Billy V Sodus Pro-Am Report

[Billy V]

On Friday we left the dock at Anchor at 5:30am and went out in front of Fair Haven to thoroughly fish that area. We had a nice fish on for a few minutes first thing on a NK Die Hard fished off of a rigger down 100' but dumped it. We had a ton of bait out in 130-150FOW but there were very few hooks around. We worked our regular waypoints for a couple more hours but didn't see much other than bait on the screen and we couldn't get anything else to go. We decided to pick up and head to our day 2 waypoints from last weekend's Oswego Pro-Am out deeper and a bit west of port. When we got there we found a few of the Pro-Am boats in the area as well as a few of the Fair Haven regulars. We got set up and found some nice hooks down 80' or so. We took a couple of nice steelies and a couple of small Kings before we decided to motor over to Sodus to get checked into our slip there for the weekend.

On Saturday we knew that some of the contenders for the cup were gonna head to Oswego to fish for browns. We hadn't seen much from Fair Haven to about Port Bay on Friday, but some friends of our had done fairly well just East of Sodus so we decided to give that a shot rather than run an hour for browns. We went out to about 170 FOW and got set up out in front of Chimney bluffs. We had all kinds of bait and hooks in anywhere from 140-180 FOW but we just couldn't get them to go. After we worked that area for a close to three hours I finally decided to move a rigger up shallower than we had been fishing all morning. It wasn't up there more than 3 minutes when we took the steelhead that ended up being the biggest on the Pro side of the tournament. That fish came on a NK Glow Frog spoon and weighed 10.21 lbs. We put that rig back in the water and moved another rig up higher. The rig that we had just moved up fires and we boated a King that came in at slightly over 23lbs at the weigh-in. That fish came on a Green Double Crush Glow Spinny/Sigg's Green Hypnotist fly out 240' on a 2.5 setting. From there on out we hooked up another 7 or 8 times, all on rigs that we had moved up way out of temp anywhere from 50-80 ft. down. We lost a screamer on the wire dipsy, and broke a nice one off right at the back of the boat on our 400' copper that was pulling a Chrome Frog Spinny/ Sigg's Super Lime Glow Pulse fly. Our riggers pulling clean spoons were by far the hottest set-up of the day for us and most of the fish that we boated came off of them pulling NK Glow Frogs. We ended the day in 16th place with 5 fish in the cooler and I felt like if I had just moved one or two riggers up out of temp sooner that we could've been in a lot better position. We knew we were going back to this same spot on Sunday and we felt like we had a good shot at making some noise in the standings.

On Sunday we went back to our waypoints from the day before only to find that the fish weren't there. We went into search mode and found some of them in just a bit closer but still on the same troll that we had been on the day before. As we made a turn in 125FOW our 600' copper pulling a Chrome spinny/Apple Glow Pulse fly fires and we landed our first Laker of the year. We got back on our troll and headed out to the deeper end of it and just before the rains came we landed a great King that came in at 24.91 lbs on the tournament scale after it bit our Chrome Frog Spinny/Sigg's Super Lime Glow Pulse fly that was out 225' on a 2.5. Then it rained. Hard. For quite a while. And the screen went totally blank. We stuck to our spot and as soon as the storm passed the screen lit back up again. We took shots on both our 500 and our 600' coppers but didn't land either of them. We took three small Kings on our wire divers out 180 on a .5 and 225 out on a 2.5, but lost another big boy on those settings too. With just a few minutes to go before we had to pull lines and head in our 70' rigger pulling a Die Hard fired hard and we dumped yet another big fish. :roll: We made it to the weigh-in with another 5 fish box, moved up a few spots and ended the tournament just a few points out of the money.

Here's a pic of our team and our box on Day 2.

Even though we didn't place, we still had a great time and taking the biggest steelie on the Pro side helped ease the pain of not making the top 10.

[Pierless]

Billy V,

As usual, an excellent post!

Sorry you didn't cash in. There were some really big totals I saw on Day 1 on the Pro side.

One question please, what do you mean by "Our riggers pulling clean spoons"?

Thanks,

Pierless

(Neil)

[T_barb]

Bill,

Just out of curiosity, were you marking the fish up higher out of temp?

I am just curious to see what led to you bring the riggers up out of temperature...

[Billy V]

Pierless,

I meant downriggers that we had set with a spoon on a mono rod. No attractor or diver in front of the spoon...just a "clean" spoon.

T_barb,

We were marking fish both in and out of temp, but there were more marks out of temp than in temp. In the morning on Saturday I had the whole deal set down in the really cold water in the hopes that I could get the big boys to go. I like to fish temp first and the graph second and in retrospect I should have dedicated at least one rod to those out of temp hooks on the graph. Shoot, on Sunday we hooked up with a nice fish on a rigger that we had set 35' down that was in 69 degree water.

[T_barb]

I'm with you, always fish the temperature first...

Have wasted a lot of time trying to get those high fish to bite, without any success...

I guess that is why they call it fishing..

[unkeljim]

Bill,

Good to see you this weekend. We saw the same thing, fish up high out of temp. Set out a high diver on Sunday and did a triple on the high diver, 500' copper and 400' copper. Two of them 20+ lb. fish. Things got exciting for awhile. Other then that it was a tough weekend.

Jim

[Pierless]

Thanks for the education Billy!

Pierless

[nelina]

Question from a newbie about temperature. what is comfort zone range for both steelies and salmons ?

thanks

[REELJERKS]

here ya go follow the link

http://www.attheoak.com/tempchart.html