6/9/08

Sorry for the delay in fishing reports, late May & early June were the start of "tournament time" and team Cold steel/A-tom-mik fly/Fat Nancy's was off to the western end of lake Ontario for the first two legs(of 4) of the lake Ontario challenge cup series. Week one was the 24th annual Skip Hartman Niagara county pro-am. With a field of 46 very good pro boats we had a big hill to climb. Luckily fishing was awesome with probably 1/2 the salmon in the lake swimming around in the green pockets of Niagara River water which had set up perfectly from the mouth to the Somerset power plant. Feeling that most boats would catch a lot of fish, we decided to actually pull hot rigs out of the water that were catching tons of small kings and instead troll with a limited amount of deep water rigs that would have a better chance of producing bigger fish. This strategy proved to be nerve racking.

Day 1

Although we were slowly picking away at some nice fish, reports started coming in of lots of boats limiting out and going in by 8 and 9 in the morning. By that time we had 7 or 8 nice fish and weren't worried about finishing off our box! At 10am we had 10 fish and were getting ready to finish up when the "lull" set in! Still with 10 fish at 11:30 that nervous feeling you usually get in tournaments started to set in and we made a decision to put our full spread back out and catch any fish we could to box out. Another 1/2 hour and still no bites. Even better, fish were not even showing up on the fish finder!! We decided to slip back into the shallower water and there they were. Four different fish on the finder, get ready guys here we go........nothing, not a rod moved. Do we keep going towards port? buying more trolling time before we have to run in. Or turn around hoping its a direction thing? After marking 3 more fish we decided to turn around and go over the targets in the opposite direction. Within minutes we knew we had made the right decision, rods started to fly again and two nice salmon in the 9 to 12lb class came into the boat. With the cooler looking packed we knew it had been a great day with a chance of being atop the leader board.

Day 2

Sure enough we were in the lead by 20 points. But there were many friendly competitors willing to remind us that many day 1 leaders had not faired so well in the last few Niagara pro-am's!! We knew they were telling the truth, but couldn't believe that being down by 20 points was a better position. We started day 2 by looking in shallow water near where we had been on day 1. As starting time arrived we weren't happy with our picture and decided to go deeper. Starting in a 150' of water we set lines and trolled. With not much going on we turned out for deeper water and the next hour was what most fisherman dream of. Rods started flying and fish seemed to be coming over the side of the boats in all directions!! The action seemed only to stop when there were no lines left in the water. Landing a bunch of fish early really gave us a chance to go to our bigger fish program. However no sooner did we go to a few deep copper rods and downriggers then our next 2 fish were small 4 to 5lbers. With plenty of time left we dropped the lines even further and headed to deeper water. Before long another strike and yet another 5 pound fish. Looked like our big fish "luck" from day one was turning against us! Taking a troll back towards shore didn't last long when another rod fired and a nice 12lb king came aboard to finish out our limit. One of strengths during tournaments is being able to closely judge how many points we have. Heading in we guessed around 200 to 208. We thought that would keep us in the top three with a chance at 1st. Luckily when we had that big early morning flurry the fish were coming in so fast that we had misjudged many of them. Even better it was in our favor!! Our cooler weighed in with over 230 points and we would definitely hold on to first place!!

The Niagara pro am has a long history and it felt great to ad our name to the winners list. It also gave us the lead in the "Best of the West cup" going into Orleans county the following week. And most important to us the early lead in the "Lake Ontario challenge cup" but with a long way to go!!

Week 2 The Orleans county Pro Am

After a couple of days off with the families, we headed back out west to run a couple of charters and get ready for the 2nd leg of the series. It only took about 20 minutes to figure out "BIG" changes had taken place! The 40 degree water down 120' was now down 20', and the tight concentrations of salmon were now spread out over the entire western half of the lake!! Week one was who would catch the bigger fish. This week would see who could catch the most fish of any size. Day 1 we had some decent action but took our turn with undersize fish. 14" to 17" juvenile salmon and 21" just under rainbows took us on a rollercoaster throughout the day. We ended up in 650' of water with 4 legal fish for the day. This put us in 14th place about a fish out of 7th.

Day 2 started off decent again with some steelies. Some legal, some not, and some lost! As that dried up we slowly worked our way deeper landing a keeper once in awhile between undersized fish. Late in the day we lost a 12lb king behind the boat(Ugh) and landed a small coho to finish with 6 fish for the day. Reports were that a few boats ahead of us on day one had struggled, so we had a chance to move up a little. At the weigh in we jumped up to tenth. We were a little disappointed not to have done better, but knew with a strong field of boats grabbing another top ten finish isn't bad. After a long wait of tabulating scores we found out that we had indeed captured the West cup, and retained a lead heading into the 2nd leg of the Lake Ontario challenge cup!!!

Water Reports:
Salmon River projected flows

Salmon River actual flows (USGS)

Oswego River actual flows (USGS)