Yankee's Orleans Pro Am Report

[Yankee Troller]

Thursday Practice - We strolled out of the harbor a little late due to some good eats at the 4C's cafe, and catching up with the old timers while drinking coffee. By the time we broke the piers it was after 7:30am. We planned to fish East, so we ran out to 50' of water and pointed it NE while we set up. We got tipped off the night before about some nice Brown Trout, so we kept that in the back of our heads as we searched the inside waters for any signs of Kings.

As we zigged and zagged out to 150' and back in we remembered that tip on the Brown Trout. So, we changed up our program a little bit and deployed a few split shot surface lines with some short cores off the Big John Otter Boats, brought our Cannon DT10's up as the bottom got shallower, and our Walker Deeper Divers were parked out 40' on a 3 setting. When we hit that 20-30' of water down by the flats all hell broke loose. We had Brown Trout so aggressive they were hitting sliders on 15-20' riggers, and when they hit our divers and top lines there was more than one occasion when they got totally airborne. These weren't cookie cutter Brown Trout either. The average fish was 10lbs, and we lost one behind the boat over 15lbs.

Our MVP's on these guys were the new Stinger UV tuxedos. Fat Nancy's had them put on gold blades. The Blue Tuxedo, Yellow Tuxedo, and Green Tuxedo were all taking shots off our Cannons. Thin Fish and stick baits off our short cores and split shot surface lines were also going very consistently.

Knowing this is always a tough event we thought we found the ticket, and we were jacked up for Saturday to roll around. We straight lined trolled that program from the Flats to Devils Nose picking fish the whole way down. However, we noticed that the bigger fish were located off the flats.

When we got to the nose we pointed it North and tried to find some Salmon, but to no avail. We would head back in to the dock around 2pm with a huge grin on our face. We aren't even close to being good Brown Trout fisherman, but boy was that fun!

These weren't the big browns, but this was a double on one rod!

Friday Practice - We entered into the Condor Memorial event, so we needed to find three big fish. We didn't want anyone to see us in tight on those BT's, so we went West and fished 100-300 looking for a few Salmon. We didn't take many bites, but we did get our fish we were looking for. Two Salmon and a very nice Steelhead was good enough for 6th place.

Our program for the day was our typical program. Our three Cannon DT10s fished with sliders on our Daiwa combos, Two Walker Deeper Divers pulling a combination of spoons and paddles, and then three junk lines (two that were fished off our Big John Otter Boats, and one down the chute). No real MVP's, but for the Steelies the Dreamweaver SS Firecracker and Green Hornet were good, and the Stinger UV Yellow Tuxedo. The Salmon came deep on meat.

At the end off the day we slid in to 30' in front of Johnsons Creek to see if we could catch a few BT's, and in 30 minutes we hooked three. However, we noticed the bottom got three degrees warmer.

Saturday Day 1 - Pumped up doesn't explain it! We hit the water, and noticed our fish were not in tight. So, we went into search mode. We eventually found them pushed out in 45-50' of water and laying right on the bottom. We threw everything we had at them, but after two and a half hours of nothing we had to abandon Plan A, and we did that very disappointed.

We pointed the boat North and put out a High/Low program for Salmon and Steelies. Two of our Cannon DT10's had Daiwa Combos with spoons and sliders, and the third one was buried with meat. We put one diver deep with a paddle/fly combo and the other was kept high for Steelies. We also ran three junk lines. We got on a North/South troll that was pretty good. Most of our bites came on the North troll. Our hot set-up was a Dreamweaver SS Green Eye Ghost fished off our riggers. That took a majority of the fish. Our meat rig took a teenage Salmon down 150', and our 5 color cores did some damage with Dreamweaver SS Firecrackers and Green Hornets.

We would box out around noon, and it felt really good. We saw a lot of competitors around us sitting in the backs of their boats, so we though the fishing was tougher than we experienced. When we hit the scales we could see even the teams that didn't box had a few Kings in their catch. That struck us as odd since we struggled to get a decent King program going for three days in a row. We ended the day in 15th overall as we walked away shaking our heads.

Sunday Day 2 - We left the dock with a big king program. The plan was to give half the day to just Kings, and if we needed to fill the box with Steelies then so be it. It didn't take long and we were dialing in the program.

Our program consisted of deep meat on the corner riggers, Dreamweaver SS Firecracker and Green Hornet on the center rigger held high for Steelies, Walker Deeper Divers on a 2 setting out 250-325 pulling Spin Doctor/A-TOM-MIK combos, and three junk lines pulling either meat or Spin Doctor/A-TOM-MIK combos. We had a fast morning bite followed by a steady pick after that. Our 125' Cannon and our 600 copper where definitely the MVP's of the day. Both of which were pulling meat. Our 400 copper pulling a white Spin Doctor/A-TOM-MIK White Mirage Shred took some shots as did a Black and Dew Spin Doctor/A-TOM-MIK Live TG behind our Walker Deeper Diver.

By 10:30/11am we were boxed out with what we thought was a great tourney box. We estimated 130lbs, and it consisted of 2 Coho, 1 Steelie, and 9 Kings. The final weight ended up being 120lbs for our 12 fish. That box was good enough to take 6th place for the Day 2 Classic box, 7th, for Day 2 Trophy Box, and it jumped us up from 15th place to 5th place overall.

[Mortigan]

[FISHINMAN]

Great job by team YT again Nice top 5 finish

Rick that is one LONGGGGGGGG a$$ steelie

[Yankee Troller]

Great job by team YT again Nice top 5 finish

Rick that is one LONGGGGGGGG a$$ steelie

Yes it is! LOL

[American-Honey]

Nice job!

Thanks for sharing, great report.

[Captain Carl Bish]

[elevatorman]

Great report thanks for shareing

[Pike Hunter]

Thats an awesome comeback on the 2nd day!

[Team Game Face]

It was fun watching you guys do your thing on sunday! Really took me to school on the meat riggs. Anyone who wants to learn form some of the best lake O has to offer then you sould observe for a turney. The stuff I picked up was worth way more than the money, who couldn't use a 150 bucks. Thanks for the great exrerience...... ps don't forget your gum bands!!

[Yankee Troller]

ps don't forget your gum bands!!

[Mortigan]

It was fun watching you guys do your thing on sunday! Really took me to school on the meat riggs. Anyone who wants to learn form some of the best lake O has to offer then you sould observe for a turney. The stuff I picked up was worth way more than the money, who couldn't use a 150 bucks. Thanks for the great exrerience...... ps don't forget your gum bands!!

I plan on it next season. Already warned the wife...

[Yankee Troller]

It was fun watching you guys do your thing on sunday! Really took me to school on the meat riggs. Anyone who wants to learn form some of the best lake O has to offer then you sould observe for a turney. The stuff I picked up was worth way more than the money, who couldn't use a 150 bucks. Thanks for the great exrerience...... ps don't forget your gum bands!!

I plan on it next season. Already warned the wife...

Let me know. We could use you for both West end events.

[ Post made via Android ]

[Mortigan]

Cool - I will. There was some discussion this year about a class for observers that I'd be interested in taking as well.

[1fish2fish]

Mortigan,

This year, at the captains meetings at both Niagara and Orleans, the captains and observers were split up and the observers were given some excellent training and tips from Captains Vince (at Niagara) and Paul Czarnecki (at both tourneys).

The other big change this year for the observers is that after the first day, they were assigned to a different boat.

I think the Oswego and Wayne ProAms will be run the same.

Personally, I like the changes.

Jim

[rdebadts]

Good report and congrats on the comeback. Good to see you at the weigh in too. I see you put all that meat you bought to good use! I always look forward to your report- keep em coming...

Abe

[ Post made via iPhone ]