Wilson 6/24 - 6/26

[dgfidler]

First time fishing Lake O. Normally fish Western Basin of Erie for walleye.

Friday, didn't hit the water until 7:30 pm. Went out to 200 and set a course back to port. Just wanted to practice setting the gear. Planned to run 2 riggers, pair of wire low divers, pair of high divers, and a pair of full cores off the boards. The current tangled my divers almost immediately and I decided to scrap the idea of running two divers per side. Was able to run seven lines cleanly by removing the wire divers and added a 2 color secret weapon rig stacked 15 feet below a spoon with no issues. Discovered my depth finder doesn't work over 120 fow and relied on lake master for depth. Disappointing to not have sonar. Skunked on Friday shakedown.

Saturday hit the water at 9 am. Started at 100fow and ran riggers at 80 and 90 with cut bait deep and black green spoon shallower. Ran divers at 175 and 225 on 1.5 and two ten color on boards. 50% spoons 50% flasher fly. About 10 mins after setting the spread, there was a splash by the planer board tow line. It was the 10 color board release violently releasing. We landed our first King ever! 15 lbs! Went 2 for 4 on kings on Saturday plus a 5 lb steelhead that hit the secret weapon rig below the ball at 100.

Sunday, hit the water at 5:30am. Started again at 100 fow and headed Northeast with the waves. Went about an hour with no action and had four strikes in quick succession, had a double on with the biggest fish of the trip except I forgot to tell my dad that it's ok to let it peel line. He cranked down the drag and before I could say anything, the leader at the end of the 10 core broke. We ended 2-4 with the largest at 18lbs and full of eggs. We were off the water by 8:30 as the south wind started to kick the lake up and we needed to get on the road back to Central Ohio

I was finding 42 degree water at 100 down and about 50 degrees 50 down on the Fishhawk. Fished by temp only as my depth finder wouldn't work over 100fow. Very few boats out. I'm used to packs with 50+ boats on Erie and it was nice to put the boards out nice and wide with no worries. This was an outstanding weekend for us landing the biggest freshwater fish of our lives. ASB tackle helped me pick out popular spoons and flies. Probably would have been skunked without his advice

I'm not the greatest fisherman, so I'd say if I can manage to pick up four kings all mid to high teens without sonar, it must be game on out of Wilson!

[King Slammin]

Check your range on the fish finder. Make sure it's on auto. And great job catching some kings!!!

[mikerp]

Great report.

[John Kelley]

Nicely done, we all have to start somewhere!! :yes: