Yankee Troller

Thanks guys!

Lake O is putting out some giants this year! Here is our first Tyeeeeeeeee of 2012 - 31lbs Here are a few 29lb brutes:

Our 454s rumble and we've taken 15lb BT 50' back down 5' on our riggers in the Spring over 10' of water or less. We've also taken many Steelies in June out 40' on a diver and on sliders when our downriggers are only 30' down. There was also a point in June when we were fishing 25' of water hitting BT on sliders with riggers down 15-20. I would have thought so myself, but like always the fish prove me wrong!

1.) No 2.) Compatible Humminbird fishfinders include 700, 800, 900*, 1100 and Matrix series. *Only compataible with the following 900 Series products. 917C, 955c, 957c, 958c, 958c DI, 967C 3D, 997c SI, 998c SI 3.) Cannon Link compatible - control up to six downriggers at once from your Humminbird fishfinder. CannonLink lets you cycle your Digi-Troll 5 up and down, bottom track, raise and lower the weight, or adjust Positive Ion control. 4.) We have the DT10s. We ran them all of last year and this year. They've held up well. We use them 3-4 days a week from April-September. There were some quirks they worked out last year due to the entire line being completely overhauled. If you don't have a compatible Humminbird I would just go with the DT10s and have all the features you want on the rigger. Otherwise, you need to buy a Humminbird and the CannonLink to get the DT5s to do what you want. If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask.

Friday (Practice) - After a bumpy ride over from Olcott the night before we were eager to hit the water! Not only did we hear fishing was still AMAZING, but fishing in front of Toronto is a beautiful thing. We broke the pier heads about 5:30am and headed East to some waypoints from the previous event a month earlier. Wouldn’t ya know it, but those fish never moved! Obviously I’m kidding, but when we hit those set of waypoints we had rods flying. We ran a pretty typical program for us. Our three Cannons went down with flasher/fly combos. Mostly green/white paddles and various flys throughout the day. All of which were A-TOM-MIK’s of course! Hammer flys, Bobblehead, Ultra Green Glow, Hypnotist, and Mirage all took their share of fish. On our divers we pulled more flasher/fly combos. In the morning the Wonder Dot Smartfish/A-TOM-MIK Glow Blue Hammer was a great combo. Lastly, we set out a 300, 400, and a 500 copper. The 300 and 400 pulled flasher/fly combos, and the 500 copper pulled a meat rig the entire day. The 300 and 400 took fish but the 500 copper rotted all day, and we tried about 3 different meat combos with no dice. After a combo took a few fish we retired it for the day and went on to find other combos that worked. It slowed for us when we pulled the starters and put in the back ups, but we got a chance to rule out a bunch of stuff. As the day pressed on we trolled down to the island and worked the drop. Things picked up about 12pm, which we figured they would with the full moon. Our high divers started to shine, and one combo stood out. The Dreamweaver Oil Slick Spin Doctor/A-TOM-MIK Glow Blue Little Boy Blue fly. It took three fish in the high sun and then was retired until the following morning. About 1pm we were rewarded with our first Tyeeeeeeeee (30lb+) of the season. It took a Stinger 11’ Hammertime paddle with an A-TOM-MIK Ultra Green Glow fly on it tracking the bottom on our deep rigger. We thought we had a strong practice, and had a decent feeling going into the event. Saturday (Tourney) - We set lines at 6:30am and it wasn’t long until rods started poppin’. We weren’t fishing a great screen, but they were coming, so we stuck it out. The first three or four fish were small Chinook and Coho Salmon, and nothing we wanted in our box at the end of the day, but we boxed them anyway just to get to our 6 fish box. As the morning rolled on the size got better and our program was dialed in. We started the morning with a Dreamweaver Hammertime Spin Doctor/Hammer fly on the 80’ rigger, a Smartfish Green Dot/A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist fly on the 60’ rigger, and a Stinger 11†E-Chip Hammertime/A-TOM-MIK Ultra Green Glow fly on the deep rigger. Our wires pulled a Wonder Dot Smartfish/A-TOM-MIK Blue Glow Hammer, and a Stinger Hammertime E-Chip/A-TOM-MIK Mirage fly back 125-200’. On our 300 copper we put out the Dreamweaver Oil Slick Spin Doctor/A-TOM-MIK Glow Blue Little Boy Blue combo. Everything took fish except the deep rigger which pulled out Tyeeeeeee rig from the day before. We switched out that combo on the deep rigger for a meat rig and after a few fish we pulled one of the divers and sent out a meat rig on it. We had our fish, and now we wanted big fish! The meat rig on a 325’ diver would be our late morning early afternoon MVP after the Dreamweaver Hammertime Spin Doctor/A-TOM-MIK Hammer slowed on the 80’ rigger from the morning. We would whack fish right through until about 11am when it really shut down to a pick. Going into weigh-in we figured we had a 22lb average. We had one big guy we guessed at 28/29lbs, but the others looked between 20 and 22lbs. We also heard it was a grind for a lot of people, and the size of their six wasn’t great. We were banking on a top 10 from the sounds of it, but when our fish hit the scales and we had 144lbs and I was thoroughly shocked! I guess I need to go back to Salmon weight school! After losing by 1 and 2 ounces in the Spring event each fish was placed in the cooler and not touched until the end of the day. We weren’t going to risk losing ounces trying to figure out what we had throughout the day. We ended up taking 5th place out of 60 teams, and that ends our 2012 tourney season. We couldn’t have asked for a better tourney season. We held our own, and placed in the top 10 in almost every event fished. Now its head down and charter mode until October.

Yup, and we were 2 ounces from it this past June. 1st place was .22 ounces ahead of us and second place was 1 ounce ahead of us. The 4th place guy was 5 pounds behind us. The top three teams had 25.5lb average boxes with 6 fish. Two of these events are fished a few miles East of Toronto, and the other is fished from Wilson, NY (just East of the Niagara Bar). If anyone is interested in any of these events I can put you in touch with the organizers. They are invitation only, and sometimes there is a waiting list to get in, but you never know! I'm sure they would love more competitors from other states. We had two MI teams at the Wilson event this year. Fields are capped in these events also. 60 teams for the Toronto events and 75 for the Wilson event.

$1000 entry fees

We fish 7 of the 9 major events on Lake O each year. We just love the competition and the friends we meet at these events. Tournament fishing will make you a better fisherman hands down! Fishing different parts of your lake puts more tools in your tool box and helps you when your back at your home port. Fishing one port seems to put you in a groove from what I've seen. Now with that being said $$$ is what draws us to tourneys now. This year we changed up our schedule and did more events that offered larger payouts. On Lake O we have 3 events that are one day shootouts with a top prize of $25k. We fish all three of those even though two of them are expensive to go fish. Some of the events this year spread the prize money out to the field and we just didn't like it. Even though it helped off-set costs to more people the prestige just wasn't there.

How is that helping set the hook on big guys? I thought the Chamberlins were a great idea, but some of the feedback I got from people who used them were that they lost a lot of fish with them.

25# McCoy Mean Green Fishing line all year long. Fleas wont cling to it, and it's the strongest stuff I've ever used. When running spoons and in the Spring I will leader it down with 15# McCoy Flouro, and when running paddles we will leader down to 20# McCoy Flouro. This combo is tough as nails. We use the blood knot between our leaders and our main line. Our BT set-ups get 15lb McCoy Mean Green leadered down to 8 or 10lb McCoy Flouro. Give this line a try and I'm sure you'll find the same benefits we've seen for a few years. These guys are a small company in Arizona, and won't sell out to the big companies.

It's been a great year for big kings! Thanks guys!

July 29th - We were back to the Oak and looking forward to putting the smack down on some more big kings. We left the dock about 5:30am and headed out to the 26N line. We set down and started to put out the spread. We put down a similar program to the day before with the exception of the long coppers. Instead we ran one 10 color and one 300 copper. A Stinger Hawg Wild on the 10 color and the Dreamweaver Hammertime Spin Doctor/A-TOM-MIK Hammer fly on the 300 copper. Both took fish. The 10 color was taking some nice Steelies, and the 300 copper was taking a mix of steelhead and salmon. On our Cannons we pulled a Stinger UV Frog E-Chip/A-TOM-MIK Mirage fly on the 100’ rigger, Dreamweaver Sea Sick Waddler mupped on the 80’ Rigger, and Moonshine Green Shorts mupped on the 60’ rigger. Our divers pulled a Legendary SmartFish Wonder dot/A-TOM-MIK Blue Glow Hammer, and a Stinger UV Frog/A-TOM-MIK B Fly. Once we hit the 27N line the bite was insane. From the 27-28N line we had a nice mix of Salmon and Steelhead. Our MVPs of the day and maybe even the weekend were definitely the Dreamweaver Sea Sick Waddlers on the 80’ rigger. However, the big girl today took the Legendary Smartfish Wonder Dot/A-TOM-MIK Glow Blue Hammer on the diver. She weighed in at 27lbs! Another great day at the Oak. 27lb'r

This was such a fun event last year that we just had to do it again. We would go on to take second in that event, so this year we wanted to grab the win! I rolled the boat down from the Oak the night before, and after talking with my brother, who fished in the AM out of the Oak, and from what I saw we knew West wasn’t best! We picked our charter up at the Sandy Creek boat launch at 5am, and headed out to a mean Lady O. 4-6’ waves was what we would fish in the whole day. We took a right our of port and headed out to 80’ of water where we would start putting down our spread. Our three Cannon DT10s went down with flasher fly combos. Anywhere from 50’ to the bottom. Out went our wire divers with flasher fly combos, and when that was done we started to let out the coppers. The first King came almost immediately. The 125’ wire started screaming with an Stinger UV Frog E-Chip/A-TOM-MIK Mirage fly. Don’t ask me where that combo came from. It was another one of my brothers concoctions that always seem to catch fish! Anyway, the first teenager hit the deck of the boat, and we were onto a good start. The bite really died for us as we trolled the 100’ area East and the screen dried up. We pointed her NE and started our troll to deeper water. We would pick a fish here and there, but when we hit 400’ between the lighthouse and Braddock’s the screen just lit up! Bait and fish everywhere. That’s when the blood bath began. The new program had spoons mupped on two out of three Cannon DT10s, with a UV Frog E-Chip/A-TOM-MIK B Fly on the deep rigger, Dreamweaver Sea Sick Waddlers on the 80’ rigger, and Moonshine Green Shorts on the 60’ rigger. Our divers were out 200-250’. That same Stinger UV Frog E-Chip/A-TOM-MIK Mirage fly on one side, and a Wonder Dot Legendary SmartFish/A-TOM-MIK Glow Blue Hammer fly on the other. The 300 copper had a Dreamweaver Hammertime Spin Doctor/A-TOM-MIK Hammer fly, the 400 copper had a Stinger Hammertime E-Chip/A-TOM-MIK Hammer fly, and the 500 copper pulled a meat rig. The two big guys would take the 300 copper combo and weigh in at 29 and 27 pounds. Knowing we needed minimum a 25lb average we continued to pound on the fish. We fished over a great screen, and rods were just flying the whole day. Given the conditions Lady O was throwing out our clients did a great job on the rods. Given we met the average we thought we would need we still wanted to get rid of a 22 and a 23 we had sitting in the box. It just never happened. Either way we had big smiles heading into the weigh in. When it was all said and done we took second to the same team we took second to last year. I want to give a huge congrats to team Trout and About and Captain Jason Franz on his three-peat. Even though he is a friend of mine that competitive nature in me gets me really upset that he beat us again. There is always next year! Another thank you goes out to all the people who worked their tails off to get this event to where it is today. Believe me, I know how much time these events take. The 29lb'r The 27lb'r

Thanks.....Lady O is putting out some nice fish this year!

July 23rd - After handing the rod off to clients all weekend Mel wanted to get in on some of this great King Salmon action Lake Ontario is putting out. We had breakfast at 4C’s Cafe before pulling out of the harbor. The double charter the day before didn’t allow us time to grab dinner, so we were both starving! We left the dock around 7am, and shot right out to the 29.5N line knowing what we left out there was what we wanted to fish. It was Mel and I so all we were allowed were six rods. Down went the three Cannon DT10s, and out went two wires. Once that was all set I figured since we were trying to knock my good friend Vince P off the mountain for the Summer LOC I’d better send down a meat rig in the ice water where the pigs hang out. So, I went and grabbed a 500 Copper, and out went the meat. We picked fish all morning on riggers and wires. The copper stayed quiet, and soaked for 80% of the day. Dreamweaver Sea Sick Waddlers and Gators mupped were going all morning. As were the same flasher fly combos we have been running on our low divers all weekend long. As the morning pushed on the bite went to a steady pick. We worked the 31-32N line and circled an area that had bait and fish pretty consistently in it. At one point throughout the morning I got the bright idea to grab a Lyman plug and send it down on the middle rigger. I sent it back 30’, which was 15-20’ further back than the two out downs, and sent it down 15’ above them. It wasn’t in the water 5 minutes when I see the rod start to throb. In less than 30 minutes it would take two fish, and then it was done for that lure. About noon I was setting a rod on the out down when I see the 500 just lay right over and start singing! I yelled to Mel to grab the rod, and she was into a fight. This fish took multiple runs throughout the fight, and like always we thought this could be the one! However, just like every other time we think we have Orca on a 20lb king find the bottom of our net. Oh well, cross out that trip to Cobo this Winter. We pulled lines at 2pm and headed in for some lunch after Mel told me she just couldn’t fight another Salmon.

July 21st - Dave just couldn’t get enough Lake Ontario Salmon fishing a month ago, so he brought up some more friends to experience this great resource. We left the dock at 5:30am fully knowing that Mother Nature blew apart the inside waters we have targeted for about the last month. We drove out past the fog bank, thanks to the cold water inside, and found the water starting to warm up around the 25N line. We set in and threw down our three Cannon DT10s, and watched the screen for 15 minutes. We saw nothing that made us want to stay, so we picked the lines and pushed it another mile North. We set in around the 26.5N line and out went our program. Since we were in search mode we threw it all at them! We set our Cannons down between 30 and 70’. Temp was still pretty high, but it would gradually go down as we pushed North. We set our low divers on 2’s with flasher/flys, and our high divers on 3.5’s with spoons. We had a 5 color on one board and a 10 color on the other with a 300 copper down the chute. Everything had a mix of spoons and flasher/fly combos. It started really slow for us, but thank god these guys took an 8 hour charter. As the day progressed so did the bite. We ended up going to an all spoon program with the excretion of our low divers. AS we crossed over in the 27N line the screen got better, and so did the action. We worked the 27-28N lines all day, but the annoying part was that you could only get bit on one troll. Our Dreamweaver Green Gator was our best spoon in the morning, but by the afternoon we had to pull it because it had shut down. Our low divers were going consistently back 200’ with Dreamweaver Hammertime Spin Doctor/A-TOM-MIK Hammer fly, and a Dreamweaver Green Dot Spin Doctor/A-TOM-MIK UV Dolphin. On our high diver we had a Moonshine Green Shorts going good out 225-250’. We had a lot of missed opportunities, but we boated some nice fish too! Our two biggies went 26.5 and 23.5 pounds. The cold water made these fish very feisty. They would hit and immediately come up to the surface and shark to the left or right. It was a fun trip and I know these guys had a blast. July 22nd Morning - We left the dock with intentions of fishing the same waters from the previous day. The screen was the same as were the water temps. We dropped in at the 26N line and trolled it out to the 28N line. We worked the 27-28N line all morning long. The bite wasn’t as good as it was the day before, but we managed to get our bites. Our program was very similar to the day before. Low divers pulling flasher/fly combos, and high divers pulling spoons. The two combos that took fish for us on our low divers were the Dreamweaver Hammertime/A-TOM-MIK Hammer fly and a Chrome Green Dot E-Chip/A-TOM-MIK Bobblehead. Our Cannons were parked from 30-80’ down with sliding cheaters. One one Otter boat we pulled a 10 color, and on the other was a 300 copper. The MVP in the morning was our new Dreamweaver Sea Sick Waddlers parked on a downrigger. A nice 12lb Steelie liked it so much he bent our SS slider almost in half. A Dreamweaver Moon Cricket was also taking a few fish on the deeper rigger. As the sun got high I remembered how much Kings like the Dreamweaver Get R Dun’s when they are high in the water column so I put two down on a rigger, and a mag verision on a high diver. Both took shots by the end of the trip. We dropped half of our fish again today, and I am beginning to think it has something to do with the wicked currents. It was another morning where direction of troll really mattered. It was still a fun trip, and these guys had a blast! July 22nd Afternoon - We heard of a good bite at the 31N line, so that was the line we wanted to check out. WE set in at the 27N line and trolled it N/NW out. We dropped two steelies on the way out, and both were pigs. One hit the copper, and another came unbuttoned off a rigger. We kept a similar program to the morning trip. Mostly a spoon program with the exception of the Dreamweaver Hammertime/A-TOM-MIK Hammer, and a Chrome Green Dot E-Chip/A-TOM-MIK Bobblehead on our low divers. When we hit the 31N line with an hour and a half left in the trip the rods went crazy! All big kings too! We had Northern King Copper NBKs, Dreamweaver Sea Sick Waddlers, and Dreamweaver Gators down on our Cannon DT10s. Our high divers had a Moonshine Green Shorts, and a Dreamweaver Get R Dun Mag. Fish were flopping on the floor, doubles were being fought, and everyone was laughing as hard as they could at the may-lay we were putting on these fish! It was a good time had by all!

This is the one we fried holding fish overboard until they were ready. So since it didn't work anymore we put a rope on it and once the fish is clipped in we let him go off the back of the boat. We go back to rigging, and after 5 minutes or so that fish was swimming and kicking. We pulled him in and let him go. All fish took off just fine. I think any lip grip will do. I do have it on video, but I have no way to trim the video from my GoPro yet. I will try to get something this weekend if its possible. http://www.basspro.com/Berkley-Big-Game-Digital-Lip-Grip/product/50327/75357

There is no rule. Most times it comes down to confidence in a bait. Try it and if its working let it soak. I'd say 80% of the time guys are running 8" paddles though.

Thanks guys!

We had an eager group that was interested in scoring some cash in the Lake Ontario Counties (LOC) derby. I told them I wanted to leave the dock by 5:30am, but these guys barely slept a wink and I found them in the parking lot at 5am! So off we went looking for a few fish for the leaderboard. For most of these guys their biggest fish consisted of something from a dock with the exception of Hung, which I took stream fishing this past Winter. We shot straight out to 80’ of water in front of the Oak and pointed her East. We were going back down to the glass house area that has treated us good for about the last month. Down went our Cannon DT10’s with the following combos: 65’ down was a Dreamweaver Hammertime SD/A-TOM-MIK Hammer, 75’ down was a Michigan Stinger E-Chip in Hammertime/A-TOM-MIK Glow Blue Hammer, and down 50’ was a Legendary SmartFish Green Dot/A-TOM-MIK Ultra Green Glow Shredded. We would end up working 100-130’ of water and the temp dropped into the upper 50’s right around 35’ down. Those big kings loved the colder waters they had to swim around in chasing huge schools of bait. Our Divers were set on a 2 and we had them going consistently out 125’ and 150’ with big Salmon. The biggest of the trip officially weighed on the LOC derby scale was 29.5 which took a Hammertime E-Chip/A-TOM-MIK B-Fly. On the other diver we had a Legendary SmartFish/A-TOM-MIK Glow Blue Hammer Shredded. We also ran a 10 color and a 300 copper off our Otter Boats. The ten Color pulled a Moonshine Carbon 14 in the morning, and took a couple of shots, but it was quiet the remainder of the day. On the 300 copper we ran a Stinger Hawg Wild, and later a few flasher/fly combos, but it just wasn’t a great presentation for us on this day. The big guys came to play today! Our clients took home 13 Salmon, 1 Steelhead, and one Brown Trout. Our biggest five went 29, 27, and three 25 pounders. A huge box! We released a lot of fish, and I would like to share a new technique we tried out that worked flawlessly! We took our boga style Berkley scale and tied a rope to it about 15’ long. We fried the thing holding fish overboard in previous years trying to revive them, so we had no issues with it getting wet. We clipped the fish by the mouth and tossed it overboard as we re-set lines. When we were done re-setting we would look back and the fish would be off swimming to one side or the other. We’d pull in the rope and un-clip the fish and it would take off like a champ. Even in upper 70 degree water! Give it a try next time you want to toss a fish back. It might give it a better chance to survive! I want to thank my buddy Jeremy Sage for the tip. We need a bigger cooler!

Thanks guys! We will be off the Toronto Islands that weekend, so no Oak reports from there from me. Trying to win $25,000 in the last Tightline event of the season.

I've seen leader length matter on more than one occasion. Especially with stagers. It only took one butt whoopin during September to find that out. I also see different paddles hanging there. A chip will run a larger diameter than a Spin Doctor. If your chips aren't going adding an inch or two to the leader might help.

Even though it gets curly that wont weaken your wire. If your seeing curly wire your not keeping enough tension on the wire. Curly turns into kinks when you straighten it out some times, and I'm willing to bet that's what broke. We use American Fishing Wire 30lb test and it curls pretty good, but we like it's thin diameter over the competition. We NEVER let the wire get slack enough to where we can see ANY curls. A lot of guys just don't get this concept with the wire, and how anal you have to be about taking care of it. I can honestly say I don't remember the last time we cracked off the whole set up on our wires. Keep constant tension on that wire, and you will never have any issues.

July 6th - We heard of big Salmon being taken West of port the day before so when we left the chute around 5:30am that’s the way we headed. Our clients were derby fishing, so we tried our darnedest to get at least one of their names on the LOC derby leaderboard. We would end up fishing in front of Johnson’s Creek for most of the day. We were able to set about five lines in the water before it got really really stupid out there. We put down big and small paddles trailed by A-TOM-MIKs in various colors. We saw the temp had come up since the weekend before, and it dropped into the fifties around the 60’ mark. So we set our Cannon DT10’s at 50’, 70’, and 90’. All of which took their fair amount of shots. On the 50’ rigger we pulled a White/Green Dot Legendary Smartfish trailed by an A-TOM-MIK Ultra Green Glow fly, the 70’ rigger had a Dreamweaver Hammertime Spin Doctor trailed by an A-TOM-MIK Hammer fly, and the 90’ rigger pulled an 11†E-Chip trailed by an A-TOM-MIK Glow Blue Hammer. Those three riggers took an insane amount of fish! On our divers we pulled a Legendary SmartFish in Wonder Dot trailed by an A-TOM-MIK shredded Glow Blue Hammer, and on the other side it was a Green E-Chip pulling an A-TOM-MIK Green Crinkle. Our divers were out anywhere from 150’ to 250’ throughout the day. When we were able to get our junk lines in we ran a Stinger Hawg Wild on a 10 color core fished off our Big John Otter Boats, and on the 300 copper we pulled a Dreamweaver Sea Sick Waddler Mag. If we weren’t derby fishing our clients would have been done by 7:30am with 10 King Salmon all in the teens, two nice Steelhead, and one Coho. The fishing was INSANE! It continued until about 9am when the bite finally started to come to a slow pick. As the sun came up we pulled out the chrome/green Dreamweaver Spin Doctors and put A-TOM-MIK flies like Bobblehead, Green Hammer, and Ace flies behind them. No derby fish were weighed, but I’m sure these guys got spoiled! July 7th - We left the dock a little earlier today looking for more large King Salmon! We heard of some nice big ones taken East down by Sand Creek on Friday, so we headed down to the water we had been fishing the previous few weeks. We set up the same spread from the day before, and it worked just as good! On the 50’ rigger we pulled a White/Green Dot Legendary Smartfish trailed by an A-TOM-MIK Ultra Green Glow fly, the 70’ rigger had a Dreamweaver Hammertime Spin Doctor trailed by an A-TOM-MIK Hammer fly, and the 90’ rigger pulled an 11†E-Chip trailed by an A-TOM-MIK Glow Blue Hammer. On our divers we pulled a Legendary SmartFish in Wonder Dot trailed by an A-TOM-MIK shredded Glow Blue Hammer, and on the other side it was a Green E-Chip pulling an A-TOM-MIK Green Crinkle. Our divers were out anywhere from 150’ to 250’ throughout the day. We were chased off the Lake mid morning by some nasty storms that merged from West and North. Lots of lightning, some crazy wind gusts, and a ton of rain. We sat it out at the dock for an hour before venturing back out. The last half of the day wasn’t as productive as the first half. However, we trolled further East than we did on the morning outing and it paid off! We found “the screen†and rods started to fire with an hour left to go. We’d end up with a couple more nice Kings, a few more Lake Trout than we’d like, and to top it off we ended with a triple as we were pulling rods to head in. As the day wore on, and the sun blasted us, we changed out the white/green paddles for chrome/green like the day before. A Dreamweaver Livewire pulling an A-TOM-MIK Green Hammer took top honors after the storms rolled through. Our 300 copper and our 10 color were also good rods after the storms. A Stinger Hawg Wild was a good one on the 10 color, and on the 300 copper a Dreamweaver Captain Valium pulling a Bobblehead took a few fish. July 8th - We had a four hour trip with some clients we’ve had for many years. I can remember having to help these two kids reel in fish when they first started with us. Now, they are growing up and needed little, if any, assistance from the adults. We heard some reports of some big fish taken West on Saturday, and since it was half the distance to travel then going to our East fish we figured we’d give it a try. We left the dock about 5:45am and headed West to Johnson’s Creek. We set up over 100’ of water and worked that 100-150’ of water we have been working for the past month. Like the previous two days the morning bite was INSANE! We went down with the same combos on our Cannon DT10’s that we’d been running the last two days. Not to sound like a broken record, but on the 50’ rigger we pulled a White/Green Dot Legendary Smartfish trailed by an A-TOM-MIK Ultra Green Glow fly, the 70’ rigger had a Dreamweaver Hammertime Spin Doctor trailed by an A-TOM-MIK Hammer fly, and the 90’ rigger pulled an 11†E-Chip trailed by an A-TOM-MIK Glow Blue Hammer. On our divers we pulled a Legendary SmartFish in Wonder Dot trailed by an A-TOM-MIK shredded Glow Blue Hammer, and on the other side it was a Green E-Chip pulling an A-TOM-MIK Green Crinkle. Our divers were out anywhere from 150’ to 250’ throughout the day. The MVP’s of the morning were our 10 color and our 300 copper. Both pulled a Stinger Hawg Wild. As fast as we could get them out on the boards they would fire. We started off the morning with a lot of nice teenage King Salmon, and throughout the morning the big chromers came to play. In less than four hours we would get our box of fish, drop at least a half a dozen fish, and toss back about a half dozen fish. You couldn’t ask for better fishing! The last three days the Salmon wreaked havoc on our gear, but we loved every minute of it! It will be tough to sit at this desk for the next five days with how great the fishing continues to be.

6/30 Charter - We left the dock around 6am, and headed for the Ladders just East of port. We set up under 100’ and trolled it E/NE. The bite between the Flats and Devils Nose has been pretty good the last few weeks, so why not start there? We deployed our three Cannon DT10s, three wires, and two coppers (300/400). We put down flasher/fly combos on everything except for the center downrigger and the 300 copper, which took spoons for some higher fish. The bite wasn’t fast and furious for us, and we dumped our first few fish. an hour into the day a high diver starts singing, and we were into our first big boy of the trip. It took multiple runs after smashing a Green E-Chip/A-TOM-MIK Green Crinkle. Twenty minutes later we slid the net under a 22lb Chinook Salmon. That would end up being be the big dog of the day. The rest of the trip we would struggle to get a consistent Salmon bite going. Late morning we decided to slide into 70’ of water and found some Brown Trout hanging in a layer of cold water within 10†of the bottom. It didn’t take long and we began to drill on them. In a little under an hour we took a dozen shots from these Brown Trout. The Stinger Stingray UV Yellow Tuxedo was hot on a diver, a Stinger Stingray Hawg Wild took a few off a 300 copper as did a Stinger Stingray UV Gator. We also got the new Dreamweaver SS Sea Sick Waddler in a gold cup to take a few BTs. That got to be boring after hearing the drag scream from that 22lb specimen earlier that morning, so we slid out to the 100-150’ range to see if we could grab one or two more. We ended up picking away at a mix of fish the rest of the day, but nothing topped the brute in the cooler. 7/1 Charter - We were able to hit the water about a half an hour earlier than the day before, and it really paid off! When we set down the screen was INSANE! We started to deploy rods, and as we did bites happened. There was a 10 degree break the last two days around 70’ and that’s where the bait and fish were. Our divers would be the hot presentation today. Low divers set on a 1 and high divers set on a 2.5. One side was out 200 and 250 while the other side of the boat was out 225 and 275. Wonder Dot SmartFish/A-TOM-MIK Glow Blue Hammer, Green E-Chip/A-TOM-MIK Green Crinkle, Green Green Dot E-Chip/A-TOM-MIK Green Hammer, and a Dreamweaver Spin Doctor Captain Valium/A-TOM-MIK Bobblehead were the players on those divers. Our 400 and 500 coppers were hot too! We had a 10†Dreamweaver Captain Valium/A-TOM-MIK Bobblehead on one, and a Dreamweaver Spin Doctor Seneca Special/A-TOM-MIK Ace fly on the other. Our riggers took shots as well. Northern King Copper NBK’s were good, and so was the new Dreamweaver Sea Sick Waddler gold cup. Both of which took a mix of Brown Trout and Steelies. We finished early with a five man limit. We had a nice mixed box of fish. Half of which were Salmon, and the other half was a mix of Brown Trout, Rainbow Trout, and lake Trout.