Yankee's Port Delhousie Scotty

[Yankee Troller]

This was one of our favorite tourneys last year! Fishing shallow Spring Kings last year made for a fairly new experience. We had a good day on the second day last year, but struggled on the first day. Putting together two solid days in a tournament is a crucial thing.So, for the last 12 months we looked forward to this tournament, and putting together a top 10 finish.

4/23 - (Practice) Given the warm Spring we have had we launched the boat at the Niagara bar hoping to find some Kings on the Niagara Bar. Well, they were there, but they weren't stacked in there like they will be in a week or two. We caught 7 Kings and as many, or more, Lake Trout without an issue. We found them on top of the Bar in 35-50' of water. Downriggers in the top 30 took half the shots while our 5 color cores took the other half. Maybe a fish or two off a slide diver. On the downriggers the Sea Sick Waddler Norther King was the popular lure. 28 size on the main line cheated with a Mag above it. On the 5 color cores a Dreamweaver Carmel Dolphin in the Super Slim size seemed to be the go to bait. Our largest Salmon was just shy of 18lbs on Friday's practice. Our biggest five on Friday would have looked like this: 17lb, 17lb, 12lb, 10lb, 5lb. Back at the dock it sounded like a tough bite for most, so we felt good about what we had done.

4/24 - (Day 1) With high hopes we took off from the back of the pack and headed East. We saw some warm watter off the Welland Canal on the way in Friday, so we stopped to take a look. That 30 minutes yielded nothing, and the picture was bleak. We pulled rods and ran to our waypoints from Friday! When we got there the water had changed. Down Temp dropped 2 degrees as did the surface, and the green water turned clear. We set lines and started looking. We found some decent marks in our area from Friday, but all we could pull were Lakers. We went into search mode and headed East and North. We had a decent picture most of the time, but getting them to go was almost impossible. About 9:30 the corner rigger fires with a Dreamweaver regular sized Roy's Salmon Seeker. We ended up boating a 7lb Salmon. Thinking we were onto something we changed over some gear and gave it another run through our waypoint. Well, not another rod fired the rest of the day with a Salmon on it.

We ended the day with one Salmon in our box. Very disappointed! When we got back to the dock we started talking to other teams and most struggled, but a few got the bites they needed. The top three teams fished the same area we did! Out of 66 teams about 15 teams brought in a limit of Salmon. Plain and simple we got out fished! It happens! We also heard the they were calling for 30+ winds from the North East on Sunday, and we made the decision to get out of Canada Saturday night given the fact we weren't in contention for anything, and we all had jobs to get back to on Monday. I heard they canceled day two when I woke up Sunday morning, so we made a good decision. Congrats to Joe Toomey and Paul Czarnicki for a 1st and 2nd place finish.

[Billy V]

Nice report Rick. Too bad you couldn't get them going on Saturday. Believe me, I know how tough it is to come in with a small box when other guys have their tourney limit....it's no fun! But, it's also a motivator to figure out what went wrong and to improve. I know you'll be back with more huge boxes of fish at the upcoming tournaments. See you in Wilson this weekend....can't wait!!

[Fishtails]

Great to see you guys again Rick We all have those tournaments bud, but you'll bounce back like you always do and give em hell in Wilson.

[Yankee Troller]

Rod it was good to see you too! Good job on Saturday! I need to give Paul a call and figure out what you guys were doing that I wasn't. I know Paul is a super good spoon fisherman, and lets just say if they dont want copper pulling fly's i need to work on it.

[Hookedup]

Yankee, I made the same mistake off of the canal, we took some big kings off the canal on Friday so we spent most of are time on Sat at the canal. By the time we hit the bar and figured out what spoons they wanted the East wind picked up and it was all over. In two weeks in Wilson I hope we have some fish out deep. Sean

[twofish]

we fished outside of you at the can on sat in a little deeper water with hooks every where took a 20lb laker and 2 good kings and missed a few.we also spent to much time in the pack at the cannal.