Yankee's Tourney Month

[Yankee Troller]

Sorry for the delay guys! It's been a long tourney season with more events than ever! We fished four events back to back with charter tossed in. I will get back to up to date reports starting this weekend.

Niagara 1

Practice -

Monday and Tuesday - The group that was our very first charter eight years ago were up for their annual trip. We truly enjoy this trip, and they timed it just right this Spring. Fishing was decent with a mixed box of Chinook, Steelhead, and Coho. There was a defined break where the river water and Lake Ontario water intersected. At times it looked like someone drew a line in the water with green on one side and black on the other. This was the place to be! The salmon were on the inside while the Coho and Steel were on the outside.

We ran our typical spread. Our three Cannon downriggers, two wire divers, and 3-5 junk lines. When we were in the black cold water our surface lines worked great! Split shot rigs with Dreamweaver Orange Slurpee SS’s and Orange Squiggle Brad Thin Fish on flat lines were by far the best! In the warmer river water our 300-500 coppers, 200-300’ wire divers, and our riggers from 50-150’ took all our Salmon. It’s been a metal or meat bite thus far for us, but on occasion we were taking a whack on a fly.

Friday - We went back to our numbers from Monday and Tuesday to find out the fishing was even better! We ran the same spread, and ended the day early because we didn’t feel like we were learning anything. Salmon were flying over the back of the boat as fast as we wanted, and on these types of days you’re better off going somewhere completely different, or heading back to the dock. We choose the later to prepare our gear. This tourney was going to be a different experience for us. We had two groups of clients over the course of the weekend. One who had fished with us before, and another who was completely new.

Tourney -

Saturday we set down a mile East of our numbers and worked into. Our bites weren’t coming nearly as fast as the day before, but rods were moving. We knew to keep the small fish off we had to keep stuff deep. Our riggers were parked at or below 100’, our divers were at 225’ or further out, and our junk lines were all long coppers. We had a mix of spoons, meat, and flies out. Our meat bite was by far the best. Familiar Bite has really nailed it this year! The meat seems to be holding up a lot better than in the past. We did have a two face flasher going with a Green Crinkle fly on a 600 copper, but that was the only flasher/fly combo we could get to go.

We finished our box by 10am, and headed back to the dock with a decent box of fish. When we hit the scales we found ourselves in 5th place after day 1! Two fish hurt our box. One Coho that came on a 250’ wire, and the other took a 500 copper. Why they were down there is beyond me, but we would have liked to stay away from those two fish to get a little higher on the leaderboard.

Sunday we started a little further East looking for a little better quality. That didn’t happen, and the bite slowed, so we trolled back West to our numbers. We got back into the fish, and stayed off the small ones until our 12 fish hit while we were fighting #11, and it was a Coho on an 80’ rigger. When we hit the scales after day 2 we found ourselves moving up the leaderboard one spot, and claiming 4th place in the first Niagara Pro Am of 2014.

This event was kind of special to us because we fished Day 1 and Day 2 with two different charter groups. Not your typical tourney team, but we made it work!

Niagara 2

Practice -

We ran a charter Friday prior to leg two of the Niagara County Pro Am. Once we got on the fish the bite was actually pretty good! We had a nice mix of Chinook, Coho, and Steelhead out on the break just North of Wilson in 250-300’ of water. We had Chinook coming deep on the inside of the break on spoons and Familiar Bite meat. On the outside of the break our surface stuff was hot. Northern King C5 five of diamonds on spilt shot rigs took our steelhead as well as 30-40’ wire divers on 3.5 setting pulling Dreamweaver SS’s in Gold Watermelon and Green Hornet.

Tourney -

Day 1 we ran out to our numbers and put out our spread. We ran our three Cannon downriggers deep, two wires deep, and on our junk lines we had a mix of deep coppers, and surface lines. The bite wasn’t there! We tried it for a few hours, but it wasn’t happening. We picked up and ran to the Niagara bar. There were some boats doing fish down there, but we never got them going. We picked up again and ran back to our numbers thinking we would work the cold side of the break for a limit of Steelhead, but that never amounted to anything either. We would weigh in 3 fish on day 1, and find ourselves in the bottom on the leaderboard.

Day 2 we ran back down to the Niagara bar to catch the morning bite, and it was a decent one, but we just couldn’t stick the fish. We knew we had no chance, but we gave it a go. The nice thing about fishing the Niagara bar is everyone is grouped up. So we spent most of the morning launching water balloons at the competition. When the day was over we had 4 fish to weigh. A slight improvement, but Lady O handed us a rare butt whoopin, and we took it with our heads held high.

Oak Orchard Open

Practice -

This was a new event that required strategies never seen before on the Lake Ontario tourney scene. We had to catch 5 Salmon and 5 Trout. Thursday night a few members of our team got into some Salmon right out the front door, so Fridays practice was spent East of port probing those waters for Salmon and Trout. We had a good pick, but dropped a lot of fish. The fish we did box would be good enough for 8th place in the Condor Memorial event. Similar to the two weeks prior there was a major break out around 250’. That is where we concentrated our efforts.

Tourney -

Day 1 we headed right out the front door. The strategy was to box 5 kings, head to Devil’s nose for our three lake Trout, and then go offshore for two Steelbows. Our box happened just like we planned it. Our Kings were coming on Familiar Bite meat fished off long coppers, and our deep Cannon downrigger parked between 140-175. It took us until 9am to box those fish, and off to the nose we went. On the nose we fished 70-100’ of water with Hammerhead Cowbells. Within a few hours we were happy with the size of our trout, and we headed offshore for our steelbows. Once we got to the break the Steel came quick. Our 30-50’ wire divers on a 3.5 setting pulling a Dreamweaver gold watermelon SS, and a 5 color core pulling a Stinger yellow tail were our go to set-ups. When our fish hit the scales we were shocked to find out we were leading the event by 3 pounds.

Day 2 we went with the same plan, but in the morning we decided to keep those two steelbow rigs out there to see if we could get our Kings and Steel in the morning. By 9:30am we had 5 kings in the box, and two really nice bows. Off to the nose we went to find our Lake Trout. While we fished Lake Trout we decided to put out two meat rigs on the wires just in case there was something roaming around in there on the bait. That was a great move! We went 1 for 2 on Chinook in there. The one we did land was our biggest of our box at that point. It took us an hour to get three Lake Trout over 13lbs on our Hammerhead Cowbells, so we slid North and put out an entire Salmon program. Three long coppers, two deep wires, and our three Cannon downriggers parked deep. We only took one shot, but it was our biggest fish of the day on a copper with a meat rig. That fish culled out our last small Chinook, and we knew we had a really nice box. When the fish hit the scales we had 134lbs with 10 fish, and the nearest competitor on Sunday was about 50 pounds behind us.

It was really special that we took 1st place in the first Oak Orchard Open, and we couldn't have done it without a great team effort.

Day 2 Box

Spring Tightline

Practice -

We ran from Bluffers to the Credit River scanning water, but it all looked warm. We finally settled on an area right on the boarder where there was a temp break a little East of the NW corner. This is where we took our fish n practice. Our big guys, which took 2nd place in Big FIsh Friday came on a Familiar Bite meat strip. Our other fish fell victim to a Dreamweaver Sea Sick Waddler fished on our Cannon out and down, and a Dreamweaver Hammertime Spin Doctor/Hammer fly on our wire diver. We didn't catch a lot, but we found some nice water in the last couple of hours.

Tourney -

We started on the Toronto drop, and we got sucked in with some early fish. We never dud run offshore to those fish from practice. By 9:30am we had 5 bites, and had three in the box. Knowing it was a tough bite we figured we could grind out six off the drop. Two of the fish fell victim to Familiar Bite strips, but the big guy for us ate a Hijacker behind a Two Face Legendary Smartfish down 200' on our Cannon DT-10. After 9:30am we wouldn't take a bite, and it was frustrating. Do we go offshore or not? We chose to grind it out inside, and it failed us. However, the winning box came from the drop, so we were in the right place, but we never had the program dialed in.

[JWheeler]

Nice job Rich! The Yankee seems to kick @55 frequently!

[Yankee Troller]

LOL....thanks!