We were in Sturgeon Bay this weekend for the Offshore Challenge which started out with some pre-fishing on Fri. We were joined on Fri. morning by my aunt and unckle and there two boys for there first time out on the big pond. We got line set at about 5 working the edge of the bank from 90 to 120 fow. We took a fish right away on a rigger with a happee meal, and then another on a 7 color also with a happee meal. After those two fish were in the box things slowed down for us a bit. Around 9 or 10 things stared to pick up for us again with copper and lead taking most of the hits and a few wire diver bites mixed in. For long lines it was a 7 color, 300 CU, and a 100 CU taking fish with moonshine and stinger spoons. Wire divers back 150 and 175 with 11" hotspots and ITO flies.
On Sat. morning the first day of the tournament our game plan was to stay on the edge and look for bigger fish. We stuck to our game plan and ended up struggling to put fish in the box, especially in the first half of the morning. Around 10 we started to get some things going but were only able to put 6 in the box and were forced to weigh in a couple dinks at the scale which really hurt us. Our big fish for the day was a 16.5 lb king caught on a wire diver and a green bullfrog ITO behind a 11" white hotspot.
For day 2 of the tournament we changed up our game plan a bit which seemed to be a good thing. We started on the bank right away in the morning and trolled for about 30 min without a hit and not really seeing much on the screen so we turned East and headed out. When we got to 200 fow we started to pick up fish on riggers with ff combos and spoons and long lines with spoons. At 10 we headed back to the bank with 6 or 7 in the box looking for some bigger fish for the scale. Shortly after making it back to the bank the green bullfrog on the wire dipsy goes off again and we put a king just shy of 19 in the box, our biggest of the weekend. After that we caught a couple more to finish out our morning and we headed in with 10 in the box. For the tourney we ended up in 6th place in the Am division and 15 for the 333.
For the weekend spoons were the most consistent for us on long lines and riggers. For patterns it was NBK, green puke, blue dolphin, green dolphin, and killer dolphin, mostly in smaller sizes. For flies green bullfrog and glow flies on riggers and dipsies worked for us. It was certainly a fun weekend and I look forward to doing it again next year as well.