Lucky Enuff Orleans Pro Am

[Fishtails]

Thursday, I headed out with Jeff J to find fish. We decided to go west 10 miles and start searching. Landed a nice 19lb king and a couple small fish....maybe took 8 bites the whole day. King came on a hammertime spinny & hammer fly 80ft down.

Friday we headed back west with a crew of 4 this time, feeling like we'd really lock in on the fish....NOT! We searched 15 miles west with only one dropped king to show for it. We then headed 10 miles offshore hoping to find something willing to play....notta bite!! We headed in smelling like a skunk for the first time in a couple years Not the way I wanted to go into Day one.

Sat morning, we leave the dock @ 5:15 and decide to search right in front of port. We finally hook up a mile west, but It turns out to be my first 22" Atlantic. Back it goes....box still empty. We pick up and run 12 miles west to our waypoints and troll for a couple hours without a touch. Around 10am we decide to go real shallow (50 fow) and run a rigger/spoon only program. It pays off, with 5 fish quickly coming to the boat. Unfortunately, two more were Atlantic's and one was a 21" steelie. We went to weigh in with only two Coho on day one, but I'm feeling good we can box on day two and get back in it.

Hot spoon was a Dreamweaver ss Bloody death, taking 4 of our 6 fish.

Sunday, I'm out voted two to one on where we're going to fish. The team wanted to run to Olcott and go for the homerun box. I wanted to pick away where we ended the day Saturday and try for a box of Coho. So Olcott it was, and we headed out of port for a 24 mile run. We get there and are greeted with a decent screen, but not what we expected. We took a Coho off a silver/black spoon and decide to pick up and Head a few miles to the plant. We mark fish and bait galore, and it's not long before we get bit. We land a small (but legal) Steeie off the rigger and then the center rigger fires and we drop a king off the hammertime spinney. Before we can get set up another rigger fires and we land a 7.5 lb steelie off an orange backed free slider spoon. We are now fighting the clock, so I make a bonehead decision to pull our center rigger up in steelhead water with the other riggers and our bite shuts off Sleep deprivation makes you do stupid things sometimes, and we didn't realize why the bite died until it was to late

So we pull lines at 12 to start the 20+ mile trip back with only 3 in the box and a crappy finish. We weighted in early, so I don't know where we ended, but It wasn't good

Still had a great time as always with my team and the boat ran awesome over the two weeks of Pro Ams and 200 miles we put on her. See you all In Oswego and Sodus!!

[shadster]

From what the man and woman at the pre weigh said, a 21 inch steelhead was OK to box. Confusion on my part and the captain of the boat I was on had us throw 2 of them back on Saturday??????

Captain's meeting rule reading did say 21 1/2" with no mention of it being the captain's digression as the 18 1/2 for Kings and Salmon were explained. Can someone correct it here.

[Fishtails]

21 was a legal fish...captian has a 1/2 inch discretion. The one we released was 21 3/8...maybe 21 1/2 and we should have kept it I guess. We were confused also. In the end it didn't really matter for us anyway, one more fish would not have put us in the $$, but now we know.

This is what we were told....if anyone knows different....please let us know

[Tim Bromund]

Here's the link to the pro am rules. they clearly state that the minimum size for steelhead is 21 1/2"

http://www.lakeontarioproam.net/rules.html

Sizes are under the "All Teams" heading below the big Boys Shootout Paragraph.

Tim

[Jeff J]

The legal size for the DEC is 21 inches. The tournament gives the captain a 1/2 for shrinkage. If it is over 21.5 you must keep it as there is no culling. If it is between 21 and 21.5 it is the captain's disgression to keep it or not.

Jeff

[unkeljim]

Don't feel bad Rod, from what I have heard you are not the only one that had a rough weekend. Kinda glad I skipped this one. Spent the weekend working on the boat. See you in Oswego.

Jim

You fishing the Mustad?

[jobsite]

The length limits are set in stone for the Pro-Am... they just need to be sure that the folks doing the pre-check know the rules also. We had to fight to be allowed to enter a king that was only 18 1/4", as the pre-check people kept trying to say it had to be 18 1/2". Finally, they pulled out the rules and saw that they were wrong and our fish was legal.

You may have tried to check your fish after we went through the line?? At that point they may have been a little gun-shy and were allowing non-legal lengths of other species??

The rules clearly state as follows:

"Minimum size for steelhead is 21 ½ inches.

Minimum size for Atlantic salmon is 25 ½ inches.

Minimum size for all other trout and salmon is 18 inches."

Where-as the state length limit is 21 for steelies and 25 for Atlantics, the Pro-Am has set legal limits to a minimum of 21 1/2 and 25 1/2" for the tourney. This is to help prevent people from keeping a fish that may shrink to a non-legal size for state standards. If you brought one in under state reg sizes, you not only would be DQd from the tourney, you'd be fined by the state.

The 18" minimum for all other trout and salmon is set 3" higher than state limits, so no fear of bringing in one that shrinks below state regs.

For the PRO DIVISION only... the 18 1/2" number is in place to allow captains to "cull" fish between 18 and 18 1/2" of that species category... you apparently can do the same with Steelies between 21 1/2" and 22" or Atlantics between 25 1/2" and 26". The rules state this:

"The tournament allows for captain’s discretion within a ½ inch buffer for releasing fish."

AGAIN... the 1/2" rule is only listed under the PRO rules, it does not appear to work the same with AMs. The way it reads, the AM captains do not have the right to this 1/2" buffer, which to me, does not make sense. Fish shrink and this buffer will only help people from bringing in fish that are not tournament legal.

We've had fish shrink by 3/8" in the past, so sometimes its tough to keep one within a 1/2" of minimum size. We really debated throwing back the one we had that was 18 1/2" by our tape... at check-in it had shrunk to a shy 18 1/4". That was only a couple hours after catching it!

Trust me, we went through this with a fine tooth comb when our box was put in question at the Oak. We were clearly following the rules... and a quick look at the written regs by the pre-check folks squared that away.

Craig

Team Savant Spoon

[Paul Czarnecki]

Thanks for clarifying it Craig and sorry for the mix up at Precheck.

Although the rules for "Captain's discretion" are listed in only the Pro section that rule applies to the Ams as well. Ams have never been excluded from that provision.

Keep in mind the "1/2 inch buffer" for steelhead and atlantics is designed to protect the teams from disqualification and a hefty DEC fine. If you make 18 1/2, 21 1/2 and 25 1/2 your minimums for salmon, steelhead and altantics there is no way you will be DQ'd or fined.

Paul

[Fishtails]

So are we in agreement that as long as a steelhead measures 21" or over at weigh-in, and a salmon measures 18 or over at weigh-in, it is a legal fish? I'm confused so easily

Jim,

It was pretty tuff, but I feel like we could have done much better. You know how that hindsight stuff goes I'm still out on the Challenges, but they are not in the plans as of yet. I might do one with the kids though, just not sure yet? I'll definitely see ya in Oswego!