Olcott July 11,12 and 13

[tbromund]

Thursday July 11

I took my friend Bill and his son Bill Jr (who was in town from Arizona for the week) out for some salmon fishing. Found the lake a little lumpy with 2-3’s out of the NW. Set up in 60 fow in front of the barn and headed offshore on a NE troll. First bite came in 240 on a black and purple NK28 on the 50’ rigger, decent teenage king and Bill Jr’s first salmon ever. That was quickly followed by a nice 8 lb coho on the same spoon.

Kind of a slow pick but we managed 9 or 10 bites for the day, including a fat little brown trout that must have gotten lost on the 50’ rigger out in 280 fow. The lake laid down as the day went on. Fleas were horrible and there was a ridiculous east to west current out there. Mostly a spoon bite, NBK stingray took several hits later in the day. Not the kind of action I was hoping to get them into but they were happy.

Friday June 12

LOTSA Curt Meddaugh Memorial Prefish Tourney: ugly day out there, with a stiff E/NE wind and 3-4 footers with the occasional rogue 5-6. We actually found that a N-S troll was bearable, so Dad and I worked between 100 and 240 fow between Olcott and Wilson. Not a lot of bites, in fact we were trolling south back to port when a diver started screaming and a good fish ripped off 100+ yards and then spit the hook. Gotta love Michigan Stinger, not only does the paint and tape fall off their spoons if you look at them cross-eyed, but the stack hooks suck as well. That was on a blue dolphin stingray. Moments later the high rigger fired and we put a teenage king in the box, so we decided to make another N-S pass and see if we could pick up a couple more.

We made 2 more passes and picked up 2 mature kings to get our 3 fish box for the tournament. Both came on the Mountain Dew SD/green crinkle howie fly on the probe rigger at 80 feet. With the E/NE winds we were watching the cold water move in on the probe as temps got colder at the ball as the day went on and I fully expected the lake to flip from the NE.

Saturday June 13

LOTSA Club Tournament

Lake laid down to dead flat calm overnight, so the Tournament was on. Today, dad and I had Mac and Gary Melnyk out fishing with us for the Club Tourny. Got rods set and the 50 foot rigger fired with a screamer that shook the spoon after a long run. The old black and purple NK28 again. The lake did not flip, but down temps were much higher in the water column today, we had 42 deg at 60 feet.

The lake quickly built to 2-3 footers again. We ended up with 15 or 16 fish for the day, lots of 1 year old kings, a small atlantic, a couple steelhead and a couple nice mature kings. 60 down was the hot depth, the Mountain Dew SD/green krinkle howie was hot on the probe rigger at 60 feet taking a bunch of bites. Once the sun came up I pulled the white glow green dot/hammer off the starboard wire diver and replaced it with a nuclear green SD/Hammer, back 180. It was in the water about 5 minutes when it fires with a major screamer that after a lengthy battle, came to the net at 0930. It was bouncing between 29 and 31 lbs on the boat scale. That fish, six hours later at the Tournament weigh in was 28.95 lbs, good for 1st place in the Club Tournament.

All in all, a good three days of fishing despite the rough water.

Tim

[Just Hook'n]

MAN, If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times - those Lake O monsters look awesome.