Team Yankee Troller takes the Western Cup

[Yankee Troller]

Niagara Pro Am

Our charter bookings were great during the month of May out of Wilson Harbor, so we had a lot of time on the water to dial in a solid program. Looking back our program didn’t change much after the first weekend of the derby. Nor did our location! Both days of practice was spent probing the waters a few miles West of Wilson Harbor fishing deep King Salmon. We also found a nice pod of fish between Olcott and the power plant, so we kept that as a back-up in case our primary area dried up. Thursday seemed to be better than Friday, talking pure size, but each day we had our bites. The waters we worked ranged from 150’-350’.

Our spread for the weekend consisted of three long A-TOM-MIK coppers. We pulled a 500 and a 600 off the boards with a 700 down the chute. The coppers pulled meat rigs the entire time, and were our hottest tickets when it came to big fish all four days. We also ran our Cannon Digitroll 10 downriggers with 20lb Shark weights to probe the 125’-275’ part of the water column. Dreamweaver Spin Doctors, and Stinger E-Chips, were primarily used down there to get the attention of the Salmon that were lying on the bottom. Our best flies were A-TOM-MIK Big Fin Glow and Ultra Green Glow on various flashers. Marv’s big Fatty was a good in the mornings, but the Hammertime flavor was easily the best for us. Our chute downrigger pulled a Dreamweaver Sea Sick Waddler Mag, and was a work horse chasing the few fish in the top 100’ of the water column. That chute downrigger went up and down all weekend long chasing marks typically in the 40-60’ range. I’d go out on a limb and say it took 1/3 of the fish for the weekend. Most of which were small Chinook Salmon or Coho, but they helped our box tremendously. Last but not least were our wires. These were HOT for us Thursday-Saturday, but dead on Sunday. We didn’t change out the combos too much, because we had two studs that were taking a majority of the shots. A Dreamweaver Hammertime Spin Doctor pulling an A-TOM-MIK Glow Blue Hijacker fly, and a Stinger frog E-Chip pulling an A-TOM-MIK UV190 out 250’-350’ on a 1.5 setting.

When the weekend was over we had brought enough weight to the scales to take first in the Classic and Trophy divisions! Our team couldn’t have been happier with the win, and that’s when the pressure hit us knowing that the Western Cup was ours to lose.

Orleans Pro Am

Our lips were sealed all week long hoping we could fish the same program we fished in Niagara, but Thursday’s big NE blow iced the waters down a lot and flipped the lake. When we made it out on Friday for some practice we ran North until we found warm water. That water happened to be out on the 31/32N line a few miles West of Oak Orchard were we found 52 degrees on top. That’s where we began to dial in our offshore Steelhead program.

We also checked out the Brown Trout waters off Green Harbor and Johnson’s Creek Friday afternoon, but the inside waters were so chock full of bait it was unbelievable! Alewives were jumping out of the water behind the transom of our boat trying to get away from the downrigger cables, and our baits were constantly snagging them.

When the event began on Saturday we headed offshore in some dense fog and deployed our Steelhead spread. Our three Cannon Digitroll 10’s never really went deeper than 60’ and all three had sliders attached to their main line. We ran two divers and sometimes we had wire in the water while other times we had mono slide divers in the water. For junk lines we started each day with surface lines off the boards, but eventually changed those out to 5 color Stealth Cores. Our chute junk line was a 10 color stealth core which we played with reeling in and letting out a few colors until it fired.

Dreamweaver Super Slims seemed to be the ticket for us during the Orleans Pro Am. Those Steelies wanted it fast, and they wanted the spoons small. The new DUV series has been HOT for us this Spring. The Green Dolphin and the Lemon Ice DUV were our studs on Sunday. Saturday was overcast, and the Sea Sick Waddler took most of our fish.

When the weekend came to a close our team ended up third in the Orleans Classic division and fourth in the Trophy division. More importantly we were able to hang onto, and even gain points on everyone for, the Lake Ontario Western Challenge Cup. The Western Cup has been something we have been chasing for many years watching some of the greats like Cold Steel, Thrillseeker, and Top Gun take home many times.

[N II Deep]

great job

[Priority1]

Capt. Rich, Fantastic.

[Just Hook'n]

Very nice.

Those fish from lake O continue to look just awesome.

[j1musser]

Congrats on the cup!

[KJ pluggin]

Nice job guys!

[Yankee Troller]

Thanks guys!

[SUPERTRAMP]

Well done Capt. Rich. Hope your season continues to produce prodigious results.