Yankee @ the Oak 7/10-7/12

[Yankee Troller]

August 10th (Morning) - We got an early start and headed out to the inside waters. We gave that a go, but it just wasn’t happening for us so we started to push it North. We would end up fishing the 27-28N lines and doing pretty good on both Salmon and Trout.

We ran our typical program sending down our Cannon DT-10s, four wires, and two coppers. Riggers were good from 50’ down to 80’ down, and wires were going consistently from 150 - 250’ out. Low divers set on a 1 with flasher/fly combos, and high divers set on a 2.5 with mag spoons. The same two combos that haven’t left our divers in quite some time were still hot. A Dreamweaver Hammertime Spin Doctor/A-TOM-MIK Hammer fly, and a Legendary Wonder Dot Smartfish/A-TOM-MIK Glow Blue Hammer fly have just been great for us since June. The riggers started the morning off with flasher/fly combos, but it just wasn’t happening so we started to switch over to some spoons. Once we did that they started to pop. A new spoon for us from the Finger Lakes Tackle Company called the King of Sting went blow for blow with Dreamweaver’s Sea Sick Waddlers. One was down 70’ and the other was down 80’, and both were mupped.

There were no shortage of bites once we got on them, and the action was pretty good. Although we never took a big mature King Salmon we had plenty of teenage to low 20lb fish to keep us busy. We also had some big ol’ Coho Salmon join in on the fun in the morning.

August 10th (afternoon) - We left the dock with storms looming, but thank god for our new Humminbird Radar! We watched them going NE, so we headed West. We hit a little rain, but no lightning. Fishing started off slow, as is to be expected on afternoon trips, but it ended up great.

We ran a simple program consisting of five rods. Our goal was to get an old time Salmon fisherman a few Salmon, so copper and core were out of the question. Our three Cannon DT-10s ran spoons and our two divers pulled the Dreamweaver Hammertime Spin Doctor/A-TOM-MIK Hammer fly, and the Legendary Wonder Dot Smartfish/A-TOM-MIK Glow Blue Hammer fly. Our downriggers were parked from 50’ down to 80’, and our wires were out 175’ to 200’ on a 2 setting. Our Dreamweaver Sea Sick Waddler was great down 80 on our Cannon downrigger.

Our bites came in the last few hours of the trip for the most part, and we accomplished out goal! Not only did we get him a couple of Salmon we also got his nephew and his girlfriend some Salmon and some steelies. At one point a nice Salmon took Augie for a ride so we pulled everything and threw the boat in neutral so he could tame the beast. That really made his day, and it wasn’t difficult to see that.

August 11th (Morning) - We headed out to the same waters we finished up in the night before. We set up inside and worked that 100’ mark with a few bites, but nothing spectacular. We took a few nice Cohos, and we dropped a few matures, but the screen just didn’t look great. We heard of some better fishing out on the 27/28N line, so we pointed it North. We had a great day on bites, but our landing percentage wasn’t good by any means.

When we got out over the 27/28N line our program consisted of our three Cannon downriggers run between 40’-80’ depending on temps, and fish we would mark on our Humminbird fish finders. We also had four wire divers out with the low divers set on a 1 pulling flasher/fly combos and the high divers set on a 2.5 pulling mag spoons. They were set out anywhere from 150’ to 225’. We also ran a 300 and a 400 copper off our Big John Otter Boats. Both of which pulled flasher/fly combos.

Top flasher/fly combos were:

Dreamweaver Hammertime Spin Doctor/A-TOM-MIK Hammer fly

Smartfish Wonder Dot/ A-TOM-MIK Glow Blue Hammer fly

Dreamweaver Oil Slick Spin Doctor/A-TOM-MIK Glow Blue Little Boy Blue

Dreamweaver Green Dot Spin Doctor/A-TOM-MIK Glow Blue Hammer

Top Spoons:

Dreamweaver Sea Sick Waddler

Finger lakes Tackle Companies King of Sting

Dreamweaver 42nd

Dreamweaver Green Eye Ghost

We ended up with a great box of fish. Some matures, some teenagers and a couple of nice Steelies. We left them biting knowing we’d be back out in a few hours to pound on them some more!

August 11th (Afternoon) - Back out to the 27N line we went to find warm water moved in and the picture was gone. Here we go again in search mode! We pointed it North and in the first 2.5 hours we took 2 shots, and dropped them both. Once we got to the 30N line we saw the bait and the fish, but they were deeper than we fished them the previous few outings. Our trusty Moor Sub Troll explained why! The temps dropped down 20’! No biggie! We put our program down there and in the last 1.5 hours we lit the world on fire! Multiple doubles, and times when we’d clear rods by catching fish. In an 1.5 hours we did over 15 fish, and filled the box for the guys.

We ran our three Cannon downriggers from 70-120’ down pulling spoons Mupped. Dreamweaver Sea Sick Waddler was HOT as was the Dreamweaver 42nd. Our divers were out on a 1 setting from 225-300’ and firing well with a Dreamweaver Hammertime Spin Doctor/A-TOM-MIK Hammer fly, and a Legendary Wonder Dot Smartfish/A-TOM-MIK Glow Blue Hammer fly. The 400 copper went, but the 300 copper rotted as would be expected with the temps. On the 400 copper was a Dreamweaver Green Dot Spin Doctor/A-TOM-MIK Mirage fly.

August 12th - We left the offshore waters with a very good bite, and figured why not go back in the morning. We knew fully that weather reports called for t-storms and water spouts. So on went the new Hummibird Radar, and we kept an eye on every cell that passed through.

We ran a simple seven rod program. It wasn’t very nice out on the 30-32N line. Our three Cannon Downriggers were parked from 60-100’ down, and our four wires were parked from 150’ out to 275’. Our low divers pulled the Dreamweaver Hammertime Spin Doctor/A-TOM-MIK Hammer fly, and the Legendary Wonder Dot Smartfish/A-TOM-MIK Glow Blue Hammer fly. On our high divers we had a Dreamweaver Green Eye Ghost SS that was hot for the big chrome.

The bite wasn’t as good as it was the night before, but if we stayed on the bait we got bit. Compared to the night before the Kings seemed to disappear and more Steelies came to play. Although, as the morning pressed on we got our mature bites out there. We called it early out there around 11:30am because it was getting rough. We watched numerous waterspouts try to drop, but none ever went further than 1/3 of the way down. On the way in we stopped and fished for an hour with everyone else and went 0 for 2 on bites while we cleaned fish.

[Pike Hunter]

Thats a great picture of steelbow! It seem as if the steelbows size are a bit smaller compared to last year and the year before.

[Yankee Troller]

I am agreeing with you on that Anthony, however the charter boat Tracker at the Oak took a 20lb Steelbow two weeks ago. The big ones are out there, but with such great Salmon fishing going on your not hearing about the offshore Steel. I also think the larger ones are in Canada in the colder water. When we were over there a few weeks ago if you got outside of 150' of water you smacked giant Steel left and right.

[skipper19]

Absolutley fantastic post Rick very detailed! Great pics too!...Thanks very much

Mark

[ Post made via Android ]

[Pike Hunter]

Very valid point you have just raised here. With the hot salmon fishing activity, it is very easy for the other fish to go under the radar unnoticed.

Again, thanks for sharing the excellent posts with the LOU community!

Best of luck with the upcoming derby.

[Day Break]

Very nice detailed report! Headed out on the 23rd for a few days of fishing and can't wait. Going through LO withdrawa!

[Yankee Troller]

Thanks guys!

[BrokeOff]

can you tell me if you are running the green back KOS or the silver? and gold back SSW or silver?

[Yankee Troller]

Silver on both

[Skippers Trophy 01]

Great catch and pic of the RainHead, or Steelbow - I'm confused... but nice Salmon too!

Thanks for the detailed report, headed out of Sodus tomorrow. Seems like blue flys are flying all over...

[Jax]

Great report as always Rick, Nice looking Chrome!

[CHAMP99B]

very good job.....goes to show you ,the fish are there.....you just got to give them what they want......and you feed them well !!!!!!

[FLXTroutman]

is it too early in your career to crown you the new KING of Lake Ontario?

All hail King Rick

great pictures and all of your intelligence shared with your people, to the KING