Carpedium & Papa Joe - Sandy Creek Shootout '11

[carpedium]

I had planned to fish the tourney up until the week of 7/17 when a few guys I had planned to fish it with dropped out. Early last week I was in contact with ScottB, and he put me in contact with a guy who's team had dropped out as well - Dan. Dan and I hatched out a plan to be on the water early, and we would head northwest out of the harbor and see what we could raise around the 180 mark.

Getting set-up at first was the most difficult part, even though I used my rods for my rigs, I still had to get used to his boat. Using some of his equipment did open my eyes to some of the finer things out there... like roemer releases... Copper down the chute... and I really like the Okuma reels as well.

We started off with two riggers and two wire dipseys - one of them mine pulling the Familiar Bite Green Label whole Alewife in a Blue Glow bait head. The other wire had a silver s/d with a green/orange A-Tom-Mick Fly.

We trolled to the pumphouse then made a loop around back toward the harbor. About 3 minuets after we turned, we noticed slack in one of the rigger lines. Dan goes over to grab the rod, and immediately a large steelhead is 4 feet out of the air 10 feet off the back of the boat! This would have been the biggest steelie I had seen first hand, i'm not going to venture a guess on weight (20lbs) or length (36") (haha) but it would have been interesting to see how much it shrunk if we were able to get it on the boat. It ended up screaming the reel like a freight train for a solid 15 seconds before it simply "let go". This was off the 60' rigger.

Next up was a small king that came in on a green/red spoon of Dan's. This fish INHALED the spoon, and would have been a floater- so we boxed it.

Then came a really hard and fast rip on the Familiar Bite Bait 320 off the dipsey at a 1.5 setting. This thing hit like a leer jet and never stopped until bam it simply came unbuttoned. I've never had that happen... just let go in the middle of a run.. no slack in the line, nothing. just gone.

We went on to take 4 steelies in a row off of our 60' rigger, around 20-26 inches. two went back and two went in the box.

Back in front of Sandy, we decided to troll North out to some deeper water. We were marking fish everywhere out there, but only hooked up with one. This one came on (you guessed it) the 60' rigger. Ended up being a high teens king that was our largest in the box.

The 60' rigger had a glow NBK crinkle that took almost all of our fish:

Later we had another hit on the wire, but that ended up getting tangled in dan's copper that was down the chute. Luckily I think he only lost about 10' or 20' of it. We ended up being in the bottom 5 but it was a whole lot of fun. Plus there was a gift cert for more copper for Dan.

I'm really looking forward to next year. Thanks again Scott for hooking us up, he's great guy and it was a really enjoyable time. For fishing a tourney with someone whom you have never met and only talked to once on the phone I think we did pretty well.

It was great meeting a lot of you - hope to see you on the water.

Thanks to everyone that put this on!

Matt

[Mortigan]

Sounds like a blast. Maybe next year, we'll be able to get Forever Young out for the shootout; we might have a clue by then (here's hoping).

[kremer01]

good job Matt, thanks for the report!

[Silver Fox]

wtg guys! Dan said you guys had a great time!

[Yankee Troller]

Having a good time is what these things are all about! To top it off you have a new fishing friend!

[skipper19]

Was good to meet you there Matt, I too was a first timer for a tourny like this and found it to be a blast. One good part like you mentioned is the format lets everyone experience a prize in a position that normally wouldn't score anything to bring home. I had a hard time getting an experienced team together and opted for my friend Art who is not experienced at anything in the boat, but he was good for two more rods

Found out that was tough on me after 15 fish to the boat, rod handling, netting, navigating and driving the throttle and wheel, rigging the lines etc etc. I was a whopped puppy playing in the big rollers out there as well. ....Hmmm ..Maybe Art shoulda not got 3 sheets to the wind the night before...he spent part of the day yakking at the rollers and said that maybe he should have a beer to help recover from hangover and cracked one at about 7:30 am....well I didn't see how that worked for him since he was "hangin over" the side and catching his false teeth as he yakked. Those choppers ended up on the deck along with the sea fleas and fish scales

Shouldda seen the look on his face when he put those bitters back in....PRICELESS!

Mark

[carpedium]

Was good to meet you there Matt, I too was a first timer for a tourny like this and found it to be a blast. One good part like you mentioned is the format lets everyone experience a prize in a position that normally wouldn't score anything to bring home. I had a hard time getting an experienced team together and opted for my friend Art who is not experienced at anything in the boat, but he was good for two more rods

Found out that was tough on me after 15 fish to the boat, rod handling, netting, navigating and driving the throttle and wheel, rigging the lines etc etc. I was a whopped puppy playing in the big rollers out there as well. ....Hmmm ..Maybe Art shoulda not got 3 sheets to the wind the night before...he spent part of the day yakking at the rollers and said that maybe he should have a beer to help recover from hangover and cracked one at about 7:30 am....well I didn't see how that worked for him since he was "hangin over" the side and catching his false teeth as he yakked. Those choppers ended up on the deck along with the sea fleas and fish scales

Shouldda seen the look on his face when he put those bitters back in....PRICELESS!

Mark

LMFAO

Very priceless....

Well, if you ever need another set of hands let me know!

It was great meeting you as well

[Missdemeanor]

Skipper......that was the best story I've ever heard....lol....I'm lmao over here....

[skipper19]

Hahahaha.....I'm laughing again out here today on the lake just thinking about the whole scene of Art and his choppers

LMFAO!

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