Ruff Rider Sodus ProAm (Not Live) Report 2015 7/16-7/19

[TOP SECRET]

What a whacky four days out on the lake!

 

Thursday:

brrrrrr.  We woke up to 49 degree weather, but a flat lake.  We wanted to run further west than normal in case the weather picked up during the proam, so we could troll back with the waves.  We setup in the 05 W area and started trolling west.  I don't think we had more than 15 minutes between fish most of the day.  We were running a nearly all dodger/fly spread and hitting fish on just about everything.  We did 20 fish, including two lakers, a brown, and two steelies.  We worked a couple of spots in 130fow and most fish were in the 60-80ft range.  Our copper didn't take a single fish, and wouldn't the entire weekend.  Most of our kings were in the 12-15lb range.  We felt pretty good and were confident in our game plan... then came Friday.

 

Friday: 

Beginning Thursday night, the south wind started to blow and blow and blow.  We powered west and wanted to go further west than the previous day in hopes of getting away from some of the other teams.  We went to 14 W and set down.  We worked from 14W to 02W and 50fow to 300fow and never took a king bite, not one.  We did do nearly 20 lakers however.  No matter what we did, slow down, speed up, the lakers hit.  Once we got past about 7W the lakers stopped hitting.  The wind continued to blow hard from the south all day and the water went COLD.

 

Saturday:

The weather pretty well screwed up our game plan, but we headed back to our Thursday waypoints in hope that the fish were still there and perhaps hungry after a day of not eating.  They were not.  We hit a brown in 130fow on a free slider and we again started hitting lakers like crazy, so we began working east in hopes of getting out of them.  We found our pod of fish at about 5W and finally started seeing some good marks, instead of the blank screen we had the first hour.  We hooked into a good king and began to circle our spot.  It wasn't long and there were about 15 other boats with us.  We kept marking fish, but they wouldn't go and when we dropped the rigger down we'd get lakers.  Not knowing if the marks we were seeing were suspended lakers or salmon, we decided to move on east to get closer to port and buy us some more fishing time.  We finally pulled an 18" king in 150fow in 00W and worked that area for a bit hoping for something bigger.  At about 2pm we started pulling rods.  With just our two riggers left in the water, one popped and started ripping.  We landed our third king and floored it back to port.  After Thursday's great fishing, we figured either everyone else killed them, or the weather messed things up for everyone.  It turned out the weather messed up the lake for everyone except some of those who went for browns.  We were sitting in 7th place out of the 20 boats and were about 50 points out of the lead.

 

Sunday:

We were pretty sure the teams ahead of us all fished browns on Saturday and would do the same on Sunday, so we knew we needed a big box.  We decided to fish the previous weekend's spots straight north from port.  We started in 120fow and had a good screen, but powered out to 175fow prior to fishing start to see what was out there.... the screen wasn't as good, so we headed back to 120fow where we marked the fish and setup.  It wasn't long and the 60 rigger went off.  We thought we had either a small laker or brown by the way it barely fought and came straight up to the boat.  It got into the dispey (hint #1), but we untangled it and when suddenly it broke the water surface and was an 18lb king!  We landed him and thought we were in for a good day.  Apparently that was the only fish in that area however, as the screen completely dried up.  We knew how cold the deep water was, so we stayed in shallow for way too long.  Finally, we decided to put out a steelie spread and head north to try to fill our box.  It was a desert out there.  We marked very little.  At 230fow, there was the surface breaks we were looking for, and sure enough the free sliding fire tiger on the 50' rigger fires.  We landed a nice 11lb steelie.  At this point, we were seeing 43 degrees down 50ft, so we raised everything up in hopes of hitting a few more steelies.  Then the 100' #2 dipsey pulling a small blue stinger starts pumping.  Theresa jumps on it and a few pulls and we think we have a small steelie on.  She starts reeling it in and then it happened.... ziiiiiiiiing ziiiiiiiiiing ziiiiiiiiiiiiing KING!  The fish peeled a ton of line off and got into a dipsey on the other side of the boat (hint #2).  We got it untangled and circled for a while and landed a 21lb king.  Ok, maybe we're on to something.  We changed all of our lures over to blue/purple.  A short while longer and the free slider on the 55 rigger starts screaming out... it was one of those vicious hits on free sliders that screams out 30ft of line before popping from the rigger.  We couldn't get pressure on the fish quick enough and it was gone.  It got into the dipsey on the way in after we lost the fish also (hint #3).  We had another hit like that on the other rigger, but it was gone before we got to the rod.  The next fish hit on the 50 rigger with a yellow board and green fly and never even popped up, just started screaaaaaming.  Then the dipsey started bouncing and we realized we were in it.  We tried to untangle it, but lost the fish.  It actually broke the fly leader.  This was the 4th time that dipsey got into our lines and when I reeled it in, I realized something happened and it was set to the wrong side, so instead of out and away from the boat, it was across the back of the boat.  I pulled in the 300 copper that had been worthless all weekend and put out the 10 color leadcore with a blue/silver spoon.  We trolled the same area over and over where our bites were coming from and the leadcore started tearing out line.  We boated another 20lb king.  We were pretty much out of time and knew those fish we lost were going to be painful.  We headed into port and in about 100fow we saw an empty row boat (looked like one of the rental ones).  Jack, Theresa, and I looked at each other and said "uh oh".  We did a hard 180 and headed over to see if someone had gone over board.  Sure enough someone had and it looked like he couldn't get back in the boat (and wasn't wearing a life jacket).  There was no question over if we should help or not and were prepared to call in our disqualification, but luckily when we were about 100ft away, the guy gave it one last effort and rolled back into the boat.  A thumbs up from the guy and another hard 180 and we made it into port on time.  We headed into port and weigh in expecting to see a lot of big boxes of kings.  Surprisingly most went for brown trout and those that went for kings struggled.  We maintained our 7th place and finished one out of the money.  The three fish we lost probably ended up being the difference between 3rd and 7th.  But those are the breaks.  It sure would have felt good to weigh in a box of 6 large kings though  

 

Overall, it was a fun weekend of fishing and we look forward to fishing it again next year!  The kings are starting to bite and I'm ready for them!

 

Now it's time for us to prepare to for the Salmon Slam tournament in Sodus in two weekends.  Remember, there is still time to sign up for Big Fish Friday on 7/31!  It's $50 per boat and you can fish any port as long as you weigh in at Arneys at 2pm.  You can fish BFF even if you're not fishing the Salmon Slam tournament on Saturday.  Contact me if you are interested.

[Fishtails]

Awesome recap Nick. You done well my friend and it was nice being at Arney's and seeing you two. Thanks for the loaner probe and bucket.

It was tough fishing , but a great time was had by most who parti cipated.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Lake Ontario United mobile app

[FISHIN AGAIN?]

Great reading. That's sucks about the wrong way dipsey.

[tove12345]

Good job and a great report.Have enjoyed all of your reports this year and last.Keep em comin!!

[Finders Keepers]

Well done Nick!! Looking forward to the Salmon Slam!!

[rdebadts]

Great report. If there are kings, you are gonna find them huh?

Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United mobile app

[BMZ]

Nice report.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Lake Ontario United mobile app

[Gill-T]

Micromanagement Minute: Nick check your set screw on the dipsy.  If it loosens the weight can swing to the other side on its own.  Don't ask me how I know 

[TOP SECRET]

Thanks guys. We love searching for and finding kings. One of these days we are going to kick some brownie butt with a smokin large box of silvers!

[Adm Byrd]

Thanks Nick, you make us feel like we are with you or at least want to be with you - great report!

Bob