and might have consisted of up to a couple square miles each, but seemed to be where the fish could routinely be found. Surrounding areas likely held nothing and resulted in very few bites as I trolled between "hotspots". I'm now seeing the same thing developing in my short time at Wilson. Recognizing that there is little observable bottom structure that could be attracting fish I was wondering if the whole thing comes down to normal lake currents and sub-currents, eddys and current breaks that set up in the lake. I realize that bait fish and temps are important attractants also, but I'm wondering if they are there for the same reasons (currents). Does that also explain why a major blow disrupts fishing? Are the "steady state" currents susceptible to wave action that disrupts them until the lake calms and fishing patterns (and fish) return. Just trying to make sense of why I'm finding fish at the same general locations trip after trip and year after year. Your thoughts? Thanks, Doug

Nick, You missed the best bite of the weekend because of your kicker. We went back out Saturday afternoon around 5:00 and had rods flying for three hours. Nothing bigger than 14lbs, but a lot of 12lb fish taking second place. 100-120 FOW just East of Wilson. Called it a night at 8:00 because we figured the bite would carry over into this morning. WRONG!!! My friend from WV is still mad because I made his wife throw back a 10lb laker. Those WV folks just want meat!!!

Nick, Your real-time posts last year helped me get vicariously through a lot of off-weeks. If the fishing is as good as it has been the past two weekends at Wilson, you should do great. I'll be there later this afternoon. Good Luck! Doug

THE LINE COUNTER "ASSUMES" SO MANY FEET OF LINE RETRIEVED FOR EACH SPIN OF THE SPOOL. IF YOU ARE STARTING FROM AN EMPTY SPOOL (NO LINE ON), YOU ARE PUTTING ON LESS LINE THAN THE COUNTER INDICATES. IF THE SPOOL HAS A LOT OF LINE ALREADY ON IT, YOU ARE PUTTING ON MORE LINE PER SPOOL ROTATION.

Good Report. Thanks!

What Joe said. I've run a lot of different colors and can honestly say I haven't seen enough difference to detect a preference. The lure or F/F is what always seemed to make the difference. But maybe I'm wrong.......................?

Fishing Report Your Name / Boat Name: ============== TRIP OVERVIEW ============== Date(s): 5/12 and 5/13 Time on Water: 5/12 9:30-5:00 5/13 6:00-1:00 Weather/Temp: cloudy Wind Speed/Direction: Waves: flat to 2' Surface Temp: 52 Location: Wilson LAT/LONG (GPS Cords): =============== FISHING RESULTS =============== Total Hits: 5/12 - 5/6 5/13 - 14/19 Total Boated: 5/12 - 5, 5/13 - 14 Species Breakdown: Kings and Coho Hot Lure: 42 second, NBK, Froggy and a custom spoon by Jim Piano Trolling Speed: 1.8 - 2.4 Down Speed: Boat Depth: 60-300 Lure Depth: 40-110 ==================== SUMMARY & FURTHER DETAILS ==================== Went out of Wilson with my wife Kathy, fishing buddy Charlie, his wife Wanda and son Les. 5/12. Made a decision to fish Wilson this weekend even though the tournament was going on. Waited till 7:00 to leave to avoid all of the tourney boats only to find out I had bent my prop guard and the kicker prop was hitting it. Went to the local hardware to buy the tools I needed to remove the guard (rookie mistake not having tools) and back on the water by 9:30. Put a Froogy down on the rigger at 60' and it went off within minutes but nobody home. That must have been the end of the morning bite because we fought all day to put 5 in the boat up to about 12 lbs. Stayed under 120' all day. All fish went back to fight another day. 5/13. Started at 6:00 and it wasn't long till the 45' rigger went off in 70 FOW and a 16lb king took the Carmel Dolphin F/F. The day is starting great! Continued to fish the skinny water and follow the parade of boats from 60' to 120' of water for a couple of hours. Kept remembering people at the dock saying 100' is too deep, get into 50-60'. Nobody moving a rod that we could see. Decided to slip out to 300' and the action took off. Every rod with a spoon on was taking fish so I replaced the F/Fs on two rods with spoons and everything went nuts. A few doubles and a quad where we went 3/4. Everyone fighting fish and me trying to net and unhook them and get them back into the water before the next fish came to the stern. Jim Piano also gave me one of his custom made lures and that thing was deadly on the 300 copper. This was Wanda and Les' first Lake O trip and we made it a memorable one. Fish weren't as big this weekend as last, but the Sunday bite put a smile on everyones face. Doug

We launched at Wilson on 5/12, but didn't get out till about 9:30 because of prop problems. Only went 4 for 6 till 5:00 pm and no size. Tried deep water 200-300 today and kept the bite going through the afternoon. Multiple doubles and a quad. 45' - 65' was the ticket. Jim Piano gave me a custom made spoon that was killer on 300 copper.