Yankee's Labor Day Weekend

[Yankee Troller]

9/3 (Morning) – We left the dock around 6am with hopes of staging Kings on the brain. We shut down in 50’ of water and headed E/NE where we would work the 60-90’ range. The picture in the morning was great, as it’s been the last few weeks, but that 6-7am period is pretty dead for the staggers. We fished a simple program. A meat rig fished on our deepest rigger which we tracked bottom with keeping it no more than 5’ off the bottom. On the other two downriggers, and our two wires, we ran flasher/fly type baits. Lastly, we put a 10 color and a 300 copper out on our Otter boats with either a plug or a flasher/fly combo. About 7am, like clockwork, we make the turn to go back through that great screen we just trolled through, and as the boat pointed north we doubled on majors. A meat rig went on the deep rigger, and a black/dew Spin Doctor with an A-TOM-MIK Live TG fly went on the rigger 10’ above the meat. We would go onto pick fish from 7-11am pretty regularly. However, our batting average would be right around .500 for the morning trip, which can be expected this time of year given the hard mouths of these staging fish as they transform. We also took a fish on a #5 Lyman plug out on the 10 color, which never made it down the planer tow line before a King rocked it. You would think with that type of reaction, and such a little soak time, that it might go on to be the MVP of the day. However, that would be the only shot it would take.

9/3 (Afternoon) – We left the dock around 3:30 with the intentions of heading offshore for some Steelbow and immature Salmon action. After the stroke-fest we witnessed from 11-2pm we wanted to put our clients on some fish, and not just look at them on the fish finder. On the way out of the harbor a phone call changed our plans, and we found out that the bite was on in the 45-55’ range. We set up in that water a touch west of the chute, and had a slow pick of fish the rest of the afternoon. We worked the pump house to the park area, and we ran a similar program to the morning minus the copper rod. Our best presentations were a meat rig, and a green glow sushi fly fished behind SmartFish. Our batting average for the afternoon trip was worse than the one we experienced in the morning. We could hookup with them, but they would either break off or just come un-glued.

9/4 – We had the same group of clients from the night before. They had entered in the derby, and we had entered in the Johnny V tournament at the Oak. We went back to the same water from the night before and set-up, but we just weren’t seeing the fish. We quickly realized it got warm in there, and pointed the boat NW. When we hit 75’ feet of water the screen started to get better. We would go on to work the 75-85’ a majority of the morning.

We felt we had a very good morning program so we didn’t change up anything, and kept it the same as the morning before. We would pick fish for a good portion of the morning, but about 10:30 that bite would die. We knew we weren’t going to rot in that water like we did the day before, so we picked up the coppers and worked into 50’ to see if the active fish slid in there like they did the day before. That screen was drier than it was in the morning, so the only other option was to point it north. When we got to 105’ the screen started to show off some suspended fish, and that’s when rods started to fly again.

We finally got our divers to go on this morning. They were put on a 3 setting out 150-225’ pulling a green dot SmartFish/A-TOM-MIK Blue Glow shredded Hammer, or a green dot SmartFish/A-TOM-MIK Hypnotist. We were pleasantly surprised when the A-TOM-MIK Glow Blue Hammer Shred took off around 1:30pm and about 20 minutes later the largest Salmon caught on one of our charters hit the deck. I could see this fish had a heck of a tail, but it never hit me until I had to pick this beast out of the water in the net. We would go on to fish until 3pm, and pick away at fish. We knew that we had a LOC derby fish in the cooler and one of the top five spots in the Johnny V tournament. Other baits that took fish were a green got green Spin Doctor pulling a Bobblehead fly, and a meat rig on our 400 copper.

When we got to the scales we figured we had 73 pounds with our three biggest fish, and we were right on the money. However, we also found out we were in second to Warf Rat by about four pounds. We quickly put the fish back in the cooler and headed to Narby’s to weigh it for the Fall LOC. On the derby scale it read 33lbs 3ozs, which was good enough for 8th place.

Me with the 33lb BRUTE! I had to picture hog it!

A nice Coho!

A very colored up Rainbow caught in the lake!

9/5 - We were still very much pumped about that huge King Salmon from the day before, and we knew right where we wanted to fish. We set-up in the same water as Sunday, and worked it from the pump house to the park. The fish were still there and they were cooperating. We did 5 fish between 7-8am, and then sat for about an hour and a half before we got back on them. The meat on the deep rigger along with our diver pulling that same green dot SmartFish/A-TOM-MIK Blue Glow shredded Hammer would go on to be the hot baits of the morning. However, as the bite died we started to change up the spread. It seems like when we would put something down it would fire once and that was it. We put down a black spin doctor/A-TOM-MIK Live TG combo, and it went right away. We put a brand new Moonshine plug out on the 300 copper, and it took a ride almost immediately, but would never take another sniff.

The lake got to be nasty by about 11am, and we knew we were done at 12pm, so we rode it out and picked a fish or two in that timeframe before calling it a day.

[KJ pluggin]

Great job finding some hogs Captain! I would have thought you crew would have had more smiles though.LOL

[Yankee Troller]

LOL...tell me about it! I guess I always focus on the fish when taking pictures, and never pay much attention to the faces of the people. I can assure you they all had a great time, but thanks for tipping me off to making those guys smile at the end of the day when they are getting their mug shots!

[A-Fishy-Anado]

Nice job Capt Rich......once again great report and thanks for sharing the pics:thumb:

[Just Hook'n]

33 LB HOG. Sweeeeeeeet.

Nice trip and as always great report.