Storm Warning's Olcott - Memorial Day weekend (LONG)

[Storm Warning II]

Fishing Report

Your Name / Boat Name: Storm Warning II

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TRIP OVERVIEW

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Date(s): 5/29 - 5/31

Time on Water: a lot...

Weather/Temp: beautiful, most of the time...

Wind Speed/Direction: very little until E / NE Monday morning

Waves: 1s

Surface Temp: 61.8 - 67.7

Location: Everywhere between the bar and the Chrome Dome

LAT/LONG (GPS Cords):

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SUMMARY & FURTHER DETAILS

FInally...

Memorial Day weekend at the 'Cott (pics added tomorrow)

« on: May 31, 2010, 04:49:41 PM »

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Made the annual spring pilgrimage to big silver fish mecca, the Niagara Region. Despite slow reports we managed to scrape together a pretty unique trip. Spoons were quiet to say the least, so most of the references to rigs will be to Spinny / fly combos. Spoons netted a grand total of 1, that's right 1 shaker. Best set ups were the green oil spill / glow crush on white Spinny with a No See Um, purple oil spill / glow crush with a purple mirage, and the Mt. Dew on white Spinny with a green glow. Down speed for us was very particular, by far and way, almost every rip came at 2.4 down.

Saturday: Started out on a hunch worked out with Rock N' Reel that the big Kings that had been absent for the past week had kept sliding east and we headed out towards a regular spring mega King haunt, the Chrome Dome, about halfway between Olcott and the Oak. Set up in 180 fow and worked a NE / SE zig pattern from 220 into about 100 scattering presentations throughout the water column. After an hour, finally had a 2 yr. old break the ice on a wire diver parked about 75' down, not what we're lookin' for, but a start. Another 2 hours of trolling, nada, so we pushed into shallower water where reports from earlier in the week suggested a mix bag inside 100 fow. In the next hour we produced a shaker and a nice laker weighing in at 12# that took a wire diver a couple feet off the bottom with a pearl on white Spinny and Hammer fly.

Ran back in at lunch and re-evaluated game plan...

Saturday afternoon we decided to try old faithful, the bar, along with the rest of the EPSFA crew that was calling Olcott home for the weekend. The lake was absolutely gorgeous for most of the weekend, so running the 18 miles to the easternmost marks we have for the bar was actually a very nice boat ride. Unfortunately, the afternoon bar bite was slow as well. Super Search mode dissecting water was the tour du jour. Guys got fish, Cohos, small Kings, and some Steelies, but Majors were hard to find. A brief ray of light broke through on the trip late in the afternoon / evening when an outside diver took a MASSIVE shot, but was unfortunately short-lived due to a "drag malfunction" on a Daiwa Accudepth. The fish took my last oil spill green on white Spinny! No worries, those Accudepths are going to be replaced with Sealine 47s before the Summer Slam rolls around. Back to the drawing board, and team meeting. After consulting with multiple sources of "intel", we decided to follow up on a lead that suggested there were some Majors hanging out in front of Olcott - game plan for Sunday.

Sunday: Started out right in front of Olcott in 180 fow. Spread the depths with an armada of divers and junk lines with a variety of Spinnies and Flies and decided to "turn and burn" and find active, aggressive fish. We worked the waters from right in front of Olcott to just east of the "Microwave Tower" from 180 to 230 fow and just before the anticipation built up for day two came undone, the 300 copper releases off the board and starts singing towards Oswego. A merciless 25 minutes later, a nice 23# Kinger gets netted to break the curse. About this time (8 am or so) the radio chatter picks up dramatically at the bar and a brief tele-conference with Pacific Time resulted in a full sprint 8 rod rack, stack, and run to the bar. As luck would have it, the bite had shut down as a throng of boats had descended upon the bar. We started on the east end of our bar "paths" and took the 180 fow option towards the can, nothing going on, and most of the boats combing the 220 to the break waters seemed to be "pushing" into the break zone. We decided combat trolling with deep presentations wasn't going to be a good deal and instead turned north due north of the can and decided to try to find the outer edge (or something close to it) of the plume where we could take a higher line back east. At just about 260 fow, the starboard wire fires and shortly thereafter yields a decent King, hmmm. A quick review of our location revealed that we found the pea water! During the reduction of the decent King to creel, we had stumbled into the best looking water of the trip so far. Shortly after re-setting that wire, the outside diver fires, a steady, angry King of the other end that eventually resulted in a 16# Springer resting in the bottom of the big net, shortly thereafter. It didn't take long before the starboard wire fires again and this time its taking drag in chunks, 150' a run, I think we've got something here boys, in fact a 24# King. A short argument with our stomachs ensued, and our stomachs won; we decided to stay out another half an hour, and the 300 copper goes again, a nice 7# Steelie on a Spinny / fly.

After some sandwiches, leftover pizza, and a nap, we returned to our "water" around 4:30 to work the evening shift. We were greeted by a beautiful lake, strong sun beginning to set in the west, the pea green water conspicuously absent and the temperature on top 5 degrees warmer than when we had left 3 1/2 hours ago. Search and destroy mode again, during a pass just to the south of the fruitful mid-morning track, the outside diver gets D-E-M-O-L-I-S-H-E-D! and I mean demolished doesn't really even do it justice. Its all Darren can do to get it out of the rod holder as it is tank slapping the wire diver in front of it. The fish takes a pretty beefy run as it is removed from the holder. Twenty-five minutes later the fish surfaces 80 feet behind the boat and we can see a rather large tail surface, but notice that it is somewhat odd looking, until it gets to just outside of net length and we realize it is a Coho or a Steelie and not a King. Well, here you go:

Now that's some chrome...

Then it got weird...

Shortly after the high 5s and a beer chaser, I notice a large fish shoot from the bow to the port side about 30 yards just under the surface. I call everyone's attention to it just in time to see a silver flash, load up, and charge the boat! As it went under the boat between the passenger seats on the port side, we all watched as a 20#+ King goes under the boat with a green oil spill on white Spinny and a No See Um trailing...the same combo that we broke off Saturday evening about a 1/2 mile away. Hmmm. We continued on and initiated a turn, the turn resulted in the 300 copper releasing with what appeared to be a small fish from the resulting short fight. As the fish came to net, I peered over my shoulder to see distinct spots on the fish in the net. The fish was a relatively short, but very stocky Atlantic with a very pronounced kype on its lower jaw. Wow, an Atlantic, there's a first. The rest of the evening proved uneventful, with only a shaker coming to net.

The weird continued Monday morning with beautiful calm seas inviting another run to the bar. Shortly after set up and not a whisper of wind around, rollers began building from the NE, and shortly thereafter a breeze and steady small chop from the NE. Green water became a little more difficult to find and the morning resulted in a nice 8# Coho before we decided to pack up and head back south.

Just a brown shy of the Lake O cycle...

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[Yankee Troller]

Nice report....how big was that bow?

[Storm Warning II]

Rick,

Todd's (Pacific Time) scale read 14 and some change. It was 35" long and had broad shoulders (I wish I would have taken a girth measurement). Darren is 5'9" if that helps put any perspective on it.

[wolfman]

Wow if u were only that detailed at the dock we might of done a little better, lol. Great job this weekend guys. And i think that it was your buddy that gave us that walleye Saturday night, and that was the best i ever had. That stuff was like candy, compliments to the chef.

[Storm Warning II]

Yep Wolfman, I believe the walleye was compliments of Jeremy - Never Enough, the president of our fishing club out of Erie, PA.

I was beginning to wonder if you guys even fished! Every time we pulled in you guys were in the back of the boat enjoying some adult beverages! I would have probably shared more if prompted...

[Paul Czarnecki]

Yep Wolfman, I believe the walleye was compliments of Jeremy - Never Enough, the president of our fishing club out of Erie, PA.

I was beginning to wonder if you guys even fished! Every time we pulled in you guys were in the back of the boat enjoying some adult beverages! I would have probably shared more if prompted...

Jeremy is the president of the fishing club? Matt, I realize you just renewed your membership but Jer isn't the President or even on the Board anymore. He is, however, a great walleye fisherman!

With success like you just had this weekend I hope you're fishing the Niagara ProAm. Looks like you guys will be a shoo-in!

[Storm Warning II]

No Paul, sorry, we won't be there to harass you in the Pro Am. Unforunately, the economy has severly hampered our ability to fish the tourney schedule that we would like to, so we unfortunately won't be returning to the O until late August in search of "THE big one".

Time to catch 'eyes on the E.

[Paul Czarnecki]

You don't "harass" me Matt. I ignore you like everyone else.

[Storm Warning II]

Whatever you say Capt. Lake Ontario...

[wolfman]

Haha yeah we fished. We just seemed to be in and tied off just before u guys got in. What happened to Jeremy Monday morning? We were west of Wilson and i didn't even realize he wasn't moving when we passed him, then the coast guard showed up and towed him in. If we had known we would of assisted in anyway.

[Storm Warning II]

Yep Wolf, we didn't know either. When we passed him, he was already hooked up to TowBoatUS. We got back to the launch, secured the boat for the ride home, and the Wilson police dropped him off at his truck & trailer. BOAT = 'BOut Another Thousand.

You guys headin' up in the Fall?

Maybe we'll see you in Conneaut or Erie during the summer chasin' eyes. Bite has started...

[wolfman]

Our boat will be in that slip all summer and into the fall so if u see us, stop over. Good luck on erie!

[Nalod]

Every time I see this post come up on the message board, I think it is someone writing about a Storm Warning in Olcott. With the Pro Am this weekend, it scares me even more when I see the post!

Great fishing report!

--Joe