Lucky Enuff Pro Am report / Sodus

[Fishtails]

Well, yesterday wrapped up the 2010 Pro Am season and for the first time since I started fishing them I must say that I am glad they are over! What an exausting season and I'm looking forward to just fishing for fun again! My teammates Jeff Jackson and Rollie Conner both did a great job this year, and I feel sometimes having three good fishermen on the team hurt us as much as it helped, as I know we often times had to many cooks in the kitchen. The Pro Am's are great events and I love to fish them, but I have found after three full seasons (and I bet many teams will agree) that keeping everyone on the team content is virtually impossible and at times becomes a major distraction!! We may scale back to two events (or less) next year to focus on having more fun! I want to thank Jeff for being like a brother to me, and to Rollie for "tolerating" me Also...we had GREAT observers this year! Thank you Mike and Jay.....hope you guys had a good time fishing with us on Friday and observing

Report:

I prefished Wed and Thurs for kings, mostly by myself and found a nice pod of majors a few miles west of port and picked up 6 kings between 19 and 25lbs. On Pre fish Friday, we headed for browns right away due to the low numbers of kings. We picked a few pretty quick, so we felt good about them and decided to go for a big box of kings for the Friday derby. We found plenty of small kings, but couldn't get a major to go untill 11am. Our first major king (21+lbs) was on the wire rod with the dipsey set at 250 on a #1 setting pulling a black/green spinnie and a Big Weenie goat pecker fly over 180 fow. That same combo took two more major hits, but unfortunately we dropped them both We finished with 60 pts and in the top 10, but a couple places short of the $$.

Sat:

Day one of the Pro Am, I decided this event I was gonna take charge a little more with team decisions and decided to go for browns mostly because there were minimal numbers of kings around. We headed west a few miles and set up in 55 fow. I found warmer water than the day before so I trolled a bit fast to get us deeper and find better temp. That faster clip got us a couple small kings that ended up hurting our final box weight....bad decision Rod!! Anyhow, we got out to 80 fow and rods started popping with browns. Different color spoons took fish, but black/ green with a white back was the main killer. At 6:45 am we put or 7th fish in the cooler and I definitly would have boxed out by 7 am so we pulled lines to go king searching. We ran to my waypoints and began searching, but couldn't get a bite out deep. My buddy Nick was struggling out there to, so at 10 am I decided to head back in for my two browns cause I knew they were getting hammered hard and may shut down! We set up and within 20 min we were done with our 9 fish limit and headed in with our 131 point box.

Day 2, we were in 6th place with Fishful thinking sitting on top 17 points ahead of us. It was snotty and our brown bite was not there early. It seems I motored over them, and we just couldn't get a program going so I decided to head deep for kings & steelies. Well, it was majorly rough out deep! We hit a double with steelies over 160 and doubled on browns over 148 but just couldn't circle around to hit those spots again so we ended with 4 fish day 2 and that left us in 8th place with 191 points overall. It was my decision to fish deeper water for the kings on Sunday with a go big or go home attitude and it didn't work out as good as I'd hoped. I should have hung in there with the browns and try out the water Rollie suggested we look at, but that's fishin I suppose. It was just to rough to pick up and run around searching.

Our hot spoons were DW Dave's salmon slapper, black ice, black/ green. Our best flies were Big Weenie Goat Pecker, Big Weenie bone yodeler and the green dog.

[Pike Hunter]

Thanks for the great write up.

It was good seeing you again and it was certainly nice meeting Jeff. I did not have the chance to see Rollie.

You said it very well, fishing for fun with a strong passion should never be replaced by anything else in the world.

Tight lines.

[Time Out]

I will make a bet after a little time off and a snow filled winter, you guys will be back. I think most guys are a little burnt right now. Its been a couple long weeks.

[Fishtails]

Nice seeing you again also Anthony!!

I know what you're saying and time will tell Jeff, but I know I won't do 4 on my boat and use my rv. It's to much work moving all the equipment around and being the boat owner. I guess ya never know what will happen between then and now It was good hanging with you guys as always!

Congrats to Spoonfed's Glen and Chris on their win and the summer of a lifetime They put together one amazing season!

[jaychunter]

sure did , got me lookin already

[Trannyman]

Great write-up Rod, thanks for the report.

Great meeting you guys this spring. Say hi to Rollie & Jeff for us.

Later buddy

Al

[woody 184]

Rod nice job fishing this weekend.. I'm with Jeff on this by the time the snow melts you will be chomping to get out there and fish the Pro/Ams..... I know I will be chomping at the bit once the snow melts to fish every tournament under the sun.... That cabin fever gets you down.....Dale

[TOP SECRET]

Rod,

It was a tough weekend. Fishing for browns was the smart move, but we dont' drive 5hrs up here to catch 3lb fish! The water on Sunday out in 200fow was the roughest water I've ever been in and quite honestly scared me. We headed in real early. People in shallow said they were only getting 5-6', but trust me when I say out deep there were waves 10ft+. We tried going with them, took one in the tuna door... tried going against them, took one over the roof. At one point I turned around and the wife and other teammate were sitting on the deck trying to reel a fish in... that's when I said enough. We fish these tournaments for fun. Unfortunately, in the last two years, we've only had one fun day I think our observer got some pics of the waves, hopefully they come out well as I fully plan on that being the last time I ever see waves like that!

Nick

[Fishtails]

Yeah, I even had a long talk with the wife about it yesterday and she just looked at me with one of those "I've heard this crap before" grins She ain't buying it. Jeff and I will work through it in the off season and figure out what we want to do. I have no doubt I'll be fishing the Pro Am's.....just not sure it will be my team or on another ??

Nick, If I was smarter than I am I would have taken your advise when you called and stayed in tight. I didn't, and went out deep looking for sharks. Like you, I'm a king fishermen and can't stand a whole weekend of BT fishing. I agree with you bud, 8 to 10 out @ 200 without a doubt. It was nasty!! We even ran west in them once and re-set cause we were past the port and would have been in Fairhaven by 12:00.

See you all at the LSRC this weekend

[TOP SECRET]

Yeah we kinda gave up on fishing around 6:30 and trolled with them in the "if we catch a fish great" type of mindset. We were a few miles east of the chimney bluffs when we headed in and it took an hour with waves constantly crashing over the bow. Thank GOD we bought a bigger boat last year!

Nick