Sodus Pro/Am report 7/13-7/17

[Chas0218]

My father and were able to get out and pre fish before the Sodus pro am. I haven't fished kings this year but I have been watching the reports and did some research. The research wasn't much help but intuition was. We started in shallow the first day around 150' right out the chute and there was nothing but blank a screen which was the case for the entire tournament. So trolling in that 150 fow we found good temp down around 70' we threw a couple coppers (300 & 400) ran 2 dipsy and 2 riggers both dipsys and riggers one in the temp and one above. We had 3 nice fish hit the riggers on the 13th guessing kings in the 15-20lbs. Range based on the runs they made. Unfortunately none were boated.

The 14th we were welcomed by rough seas but better fishing, we managed 1 king around 8 lbs. and 3 nice and 1 skippy steelhead. All fish I would have been happy to weigh in on Saturday. This time we were working a bit deeper in the 200-250 fow range down 70' again. We were running sliding cheaters which almost all the steelies came on.

The 15th one of our fishing partners came up and we tried a brown program but 4 hours of not moving a rod it wasn't working, so we ended up going back out to tree deeper water. On our way out we had a monster king on came straight to the boat. I'm talking over 36" he got up to the side but was still really green I saw it heading for the side rigger cable and tried to scoop him with the net before he could get around it but managed to get tangled and popped the line. That ended up being or only fish that day.

Now it's game day (the 16th) all the fishing partners are up and ready to rock we launch early right behind finders keepers (sweet looking boat by the way). We were greeted by some nasty wind with 4 footers easy and building throughout the day. We decided to hit 130 fow and look for fish heading north waiting for the 6:00am start time. We marked a few fish early and used the gps to set back up on them. Managed to get our first rigger down and the cheater and she popped with an 8 lbs. king, great way to start. My other buddy was seeing the other side rigger got it down and 5 minutes later we managed a 10 lbs. king. At this point we are thinking holy **** this is going to be a great day. Well that was when it all stopped we didn't boat our final fish until 1:00 and ended being our biggest at 12 lbs. Our day 1 total points were 60.90 and ended up placing us in 9th place. It wasn't what we were looking for but were happy to be towards the front of the pack.

Last day of the tourney we had a beautiful day on the water little to no waves nice and sunny but fishing was tough we worked water that we didn't fish all week and it turned out to be a good decision. The temps were a little deeper 52° down 100-110 over 250-300. We fished hard and found our best fish in the deeper water we actually were pulling fish out of 43° water down 175' I could not believe it. We kept marking fish deep so we said screw it and dropped the riggers deep 175, 160, and the middle rigger left high at 100 for fish just above the thermocline. We managed to boat 4 good kings from 8lbs. to 16lbs. We would have liked 2 more good kings but decided to point the boat towards the chute and locked up 1 laker this left is with a 2 day total of 147.9 which landed us in 10th place not the finish we wanted but o well.

Everything was a soon bite bloody death and sea sick wadler were our hot spoons all weekend.

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[Chas0218]

Here are a few pictures.

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[UNREEL]

Thanks for the report and the pics.

[hooknup]

Great pics!   The Sodus ProAm is always a good time

[TOP SECRET]

Awesome day 2 and some really nice steelies! We couldnt get the big steelies to go for the life of us!

[Chas0218]

They were loving those dw bloody death ss and standard.

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[machzrcr]

 nice!   those  browns  sure were finicky to get going this weekend,   was nice to see a lot of kings  come in and some dandys at that!

[wishinfishin]

I knew you were pumped about this tournament, glad to see you got into em ,placing in top 10 ,awesome.

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[Finders Keepers]

Well done fellas! Both days we did well over 100-135 fow early, then sliding out deeper 160-230 later (going 5 for 25 on Sat, 12 for 17 Sun). We targeted 80-100 ft both days with spoons and FF both producing. A top 10 finish is awesome!! Good luck the rest of the season!!

[Sk8man]

Nice going Chas and it paid not to get too discouraged during the pre-fishing and sticking it out   Congrats!

[Chas0218]

Thanks guys perseverance paid off and following that gut feeling the fish were deeper helped. We lost 2 dandy fish one after getting tangled into our dipsy and the other just came unbuttoned. The guys I was with couldn't believe the line the fish took. I think they are hooked on that sound of the drag ripping.

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[Xxx]

Thanks guys perseverance paid off and following that gut feeling the fish were deeper helped. We lost 2 dandy fish one after getting tangled into our dipsy and the other just came unbuttoned. The guys I was with couldn't believe the line the fish took. I think they are hooked on that sound of the drag ripping.

Sent from my thinking chair...

Hey Chas, congrats to you and your crew!! A top ten is fabulous on your very first tourney!! Now you have an idea what it's all about, look out next year!! God Bless and there's always next year!! Give your little guy a hug and a pat on the back for POP!!