Yankee @ the Oak 15/16 Still Doin' them!

[Yankee Troller]

Fishing out of "The Oak" continues to be strong! There are some majors hanging in that inside water (70-120) along with some skippy Salmon and decent Steelhead. If you head offshore action can be fast and furious with the Steelhead, and the Kings are right there too. Some HUGE steelhead are swimming around out there.

August 15th (Morning) - We headed out with a friend from work who brought along his wife and daughter. We stopped and fished the inside water to see if we could find a few larger Salmon to play with our baits. It didn't take long and we were hooked up. First to go was a 80 rigger pulling a couple of Stingray Glow Alewives. A Small Chinook Salmon hit the deck within minutes. Next was out 180 wire pulling a White/Green dot SmartFish followed by an A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist. He made a run. Gave a few headshakes, and he was gone. We would work the inside waters for a little longer making about 4 passes total. We took 7 shots inside and managed a few fish. A nice 18lb Salmon took Ed for a ride on the 10 color pulling a NK28 Lazer Spook. That fish stood no chance to the Daiwa Saltist's gear ratio. At 6.4:1 Ed had that fish and all of the 500' of line in the boat. One surprise that we had while fishing that inside water was a beautiful 7lb Walleye. He took a NK Mag Sea Sick Waddler mupped on my 70 rigger. About 8am we pulled lines and made a dash for the 27N line. We set lines and trolled north to the 33N line picking fish the whole way. The same program that has worked for weeks produced for us this day. Stinger Gator Glows on our 80 rigger, Dreamweaver Gators on our 70 rigger, NK28 Copper NBK's on our 60 rigger. Our wires would not fire at all out there today. We tried every color combo under the sun, but I never did try just running a clean spoon! We boxed a few steelies and threw a bunch back. The highlight of the day (sorry Walleyes may be highlights to some people, but if they don't run or jump there is no highlight for me) was a 23lb King taken by the 14yr old daughter. This fish took a White/Green Dot SmartFish trailed by that A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist fly. A deadly combo the last month! She fought this pig on the 400 copper, and it didn't take it lightly on her arms. She passed out in the cabin shortly there after. The other highlight was a 11.5lb Steelhead that was jumping like mad on our 10 color fished off an Otter Boat. This fish was out of the air even before we got to the rod. He made some nice runs and tossed in a few flips. He sure thought that Stinger Copper Glow Green Alewife looked good, but all it end that lure brought him to our cooler loaded with Salmon and Steelhead! At the end of the trip we were scorched! It was flat calm and hot out there on the lake. We totaled up the bites and we ended the trip with 21 bites. Oh, by the way.....those Walleyes have some tough skin!

August 15th (Evening) - We headed out to the 27N line and set rods. Just my brother, his friend, and I on this trip. We fished for about an hour and a half in between run times, and took 9 fish. We got into some big guys on the 29N line! I took a 20lb King Salmon on Stinger Gator Glow fished down 80' on the rigger. We took a 12.5lb Steelhead on a Dreamweaver Gator fished down 70 on our rigger, and at the end of the trip we lost a pig just out of net range that hit our Captain Valium combo (New Spin Doctor/ATOMIK combo - chrome spinny w/ Green dots trailed by an A-TOM-MIK Wiggler fly) fished off our 300 copper. This trip was a decision maker for the following day!

August 16th (Morning) - We had the guys from Rowe Video on board today. 4 guys and a son along with my brother and I and there was a packed boat! Considering the great class of fish we had out on the 29N line we skipped the inside water. We got a call on our way out that the 26N line had a great picture, so I stopped the boat a few miles short and continued on a North troll. It didn't take long to get a few fish going, but they were rather small. Same program as the day before. As we trolled north the fish began to get larger and by 11am we had 18 fish hooked up. Our wires helped us out today as I changed up some settings and slid them a little further back. I went from a 2 back 150-210 to a 2.5 back 180-240. Should of mattered too much, but they started to fire again. One was pulling a Green SmartFish that I had custom made for me with an A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist, while the other was that deadly Gator Spin Doctor pulling an A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist.The Captain Valium combo did some damage today and took the largest steelhead of the day weighing in at 11lbs. Our big guy of the day was a solid 18lb Salmon that took the White/Green Dot SmartFish trailed by that A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist fly off our 400 copper. These guys where great and the kid took as many fish as he could get his hands on! His Salmon was just a shy smaller than the largest for the day, which I think might bring him back next year!

Should have some pics posted tonight!

[GAMBLER]

Nice report Rick. That walleye had to be a shocker.

[chinook]

Rick, nice report. I always hear of someone popping a walleye out of the Oak on a rare occasion. That is a nice added bonus to the table fare - I had a crew of 4 this weekend allowing me to run an 8 rod spread of 3 riggers, 3 wire divers, 300' copper, and a full core with an additional 2 oz off an in liner. I noticed early morning that the pattern was for (me anyways) that the inside waters was a clean spoon bite behind the divers, with a long lead- 12'-15'. Obviously with the long leads, we had to finish them off by handlining in, once the diver hit the tip. Made mention of that due to you saying that was one thing you didn't try was the clean spoon approach. Gave you a wave there at the west launch on Sat night. Not sure you made that connection-Duane

[Yankee Troller]

Didn't know that was you! SO your rollin' with a 24' Penny. I'll have to remember that.