Sterling Creek Campground 5/24

[Gray Fox]

On May 24 we held our annual Campground fishing derby. This year fishing was tough with only a few fish weighed in. Teams set out of Fair Haven and Oswego early Saturday morning and found good colored water with little bait and fish. Our team set up at Berts Point working the Ford Shoals area for most of the morning. As the morning progressed we worked west to the point and then out to deeper water. We took one brown along the shoreline on a Jr. Thunderstick. As we worked out off the point we took a steelhead about 22". We usually dont keep them but this one was bleeding real bad so we boxed the fish and kept moving. About an hour later we caught another steelhead this one about 27". This fish was barely hooked and in good shape so I lifted the fish out of the water, my father removed the hooks and the fish was released to fight another day. (Little did we know that we would later come in 2nd place losing by only 7 ounces) When we returned to camp most of the teams enter one fish and a few had nothing to show for their early morning efforts. Team Rise Up and ourselves (Team Gray Fox) were the only teams to weigh-in two fish, with team Rise Up pulling out the very close victory. Entry money collected from the derby was donated to the Oswego, Salmon River, and Fair Haven Challenges in memory of Shane Zimmerman (a former camp resident). This money is going to help fund the Youth Big Fish Awards for the three events.

Here is a pic of some of the team members with the fish that were weighed in...

Here is a pic of the largest fish caught by a youth contestant...

My father and I stayed up for the rest of the week and the fishing never improved in fact it got worse out of Oswego, with the charters only getting a fish or two. We spent two days relaxing at camp...with fishing being extremely slow and gas at $4.60 a gallon on the Oswego River :shock: it wasn't even worth goin out. After fishing on Thursday morning we talked about our game plan for the remaing three days of our vacation. We needed to fuel the boat so we decided that it was better to pay $3.98 at a station in Oswego than 4.60 on the river, once the boat was loaded on the trailer and full of gas we decided to change ports for 2 days. We towed the boat back to camp, and left early the next morning for Sodus.We put in 12 hours out of Sodus, we managed to boat one king, two steelheads and missed a couple of others. Saturday morning we slept in and listening to the radio it sounded as if we missed very little. As for the fish we caught during the week the only fish worth noting was one of the steelheads from Sodus. The fish was tailed and cradled by my father, I removed the hooks and snapped a quick photo and the fish was released immediately. The fish was estimated to weigh about 13 pounds.

Here is the pic of my father and the SH. The fish hit a glow blue frog from Dreamweaver which is becoming our most productive lure this year.

[jobena]

Great post. Sounds like a good time was had by all. Even bad days fishing are better than any day spent at work. Although one does have to work if one wants to play. Thanks for sharing the story and the pictures.