Yankee @ the Oswego Pro Am

[Yankee Troller]

Friday 7/9 (Fat Nancy Shootout) - We broke the pier heads at 6am after sleeping in our cars with the AC on all night. The humidity was terrible, so sleeping on the boat was a no go (even with two fans). We headed West and set down in 90fow and worked NW.

Our program for the morning consisted of 3 riggers parked at 80, 100, 120. The two deep riggers had paddles on them and the high rigger in the center was run with spoons cheated. We ran two Deeper Divers set on a 1.5 setting out 275'-350' throughout the day. Lastly, a 400 copper, a 500 copper, and a 600 copper. All the coppers were towing flasher/fly combos.

We got set-up and didn't move a rod for about 30 minutes. All of a sudden our new prototype custom Albino Gator Spin Doctor with an A-TOM-MIK Sweat Pea fly starts SCREAMING! I'm on the rod and he isn't stopping. AS we are trying to tame this beast I look right and here is a charter captains pinching in on us. I look left and there is Tom Burke from the Cold Steel. We are feeling the pinch. We call over to Burke and he makes a quick turn and allows us the room we needed. We had to raise our riggers so that we wouldn't take his coppers. Oh, by the way the other guy yelled at us for not knowing how to drive! Anyway, we boat that fish a while later and its a healthy 25lb BRUTE. It's on! We need 3 more decent ones now.

We trolled on to the NW and picked away at fish. Mostly small ones, but a few keeper Salmon would hit our deck. Our next big guy would come late morning on a 500 copper pulling our custom Green SmartFish with an A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist fly. He tipped the scale at 19 pounds. We knew we needed one more good one, so we kept trucking on to the West. We were on the phone with a few buddies (Billy V and the Candy Team) and knew that there was a pick all the way through to West 9 mile point. We have always done fish off West 9 mile point in previous years fishing this tournament.

It was early afternoon with about an hour and a half to fish and our new prototype custom Albino Gator Spin Doctor with an A-TOM-MIK Sweat Pea fly starts SCREAMING again. We get on the rod and within minutes our second 19lb Salmon hits the deck. We didn't think we had enough weight, but we knew it would be close. We continued to pick away at some smaller fish, but we would have never taken a tournament box of fish by days end. Our last fish of the day took the 400 copper (first bite that rod took all day) with a Chrome E-Chip/A-TOM-MIK Frozen Frog Fly. About 1:30pm we said enough was enough and headed for the scales to see where the cards were going to lay.

At the sales a few nice fish were weighed in, but only one other team was able to string three of them together. They missed out on 1st place my a measly 1 pound. We won with 63 pounds and change to take the 2010 Fat Nancy's Shoot Out.

Saturday 7/10 (Day 1) - We headed out to our waypoints from Friday, and right away we had a mess in the back of the boat. We got pushed in shallow by another tourney boat, which was my fault. I should have positioned us better while we were waiting for the official start time. We caught our 500 on the bottom and lost our custom Green SmartFish and then we dragged a wire and a rigger on the bottom. As we were letting the otter boats out the tether line got stuck in the tow line and the otter dove under our boat. A few choice words, and some high blood pressure and we got set back up and we were fishing.

Our program for the morning consisted of 3 riggers parked at 80, 100, 120. The two deep riggers had paddles on them and the high rigger in the center was run with spoons cheated. We ran two Deeper Divers set on a 1.5 setting out 275'-350' throughout the day. Lastly, a 10 color, a 500 copper, and a 600 copper. Coppers were towing paddle fly combos, and the 10 color had a spoon run on it. We sat for an hour without a bite, and then all of a sudden we went BANG BANG. We boated to Salmon. One took a Wonderbread SmartFish with an A-TOM-MIK Hammer on the 120 rigger, and the other came on a Green dot Spin Doctor with an A-TOM-MIK B-Fly on the 100 rigger. That would be the end of our Salmon bite.

Later in the morning we would find a few suspended Brown Trout over 170fow down 80'. One took an NK THAT spoon, and the other took a White Green dot SmartFish with an A-TOM-MIK Hammer fly. About 12pm we made the decision to slide into Ford Shoals and see if we could pick up a few Brown Trout. It didn't take long and we had rods poppin'. One Brownie took a Stinger Glow Froggy on the 10 color. Another would take a Purple Frog Fishlander on the 300 copper. We would drop another keeper Brown Trout and toss back a stocker. That was the extent of our day 1 box. Four Brown Trout and two Kings.

Sunday 7/11 (Day 2) - We made the decision as a team to try the King bite for two hours and then go chase the Browns. We began with the same program we had Friday and Saturday morning, and it didn't take long. We would pick away at the fish till about 11am. The bite was pretty nice, and we had action all morning. Mostly a paddle bite for us, but an NK THAT spoon kept us busy with the 17-18" Salmon on our 80' rigger. Our first two bites of the morning were both wires bites, and both on our new prototype Albino Gator Spin Docs. One with an A-TOM-MIK Sweat Pean and the other with an A-TOM-MIK Sea Sick Waddler fly.

At 11am we were sitting on 1 Laker and 9 Kings. Our fish were coming all over our spread. Green paddles had to have chrome on one side and glow on the other with either Green Crinkle A-TOM-MIKs or A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist. Our Mountain Dew E-Chip with an A-TOM-MIK TG went once, our new Albino Gator took two fish with an A-TOM-MIK Sweat Pea fly, and our Green dot Smartfish with an A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist went a few times. All the rods fired today at least once, but no one rod was HOT.

By 1:00pm we would have 9 Kings and 1 Laker in the box with 4 lost fish and 6 throw backs. My brother looks at me and says "can I check that rigger? it looks like its throbbing." I told him no, and kept an eye on the rod. A few minutes later I told him to check that rod, and sure enough there was number 11. A 20" King. At 1:40 we started picking the rest of the lines, and sure enough there was another fish on that NK THAT spoon. As we boated it we said it may go 18", but when the ruler hit the fish it was 1/4 of an inch short.

We ended the day with 4 nice Kings, 1 small Laker, and 6 decent to small Kings. We were pretty excited because we knew some teams were struggling on the Brown Trout bite, and that no teams except for Billy V, Candy, and High Voltage were in the area producing all these Kings. When we hit the scales with our 11 fish we shot right into the top ten and never left it. We finished the tournament in 9th place to end a very exciting and eventful weekend.

[muskybob]

Congrats guys & nice report Rick

[Mick]

Way to go Rick.

[Yankee Troller]

Thanks boyz

[Landshark]

Nice job and report bud

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

[ray koziatek]

good going team "yanks" ,,,hey one of those small window ac units might save the day ,if ya got dock power just a thought for sodus,

so yer "learning how to drive finally" ,,,,, i think im figuring it out ,,if a guy is standing in the back of the boat with rod in hand and the tip is bending to the breaking point,,and everyone else is waving theapproaching boat away maybe that would be a good time to steer away ,,,or pass close to back of boat?

Hmm so its a good thing to troll shakers in the spread eh...way to keep yer brother at bay..

Ps I did my homework for osweago called around and found out their was not gonna be a "DONUT AWARD" so I decided to pass ....see ya at sodus..

[FX]

Nice job team Yankee! Congrats!

Shawn

[reel drag]

Good job Rick and crew and congrats on your Friday win. Your reports are great keep it up YT.

[perchin50]

Nice job Rick. Was wondering how you guys were doing and as always doing good. I have been working weekends all summer, so that's why you guys haven't heard frome me at all.

Nice work and keep it going, you guys are doing great. Also keep posting, it is a nice way for me to see how all are doing. Take it easy.