Yankee 7/24 at the Oak

[Yankee Troller]

We had Casey Prisco (Cold Steel team member) and Mike Decker (White Cap Charters 1st mate) on board as they were looking to grab six big guys to win the Little Salmon River Challenge. We left the dock at the Oak at 5:30 and headed out to check the inside waters. We set down in 100' and worked our way East down to the glass house. We set up a three rigger, 2 wire, 2 copper set up. On our riggers we ran spoons with sliders. We started off with a DW SS Midnight Special, Stinger Later Gators, and Stinger Glow Green Alewife's. On the wires we ran an Albino Gator/A-TOM-MIK Ultra Green Glow and a 42 combo. The 300 copper pulled a Stinger NBK mag, and the 400 copper had a Wonder dot SmartFish with an A-TOM-MIK Hammer fly.

All the rods would fire as we trolled down to the glass house. The screen was very good between 100 and 110. Lots of bait and marks, but the fish were DINKS. Mostly Salmon, and they hit everything we had to offer to them. Once we reached the glass house we made the decision to turn it North. As we did this I put down my overcast spread which consisted of DW SS Green Eye Ghost's and Shiznits. Well, it didn't take long and the Green Eye Ghost went. We started picking more Dinks, but now we had a few nice Steelies playing with our spread.

With less than 2 hours to fish we got a call from our buddy in the Maniac boat. He said rumor had it some Majors were being taken about 10 miles West of us. We cleared lines and made the run. Once we got down there we set our lines and rods began to pop. We changed out the Albino Gator Spinny/A-TOM-MIK combo for a White Spin Doctor/A-TOM-MIK Little Boy Blue on the wire. Our first two shots came on the wires. The Gator Spinny with a Green Crinkle A-TOM-MIK fly took a nice Steelie and the White Spinny A-TOM-MIK Little Boy Blue took the Major. This Salmon took a few nice runs, and it didnt help that we were fighting it in 3-5' waves. I had to drive due to the conditions, so Casey was on the net. On our boat we run our leads off the divers long. Well, Casey went to net this hog and came up short. He caught the hook and popped it out. From the bridge I could tell it was a nice fish. One we NEEDED.

We set back up and it didn't take long as we came back upon our waypoint. Doubled again. That same White Spinny/A-TOM-MIK Little Boy Blue, and the rigger with the DW SS Green Eye Ghost. Target on the fly and a nice Rainbow on the spoon. This rainbow would take some great jumps behind the boat and multiple short runs, but it found its way to the cooler. We would finally get the King to the net, and it was time to head in. Five bites in the last hour allowed us to get our box of fish to weigh in for the LSR Challenge. We had 5 nice Rainbows and 1 low teen King.

About 3pm I get a call from Casey, and I hear we were DQ'd because we had a block of ice in the cooler. He said we would have had a top five box. I also got a call from my brother who fished with the Sea devil boat in Oswego and they were DQ'd because they had an extra fish in their box. They had the winning box, and all those massive Kings were laid over a little Brown trout. Oh well, I think Casey and Mike had a lot of fun on the "West Side!" I never counted the amount of bites we took today, but we had non-stop action all day. We just laked the size, which we found at the end of the day. A huge thanks to Maniac for that phone call.

[woody 184]

Nice Day of fishing Rick, the DQ thing stinks but we all learn from our mistakes..... Believe me

[Yankee Troller]

Oh well, what are you gonna do. I wasn't even going to fish this weekend, but some guys from the East end wanted to win the thing, and they knew how good the fishing out at the Oak was right now. Little did they know the biggest box, which was also DQ'd, came from Gene and the Sea Devil boat. That guy is a fly GURU!

[TOP SECRET]

Rick what was the block of ice rule? Couldn't they have just taken the block out? I'm confused!

Nick

[Yankee Troller]

I guess it was in the rules that no ice or water was allowed in the cooler. I wasn't at the meeting. Rules are rules and if you want to play the game you need to follow them.

[Time Out]

Very strict on the rules. If you didn't follow them, they dq'd you. I have never seen anything like it. I give them props for doing that. Not sure how many teams got dq'd, but there were a few.

[Fishtails]

Yeah, Beth said at the captians meeting she would not hesitate to dq you if you had ice or water in the cooler. She also said 6 fish...no more or dq! No lake trout or atlantics either or dq! She wasn't messing around but she was also real clear. If I hadn't gone to the meeting, I probably would have been dq'd for sure with ice cause I was keeping the fish for friends and wanted to keep em cold.

She runs it her way, but she still scares me Great tournament though

Nice report Rick

[MANIAC]

I was wondering where you took off to. Glad the move worked out for you.