Beyond Upstate

The one that the kid with the blue sweatshirt is holding looks like a big brown, was it?

I was keeping ball speed in the low 2 mph's, good to know more action from kings since Saturday. I take it you ran mostly spoons if you were grabbing the zebra's? What was best time of day for the kings, first thing in the morning?

I would also add that of the 14 fish off riggers, probably 11 or so were from the one running slightly deeper, made a big difference whether or not you ran slightly above the thermo or in it on Saturday. 160' to 170' of cable out on the riggers with a 13# weight over 150' of water low 2 mph's.

It baffles me that we had such different outcomes apparently doing the same thing. We managed 15 of our 16 fish in the trench from the wall out around the finger working the bottom 30' of 150' of water, the closer to bottom the better and best action from 10:00 until 1:00. 2 came on the dipsy, and the other 14 on two manual downriggers (my arm is sore). Ran flasher flies in greens and whites with a lot of action on both, then switched to spoons hoping to find something the salmon wanted instead of all the lakers. Caught several more lakers and then the king and didn't drop another lure. We were happy to call it a day when we finally boated a king after weeding through lakers all day. Do you guys have X4D, and are you sure you were getting your lures down close to the bottom? My downriggers had 150' and 160' of cable out to stay 125' and 135' ish down at 2.1 to 2.5mph with 13# torpedo weights. Hopefully your luck changes, and hopefully the kings get aggressive as well as cooler water moving in higher up in the column. I couldn't believe the amount of action on the screens all day, and was interesting to see how the active zone compressed down closer to the bottom through mid day, as expected. I suppose we would have been smarter to continue fishing when we finally got salmon action, maybe the afternoon/evening bite was going to be hot, but it had been a long busy day.

Went to the lanes, marked a lot of fish in the bottom 30' of 150' of water, had 70 degree water from surface to 110' down. Caught one laker, then headed back to trench hoping for cooler water higher up in the column. Had same temps, and marked a lot of fish. Spent most of the day in 150' of water running gear between 120' and 140'. Caught one small brown, 14 lake trout, and a 32.3 pound king. King was 135' down in 150' of water on a purple spoon.

Please do let us know how it goes, will be getting out in the morning and it looks like it will finally be calm enough for my 20' boat to be able to run anywhere. I am planning to head to the lanes, but if good salmon are in the trench or anywhere closer than the lanes, I wouldn't want to head all the way out. I have caught more than my fill of lake trout this season, really hoping to get into some salmon again. Caught several salmon a month ago, been a lot of unexpected down temps since then.

Chas, We're you running up closer to the high rocks on mainland or out towards the wall?

Hey Chas, Nice to see you got some actions, temps must be looking good if those browns are around. What time of day did you go out, and did you by any chance get any down temps?

Couldn't find the Salmon Saturday, yesterday. Had one leader break early around 6:30 but didn't scream quite enough for me to believe it was a salmon instead of a lake trout. Stayed in the trench until 12:00 with different colors, depths, and water. Caught 3 lake trout then headed to the lanes and ended up catching 4 more lakers. Best fish was just over 20 pounds, anyone have luck hooking up on multiple Salmon?

Thanks Chas, hitting the trench in the morning, will update after.

Looking for suggestions on the best knife for filleting salmon. Anyone have a good recommendation? I'm not enjoying using my regular 8" filet knife that I have always used for other species. Need a longer, stronger blade for straight cuts down the backbone eh?

Started our day on north side of stony, caught 2 browns but was slow. Tried north side of Galloo with no luck then headed back to the north end of the wall and finished our day catching 7 lakers.

Couldn't find the browns early morning but managed a 25.5 lb king 50' down over 135' at 9:00 AM out from the lighthouse. Anyone have luck on browns this weekend?

Ended up working several lines on Saturday covering from 10' to 50' down in 60' to 80' of water from 5:30 until 7:30 from lighthouse back towards Henderson to end of high rocks. Didn't have any action and saw down temps from 67 degrees near lighthouse to 52 towards Henderson end. Pushed out deeper to 130' of water and covered from 20' to 60' down with a flasher fly on one rigger, and inline flasher spoon on other and spoons off dipsys. Caught a 25.5 lb king at 9:00 on the inline flasher with yellow/green stingray 50' down, then had to quite at 10:30. Couldn't find any browns early, did anyone else have luck on Browns?

I haven't been out in a month, have family in from out of town, just wondering where to find the browns now, and if the salmon are starting up yet?

Orange belly, is there still action close to mainland or do you need to get out past Stoney island towards galloo, and between them?