Billy V Sodus Pro-Am Report

[Billy V]

About three weeks ago I got a call from Tim Habecker at Krenzer Marine in Sodus Point. Tim was looking to put together a team for the Wayne County Pro-Am in Sodus Point and wanted to know if we were interested in pairing up with him. We haven't been on Lake Ontario in about 6 weeks, so we were thrilled to have the chance to get back up there again and we took Tim up on his offer.

As most of you know, due to my hectic work schedule we've moved the boat to Cayuga Lake for the summer. So the first order of business was to get the boat on a trailer and on it's way to Sodus. Tim sent a truck down and we had the boat lifted and set on the trailer and we were on our way. When we got to Sodus on Thursday night Tim had the boat all pressure washed and looking good in it's slip. Now all we had to do was figure out where the fish were and what they wanted to eat!

On Friday we entered the Captain Jack's Big Fish Friday tournament, so off we went in search of a nice box of fish. Our main goal was to eliminate unproductive water and to locate fish for the weekend but also to have some fun. We fished our way east of port towards Fair Haven and we found plenty of big cooperative fish like this one:

At the end of the day we came in with a big box full of 20lb + Kings and when we weighed our box for the tournament, we found that we had the best box of the day (71lbs for 3 fish) and we walked away with the Big Fish Friday title. How cool! We knew we had a big class of fish nailed down and we were all set to head back there again on Saturday for the Pro-Am.

On Saturday morning we headed back down to our way points from the previous day and we set up in 140 FOW. We weren't set up for more than a few minutes when a rigger fires and we're locked up with out first fish of the day. After a 350' run, the big king gave us back a badly mangled and beaten SS Die Hard spoon and he swam away. I wish I'd taken a picture of it because that spoon was obliterated by this fish. "Obliterated tackle" would become a theme for the rest of the day for us. We hooked up with all the kings that we needed to be in the thick of the tournament, but we dumped all but two of them. Actually, we didn't dump them....it was more like the fish destroyed our tackle and swam away from us. I lost track, but we had fish break off at least 8 flasher/fly combos. We had fish go through our copper and wad it up. We had fish go through our divers and wad them up. We broke a rod. We had a fish destroy a reel on us. I've never seen such a butt-whooping! Those of you who've fished with us before know that we're very anal about lines, leaders, drag settings, sharp hooks, etc. This was brand-new line these fish were breaking off...50lb test fly leaders and 30lb test diver leaders. I could understand losing a fish or two had we been fishing with old worn out equipment, but that simply wasn't the case. We landed over 120 Kings in the month of May and I don't remember breaking a single fish off. But on Saturday, the fish got their revenge on us in a big (and very expensive) way. The only consolation was that one of the fish we landed was a 28.01lb King that ended up placing 3rd in the summer LOC Derby. We were all in shock from the day's events so I forgot to take a picture of Tim with his big King. Someone at the tournament weigh-in took a shot or two of him with it, so hopefully we can get a copy of that picture to share with you. It was a great fish and the only highlight of a really rough day on the water. At the end of the day on Saturday we sat in next to last place. Talk about a humbling experience. I still haven't fully digested what happened to us, but I'm sure that in a few days I'll have come to some sort of conclusion as to what went wrong and I'll try to learn from it so that it doesn't happen to us again.

On Sunday we decided to head back to the same waypoints and try to extract a little bit of revenge on those kings. I wanted pay back! We set up and within minutes we had 3 fish in the cooler and we'd dropped a couple more. What a way to start the day! What's that I always say about not leaving fish to find fish? Well, I did exactly that on Sunday morning and it cost us. Why I didn't spin the boat around and go back through those fish is beyond me. Maybe it was because my friends two miles down the lake in Fair Haven were on a bunch of big fish and were stacking them up like cord wood. Maybe I just had a brain cramp. But I just kept pushing us east and we got out of the fish. After we wasted an hour or so trying to get down to where our friends were in Fair Haven, their bite had vaporized. So rather than turning around and wasting an hour trolling back to our fish we pulled lines and ran back and set up in the same area. We worked that area for an hour or so and boated a couple of fish but we just didn't have much on the screen. We had a brief team meeting and we decided to head even further back to the West to see if we could get into a few more fish. We ran two miles back towards Sodus and set up out in 220FOW and found a few fish and managed to get a bite or two, but it wasn't what we were looking for either. After working that area for a bit I pointed us back towards the area where we had found fish at the beginning of the day. With about 30 minutes of time left we finally found them and we hooked up 4 more times and boated another 2 kings to bring our day 2 total to 7 fish.

Over the course of the day we managed to get the bites that we needed, but I couldn't help but feel like I'd dropped the ball by not staying on those fish first thing in the morning. After the weigh-in was all said and done we had moved up 6 or 7 places from Saturday's finish, but we were nowhere near where we had hoped to be. Another humbling day....

Best lures for us were green double crush glow Spin Dr. & Pro-Chip flashers pulling Sigg's Rigs Green Hypnotist and Green Dolphin flies. We also took some shots on a white Spin Dr./Siggs' Glow ghost set-up., and that SS Die Hard spoon took a couple of bites too We had multiple bits on 600' coppers, divers out 350-400' on #1 settings, and on riggers fished from 100-150' deep. Basically it was a deep bite and they wanted green & white flasher/fly rigs. We fished 140-160 FOW most of the time, but we ventured out as far as 225 FOW. Down speed was 2.0-2.5 mph.

We owe Tim and Krenzer Marine a HUGE thank you for inviting us to fish with them. We had a great weekend with Tim, Dan, Brian, and Rich and we look forward to fishing more tournaments with them in the future. Thanks a lot for everything guys. Let's just hope that our luck is a bit better next time!

We'll be back up on Lake Ontario a few more times before the end of the season, so I'll be sure to report here. I might even throw a Cayuga Lake report or two up here if anyone is interested.

[stan]

Great report Bill , make me feel I was out there on the east coast with you all.

Thanks for the pictures and report

[buckshot]

Great story and report, love the pics also. Fishing has a way of humbling us all at times.

Good luck with the rest of your summer

Ben

[Jammer]

Hey Bill,

Awesome job on the 28.01. Congrats.

Sorry to hear about the lost tackle. Were you using clear snubbers?

I've had a couple fish open up the Owner trebles on A-tom-mik tourney flies this year even with the reels set to tick out line at the slightest speed variation or wave. Those were always on dipsy rigs where I'd skipped the snubbers.

JAM

[TOP SECRET]

haha we're just not used to those big fish yet this year! There were some monsters out of Sodus this weekend. I weighed my 27lb 12oz fish in and was in 1st place (not grand prize but first), then another guy weighs in his 28lber, drops me to second, then you weigh in your 28lber, drops me to 3rd, then another guy weighs in a 29lber, drops me to fourth... it was a rough couple of hours!!!! haha.

We had some seriously destroyed tackle as well, but boy wasn't it fun!?! I need to buy some line this week, my rigger reels are just about bare!

Nick

[Billy V]

Jammer,

We were using snubbers on our Divers just like we always do. We broke off 30# leaders behind the Divers as well as 50# fly leaders. All of the line was new and unused. We run a tournament tie on our fly harnesses, so pinching the fly line in the treble really shouldn't have happened either. Drags were set to just tick out when we speed up...Jay & I both check them several times a day. I'm confident that the drags weren't the problem. We were using the same line & swivels that we've been using for years. I didn't mention it in the report, but on Sunday we even had a fish break a new Sampo ball bearing swivel in half on our 600' copper and take yet another flasher/fly rig. It literally tore the swivel in half. Luckily that was the only lost tackle on Sunday. I can see breaking off a fish or two in a weekend, especially when it's rough out like it was on Saturday. But 8 or 9 in one day...It just wasn't our weekend. You should have seen the carnage on the boat when we pulled into the dock. I couldn't believe how torn up everything was. But it WAS fun nonetheless!!

[Shade]

Billy,

I do not feel so bad now. We where out Saturday in Olcott running 160 fow with new 30' wire, 40 lb leader from dipsy to SD and ATM flies. The first screamer went 500' and the battle ended with the fish breaking the hook from the fly(tied from ATM). We setup again using another ATM Hammer and the very next screamer snapped the 40 lob test between the Dipsy and SD. We still ended up with 10 0f 12 but nothing big enough to show off.

Sunday we go back and to make a long story short we lost , NK spook, 3 SD/Flies and Smart Fish/fly in less than 3 hours. I have 30 lb big game on riggers new this year and I have been putting 40 - 50 lb leaders between dipsy's and flashers. Things went so bad that my rigger cable broke and I lost my ball. Never, ever lost a ball. Lucky it was not on my Probe.

Congrats anyway on the 3rd place finish and Friday tournament.

Shade

[keithg]

thanks for the report.we have all had days like that. at least you found a way to get the rods to fire. my personal record is two dipsy's with s/d and flys,1 meat rig, 2 spoons and 1 ball.took 21/2 hours.might have lost more but i quit and went home.

[Born to Fish]

I don't feel so bad anymore.

Guess it happens to all of us at some time.

BTW great play by play story.... Thanks for sharing.

[Finders Keepers]

Way to go Billy! Despite the cost of lost gear, it is definitly better than watching the rods sitting still all day. I'm wishing I had been able to get out last weekend!! Oh well, hopefully the kings will stick around Port Bay straight through the Fall LOC!!! If I catch any with some gear hanging out of their mouth (other than my flies), I'll let you know!

[CBish]

SOOOO.........If I am fishing a tourney with Billy V in it, I will follow him around and net his road kills!! Then I get the fish and the flasher!!!

--- My guess is that those leaders were not 30# Big Game.

Thanks for the report.

Sorry to throw salt on the wound!!

CC

[goin hungry]

We had the same thing happen to us last year in the tourney when Tim picked up and transported our boat to Krenzers - turns out he secretly makes a deal with another team for a cut of their winnings and switches all your leaders to 10lb vanish during transport the night before

Sorry to hear about your luck though - it's tough to lose that much $ to the lake gods. We went straight out of the shoot on Sat. and fished the same location, rigs/techniques that everyone else was hooking up on but we got the SKUNK! Everyone we talked to at Sodus said they had a tough day, but then I come back to read reports about how great the fishing is there now! I don't know which one is worse, but I probably would have sacrificed some gear just to get a fish or two in the boat and salvage some pride...