Yankee @ the Sandy Creek Shootout

[Yankee Troller]

We moved the boat down to Sandy Creek on Friday night. We just got back from the East end tourney’s last week which meant we haven’t wet a line on the West end in about a month. We’ve heard how good the fishing has been, so we were eager to experience it. We broke the pier head around 5:30am and headed straight out and set down in 80’ of water.

We put out a similar spread to the one we always use. On our Cannon DT-10’s we put down a Northern King Sea Sick Waddler, a Moonshine Carbon 14, and a Dreamweaver Glow Frog SS. The temp break was down about 50’ where there was anywhere from a 10-15 degree break that went from the upper 60’s to the 40’s. Our 50’ rigger was pulling Brown Trout and Rainbows on the Glow Frog. The 70’ rigger was our HOT king rigger with the Sea Sick Waddler, which also took our biggest King which weighed in about 20 pounds. Lastly, the 90’ rigger pulling the Carbon 14 worked the marks on or near the bottom in 120-140, but all we could manage were Lake Trout. Our wires pulled Walker Deeper Divers trailed by Smartfish/A-TOM-MIK combos. One was a green dot/Hypnotist, and the other was a wonderbread/Hammer combo. We put a pair of 300’ coppers out on the boards and ran a 400 copper down the chute. The 300’s pulled paddle fly combos, and the 400 pulled some meat.

Everything took fish! However the size of the fish was a little bit on the small side for us. We worked the 130-150’ range for a good portion of the morning. We were able to pull one big guy from there, and a MONSTER Lake Trout. This Lake Trout hit a 300 copper pulling an e-chip/A-TOM-MIK combo. When we got it in the boat the scale bounced between 21 and 25 pounds. When it hit the scales at weigh in it came in just under 23 pounds. We had to pull off the smaller fish, and choose to head North and get some more water under us, and when we hit 200+ our bite switched to a strictly King bite, but they were just 2yr olds. The 400 copper was practically dead all day until we got out to the deeper water when it took our third biggest fish of the day. We thought this fish was much bigger than what he turned out to be. We cleared our coppers and wires to turn on this fish in the 4-6’ seas because it was a hot fish. He turned out to be a long slender King in the upper teens, but not the 20+ pounder we were hoping for. About 12:30 the corner rigger fires with a Dreamweaver Gator and is screaming line. He would be our 4th best fish about 15lbs, and would be the last fish we boxed for the tourney.

We pulled lines at 1pm because we had enough action and waves for one day. 39 fish hit the floor of the boat, and only 4 fish would be keen enough to get away before they took a ride in our net. Wish we had that kind of batting average over the Pro/Am’s the last few months! In the end we would end up 2nd behind Trout n About, and right above Legacy who finished in third. Those two boats took their Kings to the West off Devils Nose. The organizers put on one heck of a tourney! One of the more fun laid back tourneys we have fished in quite some time! A huge thanks goes out to all of them as I know firsthand how time consuming putting on these events can be.

[Priority1]

Capt. Rich, GJ in the tourney and thanks for the detailed report.

[SUPERTRAMP]

Now that is a slobber knocker trout. Great report on the tournament skipper.

[A-Fishy-Anado]

Nice job & great report Rich!!

[Yankee Troller]

Thanks guys!

[GLF]

Congrats Capt. Richard. Nice to hear things turned around for you.