Yankee's Port Delhousie Scotty

[Yankee Troller]

This was one of our favorite tourneys last year! Fishing shallow Spring Kings last year made for a fairly new experience. We had a good day on the second day last year, but struggled on the first day. Putting together two solid days in a tournament is a crucial thing.So, for the last 12 months we looked forward to this tournament, and putting together a top 10 finish.

4/23 - (Practice) Given the warm Spring we have had we launched the boat at the Niagara bar hoping to find some Kings on the Niagara Bar. Well, they were there, but they weren't stacked in there like they will be in a week or two. We caught 7 Kings and as many, or more, Lake Trout without an issue. We found them on top of the Bar in 35-50' of water. Downriggers in the top 30 took half the shots while our 5 color cores took the other half. Maybe a fish or two off a slide diver. On the downriggers the Sea Sick Waddler Norther King was the popular lure. 28 size on the main line cheated with a Mag above it. On the 5 color cores a Dreamweaver Carmel Dolphin in the Super Slim size seemed to be the go to bait. Our largest Salmon was just shy of 18lbs on Friday's practice. Our biggest five on Friday would have looked like this: 17lb, 17lb, 12lb, 10lb, 5lb. Back at the dock it sounded like a tough bite for most, so we felt good about what we had done.

4/24 - (Day 1) With high hopes we took off from the back of the pack and headed East. We saw some warm watter off the Welland Canal on the way in Friday, so we stopped to take a look. That 30 minutes yielded nothing, and the picture was bleak. We pulled rods and ran to our waypoints from Friday! When we got there the water had changed. Down Temp dropped 2 degrees as did the surface, and the green water turned clear. We set lines and started looking. We found some decent marks in our area from Friday, but all we could pull were Lakers. We went into search mode and headed East and North. We had a decent picture most of the time, but getting them to go was almost impossible. About 9:30 the corner rigger fires with a Dreamweaver regular sized Roy's Salmon Seeker. We ended up boating a 7lb Salmon. Thinking we were onto something we changed over some gear and gave it another run through our waypoint. Well, not another rod fired the rest of the day with a Salmon on it.

We ended the day with one Salmon in our box. Very disappointed! When we got back to the dock we started talking to other teams and most struggled, but a few got the bites they needed. The top three teams fished the same area we did! Out of 66 teams about 15 teams brought in a limit of Salmon. Plain and simple we got out fished! It happens! We also heard the they were calling for 30+ winds from the North East on Sunday, and we made the decision to get out of Canada Saturday night given the fact we weren't in contention for anything, and we all had jobs to get back to on Monday. I heard they canceled day two when I woke up Sunday morning, so we made a good decision. Congrats to Joe Toomey and Paul Czarnicki for a 1st and 2nd place finish.

[Nailer]

Too bad for day 1 and 2 Captain Richard. Lets hope this current trek of nice weather all week and crap on the weekends doesn't hold for the summer.

[A-Fishy-Anado]

Too bad for day 1 and 2 Captain Richard. Lets hope this current trek of nice weather all week and crap on the weekends doesn't hold for the summer.

Isn't that the truth!

Rich.....at least the practice was fun. Better luck next time!

[Adam Bomb]

Thats fishin for ya. Thanks for the great play by play.

[Yankee Troller]

Thanks guys! I can't wait to get out there and whale on them in the next few weeks. 6 more tourneys to go for us.

[GLF]

Nice job on da practice day. The wind has really been howling this spring. Someone needs to turn the switch off on the fan!

[Priority1]

Capt Rich, GJ on the practice day.