Yankee - Spring KOTL and 2nd place @ the WHI Report

[Yankee Troller]

Spring King of the Lake

 

Friday's practice was decent. We found a patch of green water right off the mouth of Port Dalhousie, and the fish were piled in there! Similar to the shallow water program we left in Rochester, but the stud was a Hawg Wild and Froggy Glow spoons. Riggers 40-60' back, 5 color lead, and Slide divers 25' leads on a 4 setting back 80'. Only three tourney boats found it, and after trolling around the Canadian side the rest of the day we felt that was the deal. 

 

Saturday we headed to the green water off Port Dalhousie, and boy did it shrink. We still pulled 10 bites out of it, and boxed out. However, the big guys we took in there on Friday weren't there. All we had were cookie cutter 10-15lb fish. Knowing the winners of Big Fish Friday came from the bar we figured we'd go try to upgrade there. Not to mention the tourney teams fishing the bar should be settled in nicely and show us where to go. We fished the bar the rest of the day and picked away at a few fish, but nothing of any size. After day 1 we were pretty much out of it, and sitting below the half way mark.

 

Sunday we knew we needed to swing for the fence to have a chance. We know what a big fish program is, and that's what we rigged up. Typically, big fish eat A-TOM-MIK flies and Familiar Bite meat! Only 1 rod had a spoon on it, and that was a 10 color Stealth Core. On the set-up 7 rods went in and before we could get the 8th in 6 of the 7 rods had fish on them. It was like this for the rest of the day! A-TOM-MIK Big Fin Glow was a stud behind a Green E-Chip. Familiar Bite also took a ton of whacks behind big and small flashers. We had riggers going from 50' down to 175'. Wires out from 200 to 275'. It was a slaughter fest! At the end of the day we came in with one of the heavier boxes for the day, but it just wasn't enough to climb into a check.

 

Wilson Harbor Invitational

 

We fish this tourney with clients. They fished it one year, and they've been hooked ever since! They showed up to pre-fish Wednesday night and fished with us right through Saturday. Wednesday night we fished off the bar and did OK. 10 color Stealth Core with a Froggy Glow and a Wonderbread took a few Salmon, but the bite wasn't HOT. We were dealing with a slight East wind, and we figured that might have them shut down a little bit.

 

Thursday we headed back to the bar. We put down a heck of a spread. A little bit of everything. Spoons, flies, and meat. It was a King-A-Thon! At least 35 Salmon hooked, and about 15 Lake Trout. We stayed busy, but there was nothing special about these fish. All the same cookie cutter fish we had the weekend before. Our meat program was solid! We were running some of the new Familiar Bite Whip Flash paddles and they seemed to work well!

 

Friday we looked for larger fish knowing our numbers would suffer. It started off slow, but we found some water and ended up plucking a LOC Derby fish out of it. That fish took a Frost Bite on a high rigger. We definitely found the fish we needed, but knew it would be a grind.

 

Saturday was tourney day and we were pumped! For once the fishing was good at the WHI. We worked the water from the day before, and slowly picked away at them. Our stud for the morning was a Familiar Bite Whip Flash on a 225 diver. Later in the day we had to get it out to 275' to get it to go. Even though that deep stuff was our numbers deal the big fish of the day came high again and on a spoon. Our 19lb Salmon took a Wonderbread spoon on a 10 color Stealth Core. 

 

At weigh in I knew we were 1 kicker fish away from winning the deal with our box. I didn't know it would be that close, and that a lot of great teams struggled. We would end up in 2nd place for the event, and just a few pounds out of 1st!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Big Coho

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 12, 2015 by Yankee Troller

[Gill-T]

Its about time we got your report!  Slacker!  .  Great start to the year.

[dvdegeorge]

Nice job and Congrats Rick!

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[SharkHunter]

Excellent!! and way to go!!!!! I could not wait for your report. Hopefully u where able to get some video this year as i thought last years WHI videos was absolutely great, despite the tough fishing they showed a very good representation of what lake Ontario has to offer.

Thight lines always

[minion]

Loc fish and 2nd place ..I'd call that a win good job congrats

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[choo-choo]

Great job getting them dialed in YT .  

[ray koziatek]

Pretty cool you did a charter and did so well. Good for your boat crew to find them and to yer clients for getting the fish to the net. Did ya get a camera man? it would be kinda fun to watch,ya musta had a few OH Crap moments..

[shorething]

Nice ...been waiting for your report . Good luck the rest of the season.

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[tlombardozzi]

Amazing numbers, great report

[zipnzim]

CONGRATS RICK & CREW nice start in 2015 and great report !!!!

[brucehookedup]

Yea man, congrats, way to go. Keep the ball rolling.

[BAZOOKAJOE]

Nice job and congrats!!

[Gator]

Good job! Don't get the kings too used to seeing all that new stuff, though...leave a few stupid ones for us.

 

Casey's laker was almost one of those, "And again, why aren't lakers eligible for the grand prize?" moments. Really nice fish, if you're into Kobes. I heard Gambell was jealous.

[Big Water]

Congrats Rick. Great report as always.

[Xxx]

Way to put it to em Rick, just shows how much this great fishery has to offer!!

[rdebadts]

Dude you are king catching machine!

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[Yankee Troller]

Pretty cool you did a charter and did so well. Good for your boat crew to find them and to yer clients for getting the fish to the net. Did ya get a camera man? it would be kinda fun to watch,ya musta had a few OH Crap moments..

 

We had 2 GoPros going. So there should be footage from our boat.

[dvdegeorge]

Looking forward to seeing it!

[erupprecht]

Awesome!

[momay4000]

Awesome stuff yet again Captain Hajecki!!

I can't wait to see the video.

Tight lines,

Chris