Catfish Creek 7/23 to 7/25 and the Little Salmon tournament

[Dukdog]

Fishing Report

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TRIP OVERVIEW

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FISHING RESULTS

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SUMMARY & FURTHER DETAILS

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Weather made things less than perfect but still a super trip.

I finished up my last day of work on Friday morning by sending in my time sheet to the main office. Then it was hook up the boat and off to Mexico, N.Y. for my Retirement kick off Vacation. When got up to camp around noon, I put the boat in the water and decided to run to one of the bait shops in Pulaski, Fat Nancy's. There I found out that there was a tournament the next day and by the time I was driving back to camp I had decided it would be a fun waste of money to enter my team into the fray! I stopped at Jon's little salmon bait shop in New Haven and signed up.

I had spent the rest of the afternoon getting all the rods out and the boat rigged for Saturday mornings assault on the Lake.

My Boys got into Catfish Creek about 5PM just in time roll over the the Tournament Captain's meeting at Mikes Marina. It was then that we learned that there were 110 boats and teams entered! This definitely was looking like a waste of time and money for one guy with limited experience and his 2 sons with no salmon fishing experience at all.

Saturday we were on the water at 5 AM and ready to start setting lines at 0530. We ran out to 100 feet, we deployed the big planer boards and I had Chris run out 400 feet of copper with a spin doctor and a A-tom-mik green hammer fly and send it out on the port side. Next he set with a 42 second spoon on a full core of lead off the other board. Then the Starboard side got a firetiger #1 Dipsy with a dark green spin doctor with glow on one side, chrome on the other and a puke green colored fly that I had in my box from back on Lake Michigan.

That line no more than hit the water when the copper fired and the fight was on. Chris had a nice fish on the line and as he was battling that, the 42 sec spoon took a whack and Steve was hooked up. After about 15 minutes and quite a tussle, Chris landed a 19 pound 6 oz king! Steve followed up with a 6 pound brown!

We redeployed our lines and finished setting up the full 6 rod program.

It wasn't long before we had another king smash a bait and it was my turn to wrestle another 19# king to the boat and into the fish box.

By now we're dreaming and starting to talk about maybe winning the tournament. Just like buying a in the ground ticket for a 200 million dollar price, we were dreaming about how to spend the money.

We had 2 more kings come the the boat in rapid fashion, one 16# and another 7#. By 0645 we had 5 of the 6 fish we needed and 4 were kings. The Sixth fish didn't come that easily and it wasn't until about 1030 that we finally boated another brown of about 5+

By this time the lake was blowing up pretty good and fishing was getting uncomfortable, We probably had the smallest boat out there and we stuck it out as long as it was prudent We folded up at about 1230 and headed for Walmart for a bigger cooler to take to the weigh in.

We showed up for the weigh in at 1:30 and we were in 3rd out of about 25 boats that had weighed in at that time. We were encouraged and took off for lunch. When we came back at 3:30 we found out we had ended up in 18th out of 110 boats. We were pretty pleased that 3 relative rookies could do that well considering how many good charter captains we were lucky enough to beat out. We ended up winning $100 for placing 18th and the tournament paid down to 33rd.

Sunday dawned with nasty winds and we tried to make a run out but quickly turned around when it was obvious it wasn't happening for us on the big lake that day.

We broke out the light rods and the in line planer boards and headed for Oneida Lake. We went out and fished with crawler harnesses and inline boards and caught 2 Walleyes (1 keeper) and about a dozen white perch and one 5 # catfish.

It was fun fishing until the wind came up and spoiled it for us again.

We had a big afternoon nap and I got up and cleaned the fish and we had them for dinner with fresh sweet corn and hash browns with vidala onions!! It was awesome if I do say so myself!

Monday morning found us out with the 6 rod program at 0530 again on the big lake. The sky looked awful and as the sun started to come up in the east, a rainbow formed in the west in the impending rain. It started pouring and the only thing that kept it sane was the bimini.

We rode this out until the wind starting coming up pretty fast so we hauled lines and headed in.

We drove around touring the area and ended up having a great late breakfast at Mom's diner in Pulaski! My western omelet was awesome!

The boys decided to pack it in and head for home a day early as more bad wind and weather was predicted. We didn't expect the lake to lay down in the afternoon so we pulled the boat out of the water and packed it in. They headed for home. I called my buddy who was due up the next day and cancelled on him due to predicted high winds and thunderstorms for the next 3 days.

I ate lunch and laid on the couch to watch some TV and promptly took a nap! When I got up about 4, I decided to throw the boat in the water and run down the creek and look at the lake. To my surprise it had laid down pretty well and so I ran about 6 miles out to deep water.

I set up my 2 dipsy lines and commenced to troll. After about 1/2 an hour the wind was coming up hard again and so I started heading west with the wind as I started picking up my lines. When the first was in, I decided not trip the dipsy on the other right away, I would just hold the rod a minute and pump it up and down a few times. On the third rise, Whammmmm! Fish on! And I knew it was a good one. 20 minutes and several drag screeching runs, I got the fish to the boat. I was running a lot of leader behind the dipsy so I had to wear him out pretty good and then put the rod in a forward rod holder while I took the net and bagged him over the stern.. It went great and he was soon flopping in the bottom of the boat. A few well applied whacks to the top of his head with a fish billy calmed him down for the dehooking process. I grabbed my scale and tossed him on. He came in at a whopping 20 pounds 6 ounces, a personal best for me!!

Though I didn't get as many day's in as I would have liked, I had a super time. I can't wait to go back. When you fish Lake Ontario, you always have to know that because of the weather, you may not get to fish.

I had a great time on Saturday jawing with another forum member Rock Bottom for most of the morning. We kept each other posted on what was working and where on channel 68.

Another fun moment was running into Gottabite in Jons Little Salmon. We were both shopping stinger lures and I asked him if he knew what a 42 second looked like. He showed me and then we started to STS. I mentioned I had an 18 foot Lund and he looked at me and asked. "Are you Dukdog? " We had quite a laugh over knowing each other on the forum and running into each other in a bait shop.

Here's a selection on pictures from the trip..

First morning, double hookup

First 2 aboard

Battling in my first king, a 19 pounder.

Ready to head for the weigh in

Tote board at Tournament, Team Dukdog taking 18th with 6 fish and 70.8 pounds

Walleye and white perch and the filet pile they made! Yumm!

A little in line board video click on picture to run video.

The #1 producer for us this week

A net full of King!

My last minute fish and new personal best!

The Aftermath!! 2 nice filets!!

[Mortigan]

That's a nice fish. Well done.

[spoonfed-1]

Sounds like a great start to your retiremnet.

Congratulations

Glen

[wood29]

Hey great job bud Me and You were in the small boat club out there it can be rough but i love it.

[Tribetroller]

Hey dukdog, I think I seen you and your boys come in with those fish. Way to go I believe those were the only kings in on Saturday. We had all browns some of my crew STS with ya at the dock.I've seen you on gla once or twice. Sorry I didn't get the chance to talk to ya maybe next time.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[Fish Hunter]

Sounds like you guys had a blast!!

[Gotta Bite]

It was nice to meet you I'm person DD. I am really glad you did well in the tourney. We did ok and caught fish everytime time out but we weren't in the tourney. I'll be up tonight for the weekend. Give me a shout on the radio if you're up.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[Dukdog]

Hey dukdog, I think I seen you and your boys come in with those fish. Way to go I believe those were the only kings in on Saturday. We had all browns some of my crew STS with ya at the dock.I've seen you on gla once or twice. Sorry I didn't get the chance to talk to ya maybe next time.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

Too bad we missed meeting up! I think one of your guys took a couple pictures for us. I love that place. Hope we see you on the pond!

[Dukdog]

It was nice to meet you I'm person DD. I am really glad you did well in the tourney. We did ok and caught fish everytime time out but we weren't in the tourney. I'll be up tonight for the weekend. Give me a shout on the radio if you're up.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

It's always a hoot to meet someone from the forum! I don't know when I'll make it up again. Early goose season is closing in (Sept 1st) and I'm getting all my gear ready to go. Also have a scouting trip planned to check out the birds up north and get permission on some properties up there.

My eyes are almost tearing up as I'm taking the rods out of the boat and putting them in their racks!!!

[Fishtails]

Awesome trip!! Congats !!!!!

[Wolfpack]

Awesome report. Should be there next weekend, hopefully the weather holds. What size cabin did u stay in. Any recommendations about the camp?

[Tribetroller]

I just got back today we got blown off today so came home early. Yesterday we ended 8-9 , 7 browns 1 young king . It seemed the warm water came back making fishing tough as the day went on. Hope to see ya up there sometime I've been going there since 2006 and still love it!

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