Billy V Oswego Pro-AM report

[Billy V]

On Friday (prefish day) we left Fair Haven and started working our way East towards Oswego. We found a very nice school of Kings out in 300FOW and plucked three fish out of it in just over an hour. We wanted to keep eliminating unproductive water so we left those fish and worked our way out deep only to find an empty screen. Even with the empty screen we managed to box a nice King that came on a Northern King copper NBK fished off of our 600' copper set up. We came into the Fat Nancy's Shootout with a total weight of around 35 lbs for our biggest three fish.

On Saturday we headed out to the same spot where we had 'em nailed down the day before only to find that they were gone. We worked that water for a couple of hours with only a 15" skippy to show for our efforts. I called a quick team meeting and we talked about either going West towards Fair Haven to fish our home waters for Kings or running in and fishing in closer for browns. The Kings hadn't been particularly cooperative in the past few days, so we opted to go for browns. We ran into 100FOW and before we even got completely set up we whacked a beautiful 7 lb brown on a Dreamweaver SS Area 51 fished of of our riggers. Right after that fish hit the deck we hooked up again on a NK Die Hard fished off of a wire diver only to lose it at the back of the boat. :x Then the clouds parted and the bright sun came out......oh great. We kept pushing towards Oswego where most of the browns were being caught and over the course of the rest of the day we hooked and lost another 6 browns and boated one more on a NK glow frog. We came into the weigh-in with two browns and sat somewhere near the bottom of the field. Needless to say, I wasn't very happy with my decision to fish browns, and I was even more upset with my decision when I found out that the leaders boxed out on Kings in my home waters of Fair Haven. :x

On Sunday, we made the right choice and headed back to Fair Haven and fished our every day waypoints. We weren't set up for more than 5 minutes when we hooked up and landed a double. The first fish came on a Dalmatian Spinny/Sigg's Rigs Blue Dolphin on a wire diver out 300' on a .5 setting. The second took a Sea Sick Waddler down 100' on our riggers. We got set up after the mayhem and immediately had a major rip a ton of line on a Green Double Crush Glow Spinny/Sigg's Rigs Green Hypnotist fished off of our high diver out 350' on a 2.5 setting. We handed the rod to 14 year-old Cooper and the battle was on. Cooper did a great job handling the King, but in the end, the King managed to find a way throw the hook. After that we circled back around and worked what has historically been a productive area for us for the remainder of the day. We had a steady pick for the rest of the day and ended up going 10 for 12 on the day with 7 keepers. We took fish on every rod we had in the water....divers, riggers, and coppers. We came back to the weigh-in a lot happier than we were the day before. We leap-frogged several teams with one of the better boxes of the day and ended up in something like 15th place. More importantly than where we placed though is the fact that we came back to the dock with three teen-aged boys who are now completely and utterly hooked on Salmon fishing!

We had a great time in Oswego and we're looking forward to next weekend in Sodus.

[Gill-T]

Thanks for the report, full of details as usual. How far a ride is it from Oswego to Fair Haven?

[Billy V]

It took us about 30 minutes to get to our waypoints.

[Gill-T]

Thanks, first time fishing the area with no prefishing. I traveled west the first day for 30 min. so I guess I was close to Fair Haven. I figured I was near some port because boats were heading out from shore towards us. I found a slick/scum line in 120' FOW that I worked until 10:00 that had some good bait and some big hooks down 80', but could not move a rod. Spoons on riggers, spin docs/flys on divers and copper NADA. Tried to go back through them with whole herring/three fly rigs.....got some sniffs, but no fish. Saved the skunk by heading out to 400' for a steelhead. Between the lack of fish on the graph and the wierd weather would you say that it was an odd event or is fishing usually that slow out there? I am a west end guy and am used to seeing bait and hooks.....I have never seen so much "blank screen" in all my life.

[Billy V]

It wasn't slow for us on Sunday, but it wasn't a slaughter either. Just gotta know where the usual haunts are for the fish I guess. The weird weather definitely has impacted the King fishing for almost the entire Eastern end. Give it a week or so and my guess is that it'll be better than it was this past weekend. We took all of our fish on Sunday in 180-240FOW. Lots of the very best boats on the Lake struggled with the tough conditions over the weekend, so I wouldn't sweat it. When was the last time Thrillseeker came in with only two fish on a Pro-Am Sunday?