Yankee's Niagara Pro/Am 2011

[Yankee Troller]

6/1 – We headed out of Wilson at 5:30am. It felt good to know we had 3 days of practice for the Niagara Pro-Am. When we left port we knew there were some offshore fish right straight out of port, but we wanted to head a little West to see what else was out there. We took a NW heading and ran out to the 6 mile creek area and set down in 150’ of water. We pointed the boat towards the NW corner hoping to get out there eventually because there looked to be a pocket of warm water in that corner. We didn’t make it very far and we had rods flying.

With only 6 rods to play with we ran 2 wires pulling Deeper Divers, three rods on our Cannon DT-10’s, and a junk line down the chute. Everything went back with the exception of a beautiful 24lb Chinook Salmon that committed suicide smashing all over our back deck. It looked like a war zone back there by time we got the hook out. Our top spoon of the day was one we have never taken a single fish on. Dreamweaver’s Bloody Death SS took 75% of the fish, and the big guy took a 10 color pulling a Stinger Stingray Double Crush Orange, which is another spoon we don’t typically run. That Dreamweaver SS was a suggestion by the “new guy†that jumped aboard for the day because it has been his top producer lately. Well, it worked for us! It’s always nice to get other fisherman aboard to see what works for them. I find that sometimes I get stuck in a narrow minded program, and keep down what has worked well for us when sometimes I think you just need to change it up a little. Even when the fishing is good!

6/2 – We woke up nice and early to a stiff NW blow, so back to bed we went until about 8am. Then it was time for breakfast at Lucy Lou’s inside the small town of Wilson. Great people there by the way! Once breakfast was over we figured it would be a good time to install our on-board chargers we bought from Minn Kota to keep the battery powering our downriggers at a full charge all day long. We spent the rest of the day in Olcott between the Hideout and Maverick boats just shootin’ the breeze. Finally at 4pm we figured it had calmed down enough to get a quick evening trip in to see what the big blow had done to the water. We put her on a northerly troll and trolled out to a serious break offshore where the green water and black water met. A significant temp break, and not too many fish. So, back in we trolled where we finished the night off in about 100’ of water picking fish the whole time, but the size was concerning. Nothing bigger than about 10lbs hit our deck, or sniffed our lures, on this evening trip, which included people from 3 different Pro/Am teams. Lots of fun was had, and the Trojan handled the 9 person outing with ease.

6/3 – Big Fish Friday (Don Johanas Memorial Tourney) – We motored right out front of port bright and early and set up in 75’ of water. Our program today was a typical 8 rod program for us. Three rods on our Cannon DT-10 downriggers, 2 wires pulling Walker Deeper Divers, and 3 junk lines (two of which were pulled off our Big John Otter Boats). We got lines set, and trolled NW. When we hit the 130’ area our screen lit up! Sharks, and lots of them, had moved in overnight. We spent the whole day working the area between the Gazebo (West of Wilson) to the Red Barn (East of Wilson) smashing Chinooks all day long. This is the type of day we had been waiting for, and how the Spring King fishery around the Niagara Bar is supposed to be! We would end up working the waters from 130’ to 175’ the whole day with mainly a spoon program. Northern King Sea Sick Waddlers, Dreamweaver Dave’s Salmon Slappers seemed to work the best. Another program we are trying to dial ourselves in on is the MC Rocket program, which are pieces of rubber that are being used as a replacement for meat rigs. These took some good shots on our junk lines, which helped our box creep into the top 10 for a check in the tourney. We have tried to stay away from the numbers thing recently, but when you can say you had 35-40 kings hooked up in a day that’s worth bragging about!

6/4 – Day 1 of the Niagara Pro/Am – We knew right where we needed to be at 6am when they allowed us to drop our lines for the start of the tourney. However, when we got there the picture wasn’t nearly as good as it was on Friday, and we had lost a few degrees in water temperature. There were still some fish in there, so we gave it a shot. We quickly got on the dink bite, and figured out that this wasn’t a good thing. So, we pointed the boat NW and out we trolled. We got back on them a few miles West and out in the 200-225’ range. We also started to dial in the program that gave us a nice jump on day 2. With the skippy’s being an issue we started to pin our cheaters 5-10’ above our main lines on our Cannon DT-10s. We also went to a Magnum Spoon Program. We have been seeing some rather large Alewives in the stomachs of these Chinooks while we are cleaning them for customers. We also thought it would deter the smaller fish from taking shots at them. The Dreamweaver Moon Cricket in a mag size was starting to take over for the top dog in our program. It was set on our 85’ rigger, and our 325’ wire. Others like the Northern King Sea Sick Waddler and the Dreamweaver Glow Frog contributed too. We would be back to the dock by 10:30 with our box of 12 Kings, and we weren’t the only boat back, so we knew others had to have had a knock out day too.

When we finally hit the scales we had about a hundred pound box, and noticed there was a lot of those going around. We figured ourselves to be outside the top twenty, and we knew we had some ground to catch up on day 2, but we knew it wasn’t going to be hard as long as we could dial in the big guys like we had late in the morning. Those morning skippy’s really hurt us, and we realized that there were no Dreamweaver mags to be found at any tackle shop in the Niagara region!

6/5 – Day 2 of the Niagara Pro/Am – When we got out to our water and scanned it we saw that it was blank, again. That’s the problem with a big blow and the huge river that dumps into that end of the lake. Nothing stays the same for very long! Temp dropped a bit, and the screen just wasn’t there, so on plane we went heading West towards the bar. As we passed the six mile area we started to watch the surface temps creep up. We shut down at four mile and the screen lit up. We put down our Mag program, and rods just started flying. Fish after fish hit the deck, and our cooler started to pile up with Kings, and they were all pretty good sized too! We tried to run the same program we ran the last few days with riggers, divers, and coppers, but we just couldn’t get it all in. Our riggers were firing at 60-125’ down, our wires were out 275-325’ on 1.5 and a 2, and the coppers from 400-600. Those Dreamweaver Moon Cricket Magnums were on fire so bad that we had to retire one because the tape was shredded and coming off the spoon by the end of the morning. We finished our box at 8:27, and we took a nice ride back to the marina.

When our box hit the scales we had the second biggest box of the tourney weighed in at a little over 270, which is a 150lb box of fish. By the end of the tourney we had the third largest box between the two days and jumped from 25th to 5th place out of 50 really good professional boats. I have to give it to my brother for dialing in that magnum program. He started with one of them down on his rigger, and quickly hawged the only 4 we had on the boat by Sunday morning.

[motoman]

super report rick glad you guys did well !

[adam2000]

Love the boats theme

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[Pike Hunter]

Rick, I enjoyed reading your excellent write up about the tournament. Moving up from 25th to 5th place is nothing to sneeze at. Congratulations!

[Yankee Troller]

Thanks guys!