Sodus Report 8/15-8/17

[TOP SECRET]

I need a bigger boat... end report.

Seriously though. The water this weekend was just too rough for my 19' trophy. We toughed it out friday from 6:30pm to 8:30pm. We managed a nice 24lb king. Came on the 65' rigger on a glow perch stinger. First fish on the spoon and the thing came in bent in half... I quickly remembered why I hate stinger spoons. NKs can catch 50kings and be fine, but not stingers. Saturday we got out and it just was NOT pleasant out there. Only fish an hour and went 1 for 2 with a shaker. Sunday same story, fished for an hour and managed a nice domestic bow, 10lb 2oz. 15th place on the LOC and dropping like a rock! The bow came 120fow dipsey out 330' #2 setting with a green protroll pickled sunshine strong fly. If you guys aren't using strong flies... try one. They've been kinda my secret weapon for the past few years, they're smaller and have their days for sure!

PROOF

Nick[/img]

[Pierless]

Dang it's good to have the trolling gear on the boat again!!!

Cruising season was over two weeks ago, but I was sidelined with back trouble so it wasn't until yesterday that I got out to thrash up the water.

We went just a little west and started just inside the pack in about 140fow. The 2 - 4 footers made it a west troll in the beginning, as it'd have been too fast going east I think. Most the boats were going that way anyway,...

The good news, as far as I am concerned anyway, is that the spiny fleas were nearly non-existent!!!! I even had a 17lb line waaaay down there for a while and there was less than an inch of fleas after a fairly long washing. Very Cool! Let 'em run!

We managed a decent mid-day bite going 2 for 4.

First fish was a really nice 'bow down 117' in the 'rigger with a 25' lead to a NK28 red fire tiger (yep, the danged fire tiger hooks up again). That was probably over 225fow. Hard to say exactly how much it weighed, but on the rockin' and rollin' deck it ranged from 9lbs 14 oz. to 11lbs 8oz, so I'm guessing it was about 10.5, or so. I didn’t bother weighing it in, as it was the first fish of the day and didn't want to go in. So, I was glad to see the big 'bow was 13lbs 12oz. yesterday,....

When we were about 2 miles east of Hughes we turned east. The wind had sort of dropped off a bit and we were able to manage ~2.5 MPH down speed.

In about 165fow the wire with a Spin Doc trailing an "Abe's Tourney Special" A-TOM-MIK fly finally took a rip, but it got off after about a minute of shaking back there. The reel had walked out quite a bit of wire, but had been quiet up until that moment, so I put it back out 300' (2.5 setting), which was a good deal longer than I had originally set it back.

Around 3:00, about 1/2 hour after the first rip, the wire went off again. I grabbed the rod and waited for it to calm down, but the rig went slack. I reeled it in happy to see all my gear still attached,... 'cept for the treble hook of the fly! Whatever it was broke off the 50lb fluorocarbon leader material in between the single hook and the treble. Hmmmm,.... Put another fly on let it run!

5 minutes after getting the wire set back 300' it ripped again. This time I told my brother to reel it in. I figured that maybe I could tell him how to fight in a wire fish better than I could do it myself. Seemed to work too. He fought it like a pro (it was his first "real" wire fish) and after about 15 minutes we landed a 23 - 25lb King. In the pic he took of it hanging on the scale on the bobbing boat the scale read 23.5lbs. The fish was getting pretty dark colored and had an older lamprey mark on it, but it was otherwise a very nice fish.

Sorry, no pics yet,...

My Depth Raider only reads down to ~70', or so (need to re-insulate), but the temps hardly moved at all. Down 70' I had 70.6 deg. almost all day with a 71.3 surface temp.

Thanks to Bob's Boy for starting the thread. I'll try giving you a call out there soon dude!

Good luck Derby Fishing!

Pierless

(Neil)

[Toonfisher]

Where and/or what is Hughes?

[bretter]

Hughes is a small marina and campground with two boat launches about half way between Pultneyville and Sodus.Actually it is closer to P-ville.Nice place,nice people

[bub]

see nick arent u glad u went out maybe that fish will hold up for u anyway nice to see some one u know on the board.

[fuzzyg1]

way to go neil

[TOP SECRET]

Sorry it took me so long to get back to you guys, been on business travel. Sounds like those rips on the wires with no one home could have been smaller fish, maybe cohos or steelies. I know when I get into a pocket of steelies or cohos I get a lot of short wire hits. Now the one that bit off your hook... that was probably a big male and he was pissssssed

Looking forward to this weekend... really hoping we get some nice weather. I'm really becoming more and more of a fair weather fisherman

Nick