Yankee 7/6-7/8 King-A-Thon @ the Oak

[Yankee Troller]

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.

[KJ pluggin]

Those were some great trips Captain, thanks for the report.

[GLF]

Nice smack down Richard! Hopefully you are not day dreaming too much at the desk this week.

[tltorrice]

Thanks for the report Richard. Pat and I will be there the first week of August. Can't wait to get into some lake O. Kings.

[Nailer]

Nice piggies.

[Yankee Troller]

Thanks guys!

Thanks for the report Richard. Pat and I will be there the first week of August. Can't wait to get into some lake O. Kings.

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.