Yankee Troller

This would be the year for you to check it out! Tons of reports and pictures of Atlantic's in the 10-20lb range. A LOT of Salmon caught 30lbs and above.

Thanks!

Thanks, it was a great weekend of fishing!

6/26 – Derby Fishing We left the dock at 7am after the girls got their breakfast in. Man I hate it when they don’t want to wake up early! We headed out to 100fow and set lines. We ran with a double diver program, three riggers, and a 400 copper down the chute. We ran paddles on the deep divers, and spoons on the high divers. Spoons on all the riggers and a paddle on the copper would finish off our program. On the wires we planted a Wonder Dot SmartFish pulling a shredded A-TOM-MIK Hammer fly at 200’ on a 1.5, and a Green Dot SmartFish pulling an A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist out 150’ on a 1.5. On the 400 copper we pulled my Custom Green SmartFish with an A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist. The first round of lure choices on the riggers was Northern King Lazer Spooks, Dreamweaver SS Glow Froggys, and pair of Dreamweaver SS Firecrackers. Our high Divers were set on 3’s and put 50’ behind our low divers with Magnum spoons. One was a Dreamweaver gator, and the other was a Dreamweaver Moon Cricket. After we got set-up it took a while to get into some fish. We ran West a bit and continued to troll west because we knew there were some good Kings down there from reports on Friday our of Olcott. After 30 minutes of nothing I looked up at the sky and it was very overcast. The light bulb goes off in my head. The Sunday of the Orleans Pro Am the sky was very similar to today. So I dug out the spoons that were red hot on that day, and down they went. A Dreamweaver SS Da Shiznit went down 70, a Dreamweaver Feelin’ Erie went down on the 90 rigger, and a pair of Stinger Stingray Wonderbreads went down 50. It didn’t take long and the rods started going crazy with hooked up fish! For the next few hours we would pound on the Salmon. Mostly 2yr olds with 1 or 2 3yr old mixed in. Perfect fish for the girls! Our fish were only coming on an Easterly troll, and we found out why when we tried to troll West. The current was strong down there. We finally got a few rods to fire on the West troll at the end of our trip, but the East troll was by far the best troll for us and a few other boats I talked to. We finished the day with a lot of fish hooked up and landed, and we came very close to the Lake Ontario Grand Slam. As I stated above mostly a Salmon bite (Chinook and Cohos), but we did manage to get a Brown Trout and a Steelhead on this trip. The girls had fun, so that was win. We had fun too, but no derby fish for us on this day. On a side note the Coho Salmon that we are getting are very healthy and very nice sized. 6/27 Derby Fishing We left a little earlier this morning with just my brother, my girlfriend, and me. The six rod spread was the max we could run, which I can’t stand because it’s hard to cover the water column efficiently. Well, by the end of the day maybe less was better! We set up the same program we ended with yesterday (minus 2 extra wires). The program consisted of: 3 riggers, 2 wires, and a 400 copper. On the riggers we had Dreamweaver Feelin’ Erie on the 90-100 rigger, Dreamweaver SS Da Shiznit on our 70-80 rigger, and on our center rigger we had a pair of Stinger Stingray Wonderbreads down for half the morning, and then we switched it up to a Pair of Stinger Later Gators. On the wires we planted a Wonder Dot SmartFish pulling a shredded A-TOM-MIK Hammer fly at 225’ on a 1.5, and a Green Dot SmartFish pulling an A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist out 200’ on a 1.5. On the 400 copper we pulled my Custom Green SmartFish with an A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist. It took us a few minutes to find the fish. We hung out in that 150’ area we did so well in yesterday. We got a call from a buddy a few minutes after we pointed it north, and he said they were on them pretty good. The end of our conversation ended in “Eric, I’ll call you back! Screeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaamer!†That was the start of it, and it would be CRAZY for the next few hours. At one point 5 out of the 6 rods were out of the water because we had caught fish on them. We tripled at one point, which is fun with 3 people. We did something today that we haven’t done in a long time, and that was to hit a Lake Ontario Grand Slam. In my book that consist of a Salmon, Steelhead, Brown Trout, and a Lake Trout. Our catch for the day consisted mostly of Chinook and Coho Salmon. We caught 1 each of the following: Brown Trout (5lbs), Lake Trout (5lbs), and a Rainbow Trout (17lbs). If we would have boated an Atlantic salmon it would have made it even more special because that would mean we would have caught every cold water species Lake Ontario has to offer. Everything was going with consistency until about 8:45 when the 80 rigger fires. Within seconds a MONSTER Rainbow Trout is breaking surface. My brother and I both yelled “Holy SH*T!†The focus and the intensity was now directed to getting this pig to the net. With at least 6 acrobatic jumps I was sweating bullets. On the way in the fish decided it wanted to test our McCoy Mono in the wire diver, but my brother grabbed that rod and put it in a safe place in the center rigger. When this fish hit the deck it was all high fives. The decision was to head in and weigh it in for the Summer LOC Derby. We quickly put it on the scale and it read a heavy 17 pounds. Knowing the leader was currently my buddy Rich Baliva on the Godzilla boat at 15 pounds and change we put the throttle down. We arrived at Narby’s and the fish weighed 17.4 pounds on the LOC Derby Scale. Good enough for 1st place! Now we have to wait 3 weeks to see if we get knocked off the pedestal. We still had two hours of fishing time before I had to go, so we headed back out to the 25N line and set rods. WE changed out the Green dot SmartFish on the wire for a Gator Spin Doctor and an A-TOM-MIK Green Crinkle, but the rest of the spread stayed the same. Well, it didn’t take long and we were into them again. We would end the day with a nice double on teenage Chinooks. Everything in the spread was going quite consistently the whole morning. Our screen wasn’t great, but rods were flying. The mix of fish off the Oak right now is amazing!

I have been very satisfied with my new hummingbirds this year. Lowrance was desperate as far as I am concerned. I have had such poor customer service from them, and their products just weren't lasting. Their desperation may have led to their goof up on copying too closely.

If you really want a quality reel look at the Daiwa Saltist. Here are some of the features you get with them: High Speed retrieve Tested Salt water drag (smoothest I have ever used) Large handle Well balanced with a heartland I have had mine for about a month and a half and the reaction I get once someone has used them is amazing. Most times my buddies are upset they have to go back and use their 47's! Don't get me wrong the 47 was and still is a great reel for the great lakes. If your in the market for a Tekota or a high priced Okuma you should give these an honest look. Another thing we figured out this weekend about this reel is the high speed retrieve helps when using sliding cheaters for Steelhead and Cohos. You can really catch up to the fish on the slider.

If you don't mind spending some money look at the high speed Saltist. Especially for your longer cores. We have been very pleased with them. Makes changing out lures much more easier and less tedious.

We put Cisco's on the boat a few years back, and I couldn't be more happier with them. I used a lot of holders on peoples boats for a few years before I made the decision. With Cisco's you get the most adjust-ability. I put singles in a track to be even more versatile. They aren't cheap, but i would rather pay the extra money up front than loose some gear due to a poorly made holder.

My top 3 flies from A-TOM-MIK are: Hypnotist Hammer or Glow Hammer Green Crinkle Greens and blues seem to be the best. Mirage would probably be another color you would want to have on hand.

I need to try the Z boards, but i doubt they will pull my gear out to the sides like my otter boats. Even with 500 and 600 coppers these boats are perpendicular to my boat. Church boards just sag back way to much and i get nervous they will get into my wires or slide divers. In my opinion the church boards are good to about 3 colors of core. After that they can get far enough out to the sides. Especially on turns.

It's hard to tell you what to add. I would add a 3rd rigger and then toss a copper down the chute that has some depth to it so you can get down to those deep kings. 4 wire divers are great when there is a good King bite going on. Even when you have a mix of Coho and Kings you can put a slide diver over the top of a wire diver. Just be careful with the slide divers getting into those church boards. I am not a fan of church boards. They just dont pull out to the side enough. I have heard that the Z boards are much better at this, but I have yet to try them. My typical spread is 3 riggers 2-4 divers and 3 junk lines (one off each otter boat and one down the chute). I only have a 9'6" beam and we have no problems with this spread. On slow days I might even put out 2 more junk lines for a total of 5. Two on each otter boat and one down the chute. It may be a PITA to re-set the outside line on the otter boat, but that boat is perpendicular to my boat, so I know my lines are away from my divers. Makes turns a lot easier.

How come there was no Billy V Glow Ghost in that package?

Our team this week consisted of my bother and I, Rob Wescott of Legecy Sportfishing, and Jeremy Sage of JDs Custom Charters. Both of which fish from Sandy Creek. If you want to cash a check, or even win one of these tourneys, you need two consistent days. The teams fishing these tournaments are SO good that you can't slip up. This was the case for our team this weekend. Mother Nature threw us a curve ball on Day 1, and we paid the price for it. I'm not so sure I will ever like her! Friday 5/11 (Practice) - We headed East because my friend Bill Ruth was fishing down from Wilson. With one day of practice a good friend to help cover water is a must! So we ran down a few miles and setup in 80 foot of water heading East. It didn't take long and we were into fish. The first one being a 14lb King Salmon that took our Dreamweaver SS Glow Froggy slider on our 40 downrigger. I was like WOW, thats high! Well, that would be the last time that downrigger went. The rest of the day the leadcores took over with a bunch of different spoons. Dreamweaver SS Firecrackers, Stinger Wonderbreads, and Stinger Mix veggies were our hot spoons of the day. We would have never boxed our 12 in practice, but we never turned on any fish either. We ran a 5 and a 10 color off each Otter boat, 3 downriggers, and 2 wires just trying to cover the water column. Saturday 5/12 (Day 1) - As I was checking Lake Ontario Tweets Friday night I saw that my buddy Jeremy slayed the big guys off Olcott. After a few phone calls with him, and a NOAA marine forecast update we said it would be foolish of us not to make that 23+ mile run. Well, at the dock in the morning we had mixed reports on the weather. I saw SE turning to SW, but my buddy Rob on the Hideout boat saw ENE 10-20. Thats bad news for this end of the Lake! Well, our team looked at each other and agreed to stick to our game plan. So, down to the power plant we went. Once we got down there and started to set lines the temperature started to drop and that stiff NE wind started to blow. Within 30 minutes we were rockin' and rollin' in 6-8' waves! 23 miles from port might I add! We tried to troll into them knowing that going with them was not an option. Well, that didn't last long! After 10 or 15 waves over our bow we said this is stupid and we collectively made the decision to run back to port safely. 10 miles an hour all the way back and two hours later we were in front of the Oak. Might I add it was almost 10am, which left four hours to fish. As we set up our 8 rod spread the wind just died! I was thinking to myself "you have to be kidding me!" Once everything was in the water it didn't take long to hook up. The 5 color core with a Dreamweaver SS Firecracker goes off. I grab the rod and bring an 11lb Rainbow to the net. That fish would be our only fish on, and our only fish boxed for the rest of the day. Sunday 5/13 (Day 2) - Team decision on the dock this day was to run 10 miles West, set up, and troll NW until we figured something out. We stopped in 100', 175', 200', and finally 250' before we set lines. We popped a quick Rainbow, and then our program started to develop. We ran a pair of 5 color cores off the Otter boats, a 10 color down the chute, 3 downriggers, a wire, and a slide diver. That first fish took a Dreamweaver SS Firecracker off the 5 color core. Then the 45 rigger with a slider started to put out. Both spoons were Dreamweaver SS Da' Shiznits, and either the slider would go or the main line. It didn't matter. That was our hot spoon of the morning! We tried to find something similar to it for the other riggers and finally did with a Dreamweaver regular Green Eye Glow Ghost, which would take our 21lb King Salmon today. We boxed our 12 by 10:30, and headed in for some lunch. Another spoon that took a few shots was a Stinger NBK fished off a 120 wire diver, and also the Dreamweaver SS Firecracker o our 5 color. We finished with 3 Kings, 1 Coho, and 8 Rainbows for a total weight of 82 pounds. We were the first Pro team to box out, and one of only 5 Pro teams to box out on day 2. The fish wanted it on a strict NE troll into the slight chop. We had a line that was absolutely sick! Doubles and even a triple at one point. We would box our 12 toss back 2 shorts, and drop 5 fish. Some of the Rainbows we caught this weekend were real giants, and they were very acrobatic. We finished the tourney in 16th place, which wasn't bad considering our 1 fish day on Saturday. We also took claim to the Siggs Rigs Comeback award for the tourney. The West end is done, and it is time to head down East in a few weeks. When I fish sliding cheaters its mainly when I am fishing a Rainbow or Coho program. Usually with sliding cheaters you loose A LOT of fish. There is just too much slack in the line. However, those new Daiwa Saltist with the high speed retrieves have come in very handy when trying to catch up to these fish on the sliders. A few other boats running these reels have seen the same thing. I can honestly say that these new Daiwa Saltist are putting more fish in the boat!

I hope so!

Typical June fishing here Frank!

A-FISHY-NADO - Your telling me! I can't wait till later on this year! I think everyone on the lake is aiming for a 40 pounder to hit their boats deck!

Our team for this tournament consisted of my brother and I, Rob Wescott of Sandy Creek who runs Legacy Sportfishing, Jeremy Sage of Sandy Creek who runs JDs Custom Charters, and our uncle Eric Pappert. We had a great time! Fishing wasn't as good as it had been, but that is starting to become the theme of this tournament. Regardless of how good or bad the fishing was we still got to see a lot of our friends that we only get to see during tournament times. Friday June 4th (Practice) - We knew that the Niagara Bar had a load of Cohos on it the last two weeks, and my friend Bill Ruth, from Billy V Sportfishing, was heading down there to dial in that Coho program. With us knowing that information we skipped practicing those fish and searched for new water. We left the dock at 4:30am to try and capitalize on that early morning Salmon bite we had last Sunday. We set-up in 60' of water and the screen was OK. We fished out too 300 right smack dab in front of Wilson, and never moved a rod. Sort of disappointed we were off to look for new water. Throughout the day we would pick away at under sized Kings with the Dreamweaver Glow Green Alewife being their favorite spoon fished off our 45 rigger. We would also go on to boat a nice 7 pound Coho during the day, and lose a decent fish on the 5 color core. Not very productive, but we really thought we had a nice pod of fish on the Niagara bar since we were told the screen looked good. Our best screen on our Hummingbird 1157 was 7 miles West of Wilson in about 300-400 foot of water. At one point in the day we took two short guys on one rod. It was pretty cool! Check out the picture. Saturday June 5th (Day 1) - We headed for the Niagara Bar in a nice 2-3' chop from the West. Took us a little bit to get there, but when we did the screen looked very decent. We set rods, and the wait began. We would have great screens and blank screens on the bar at various times. We went through what seemed like 3 or 4 programs and changed out more lure colors than I thought we had. Spoons, flys, and Coho rigs. Nothing worked, and the only keeper fish we had hooked up with was still swimming. So at 11am we made the decision to troll to our waypoints from our practice day. On the way we picked at a few small fish, and one even touched 18", but we didn't want to bring in a small fish and tossed him back so he could grow up. Uncle Eric wasn't feeling well all day. He had just got into town from Mexico at midnight and drove down to the boat that same night. So, we didn't mind that he slept most of the day. It wasn't like we were killing them. He did wake up at one point and we asked him, "what would you throw down?" He mumbled "plain silver 5' behind the ball down 60'!" OK, so down that rig went. 10 minutes later and I hear "FISH ON!" Guess what? That rig Uncle Eric choose fired! We could tell it was a nice fish and we played it with caution. When it hit the deck a lot of pressure was lifted from our shoulders. The skunk was out of the boat! He weighed 23 pounds and looked very healthy. We boxed him and fished for the next 45 minutes trying to put something else in the cooler with him. However, we were not successful at doing so. We headed in and the word from everyone was that the bite was a tough one. Most teams had 3 or 4 fish, and only one Pro team boxed their 12 fish. Sunday June 6th (Day 2) - BLOWN OFF! Yup, thats right! Out of 6 possible tournament days this year we have been able to fish 2 of them. Mother nature has not been nice in 2010. We finished the tourney 35th out of 49 teams. Wish we could have hit the water because the screen we had out there at the end of the day seemed to be very promising. Maybe we could have jumped up a few places. Anyway, see everyone this week at the Oak.

Anything over 300' is on a Penn 345 on our ride. Once we get over 600' an Okuma Titus 50L is about the only levelwind reel that can handle 700 or 800' of copper. I rarely put anything over 500 in the water for customers. The 6 and 7 are for tourneys. The new Saltist 50's can handle 300' of 45lb copper quite nicely, and with the high gear ration it makes it pretty nice to fish copper!

5/29 - Well, today was embarrassing. I woke up to my customer standing behind my boat wondering where I was. I thought they were coming on Sunday, but he booked Saturday. It was all good as my brother and I rushed to get the boat together, and ready for this charter. I knew the Cohos were all over he Niagara Bar, so we broke the pier-heads at 5am and rolled down to the bar. We were one of the first boats there and the bite was fast and furious for the first hour. We boxed 3 in the first hour and then we went flat. The Cohos would come in spurts of 2-4 fish at a time and we would end the day with a nice box of Cohos for John and his family. Our program today consisted of a few short short cores off our otter boats, short wires and slide divers, and three downriggers. Hot set-ups for today were A-TOM-MIK Coho flies in the Ludington and Blue/Green color schemes behind Dreamweaver mini spinnies. Also, a Dreamweaver Get-r-done was taking shots as a slider on our 45 rigger. 5/30 - It was just me and my brother today. We had heard that there were some Kings around, but the bite was very early. So, I woke up at 4:30, and we were leaving the pier-heads a little before 5. We went straight out and set up in 70 feet of water. Screen wasn't great, but we started to set lines. It didn't take long at our 400 copper started to freakin' scream! I handed the rod off to my brother and he began his battle with this fish that would last for a good 25 minutes. As it got close to the net I could tell it was a nice fish, but I had no idea how nice it really was until it hit the deck of the boat. Immediately we put it on the scale and it settled at 29.0 pounds. My brother said he wanted that silver Spring King on his wall so we ran in and put it on ice. We ran back out to the same area and set lines once again, and we began a slow pick for the next hour and a half. We would boat another King around 14 pounds, and two other Kings in the 5 pound range. At 8:30 we called it quits and went in for some breakfast. The big guy took a Smart Fish wonder dot towing an A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist, two of the remaining three fish took a wonder dot Smart Fish towing an A-TOM-MIK shredded Hammer, and the last one took a Northern King THAT spoon. All in all it was a great morning and a good weekend at the Wilson Boat House marina. When we dropped the fish off at Mountain Man Taxidermy he measured it at 40" from the nose to the bottom of the 'V' in the tail. The girth measures out at 25". I can't wait till August and September are here so we can fish for true 40 pound Kings in Lake Ontario.

The Cohos were crazy the past few days!

Thanks...that Atlantic was a beauty!

Today and also again tomorrow I have my very first charter clients fishing with us. Great group of guys spread from Minnesota to the Jersey Shore. After what we did to the Cohos on Sunday it was a no brain'r to go back and beat up on them some more. We left the dock at 6:15 and ran about 9 miles West. When we sat down the screen wasn't great, but we started to set lines anyway. The screen finally got better, and rods started to pop. We ran a 2 color on the furthest line out on our Otter Boats, and a five color right next to it. On the 2 colors we had Dreamweaver Coho Killer and an Orange Slurpee SS going, and on the five colors were mini Dreamweaver Spin Doctors in Orange with blue/green and green/gold A-TOM-MIK Coho Flies. The green/gold was the HOT set-up for the day. On our riggers we put numerous spoons, but the one that went the most was a Dreamweaver SS Firecracker. A few shots on our wires today pulling Green SmartFish/A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist flies. We boxed out, and lost at least another one. That Coho roll is a real winner if you ever want to get un-hooked! Back at it again tomorrow, and the game plan is Cohos then maybe we go looking for a King or two. Not many Kings caught today from what I heard. Our Big guy today was a toss up between a 10lb Coho and a 9lb Rainbow.

5/22 - Today Jeff and his brother came all the way from the Jersey Shore with his son Jacob and his niece Sara. They were tipped off by my Monday and Tuesday crew that the fishing in Lake Ontario is pretty exciting. So, I made the poor kids get up and on the boat by 5:30am and we left for what we heard was a tough bite. We sat down in 60 fow right off Wilson harbor and the screen was LOADED with bait and Salmon. So we set lines on a NW troll. We tried to run a high low program today. High for some cohos to satisfy the kids, and low to try and WOW the kids with a MONSTER Salmon. It took a few minutes after we got set up to entice a fish, but once we did it was a steady pick until about noon. We never saw a Coho, but the skippy Kings put up enough of a fight to put some smiles on the kids faces. Our downriggers were going anywhere from 50-80. The spoon of the day was our Northern King Sea Sick Waddler fished on our 70 rigger. The 80 rigger went with an Northern King THAT spoon as did our 50 rigger with a Northern King dimple light Glow Coyote. We ended up throwing back five Salmon that really needed a few more years to grow up, and that was fully understood when this guy hit the deck and they saw what I meant: This guy weighed a hair over 19 pounds. Not huge, but a very good representation of a Spring King, and compared to the 12-15" Salmon we were catching this was a treat. Our program today consisted of 3 riggers, 4 wires, 2 short cores off one Otter boat and a 300 or 400 off the other otter boat. Just about everything took a shot. Jeff and family went home with a few bags of Salmon fillets, and the kids went home with a smile. To top it off on their way they got to see Niagara Falls, and they tasted some wings from Duffs. Here are some other shots from today: 5/23 - My brother Craig and I took our girlfriends out today, and the weather was exactly what they wanted.....sun and flat seas. Think they cared about catching fish? Nope! All they wanted was to get a sun tan, well they need to learn that those come faster than normal when your trolling on Lake Ontario. On the way out at 9a.m. (yeah that's right 9a.m.) I made a few calls and the story was that it was slow for EVERYONE. So, we just rolled West and pulled in at 4 mile creek before we started to set lines. It didn't take long and we were slowly moving rods. All Cohos for the most part, and there were some real beauties tipping the scale at 7-9 pounds. A-TOM-MIK Coho flies (Blue/Green), Dreamweaver SS's (Firecracker), and A-TOM-MIK Salmon flies (Hypnotist) were doing the trick. Around noon our ten color pulling a Moonshine Carbon 14 started to sing, and when that fish hit the deck we were pleasantly surprised. a 13 pound Atlantic Salmon! Thank you Canada! That fish went back to play another day. We pulled lines shortly there after and headed for the marina. Girls were baked, and our stomachs were empty. It was a pleasant day on the big pond, and we will be out Monday and Tuesday. Check out some pictures from today:

A-TOM-MIKs Toronto Skyline seen while fishing from Wilson harbor To the net!

It is by far the best time on Lake O for Chinooks! If you want FRESH fish then the Niagara Bar is the place to be in early May. Now if you want some BRUTES wait till August and hit up the Salmon River/Oswego River region. However, we do pretty good on the West end with Fall Chinnies.