Summer LOC Derby Fishing Log:
June 23rd PM:
Got out in the late afternoon with my dad and Jim Mehegan for some LOC fishing. We dumped in at Sodus and headed west in front of Maxwell Creek over 75 fow. We set lines heading deeper and as soon as we hit 100 fow (feet of water) the slaying began! As long as we were between 100-110 fow we could barely keep 4 rods in the water and we doubled up numerous times. They were all lakers and they were hungry for lemon drop sushi flies! Somewhere around our 10th fish, Jim pulled in a monster laker pulling our scales to 15 1/2 lbs:
We would continue to bang lakers all the way to in front of Hughes and then as storms began to approach from the west, we started working our way back east. We put over 25 lakers in the boat with over 30 on before the storms produced a 40 kt gust front that surged towards us and we had to call it a night. As we powered in the gust front overtook us and we saw at least a dozen gustnado waterspouts! Awesome fishing AND storm chasing - it doesn't get any better!! Too bad my cell phone got dosed with laker slime and became non-functional...
By far our best rig was the lomon drop sushi fly behind a Mt. Dew spinny, but the following also took fish: Wonderbread spinny with Man O War sushi fly, NBK spinny with destroyah sushi fly, and carmel dolphin spinny with mirage sushi fly. Riggers were set at 80 and 90 ft and wires were out 250 - 350 on a #2 setting.
June 27th AM:
Got out with my dad for a morning outting, and set up the same pattern as last time for lakers. However, they were not packed in like last time. Best screen was over 75 fow where we had bait and suspended hooks, but it was a slooooow pick at 'em. We then worked further west towards Hughes and had a few good flurries of action with steelies, a few skip kings and a couple mid-teens kings. Best lures were the blue dolphin spin doc/aqua hammer fly, blue dolphin mag stinger, and destroyah sushi fly.
June 27th PM:
Dropped my dad off at Hughes and picked up my father-in-law. Headed out to the same spot where we did the last two fish earlier and before I could get our spread down the 90 ft rigger pops with a skip king. Start setting back up and the 80 ft rigger pops with a nice 8 lb steelhead. We're off to a good start!! Circled around and did two more kings about 10 lbs each. The wind started to come up out of the NE and started pushing 2-3's making it a bit sporty out there. We did one more skip king and an 8 lb laker before we called it a day. Same lures working as in the AM.
June 28th AM:
Got out initially solo for the first hour and a half while I waited for Woody to get out to Sodus Point. In that time I was able to boat a couple decent 6 lb browns on the riggers set at 40 and 50 ft over 50-65 fow off Maxwell. Picked Woody up and came back to the same area to work the browns some more and managed another 8lb brown and 8 lb steelhead. Lost another 10+ lb brown about halfway back to the boat. All the fish were loving the Dreamweaver Purple Diehard SS spoons! Then we had some boat traffic that shut the bite off so we headed deeper and started to get into a few kings.
June 30th:
July 1st:
Today my brother and I decided to leave the so-so fishing in our area and head way west where we kept hearing of good reports of kings. So we headed out at 2am and made the long treck out to the Niagara River with an initial target of the "Red Can", a bouey in front of the Niagara River that marks the edge of the "bar" or drop-off. We splashed down in the river at 4:30 and headed to the Red Can. We set-up just inside of the can and our screen was lit up with hooks. We started with a spread of purple and green spoons and spin-docs/sushi flies. As soon as we came off the bar the rods started to fly. First fish to hit the deck was a beautiful 15 lb atlantic!
If I didn't already have a mount being done, this one would have been on its way to the taxidermist. It then quickly became evident that the kings wanted the green sushi flies as king after king hit the deck, and within 45 minutes we had gone through all of our sushi bait!! So we continued to use scraps and bare flies, but they were snatching them up as soon as they hit the water! Doubles and triples were common and the number of fish we hooked into was staggering!! These kings also fought extremely hard for their size (the mid-teens kings fought like mid-20's fish) and beat us and our tackle up! We think they were a new breed of intelligent kings, as they were barrel rolling around our wires 5-6 times then taking off leaving us with a tangled mess and cut-off lines, breaking swivels and the welded rings on the back of our dipsies, opening split rings, and twisting our clips into knots!!
Our realestate for the day was a small 1/2 mile wide zone filled with kings that we never had to venture away from.
Despite the loss of gear, it was a king-fest all the way and would become a new style of fishing we would coin as "Stupid Fishing", because it was so crazy insanely good fishing, we doubt we will ever have a day like that again, and we made some bloopers videos that will keep us laughing for years! We fished from 5am until 3pm and our final count was a staggering and unbelievable 83 for 104, all kings from skips to teenagers around 18/19 lbs, with most in the low to mid teens. Needless to say our arms were like rubber bands that night!
July 2nd:
Due to what we had experienced yesterday, even though we didn't boat a king over 20 lbs, we decided to head back to the Niagara for some more abuse and to experience some more of that unbelievable fishing - will it ever be that good again?? We thought we should take advantage while we could!! So the alarm sounded at 1:30am and we were off to the Niagara bar again. We set up in out honey hole close to 5am and it was game on!! While it wasn't as fast and furious as the day before, we still did very well boating over 40 fish (mostly kings, with browns, lakers and steelhead in the mix). Same sushi flies and spoons as yesterday, along with glitter mirage sushi flies were working today. Biggest king today was around 23 lbs, just shy by a couple pounds of winning the PEDD derby today!
July 6th:
Today we launched from Fair Haven and headed east out of port towards Oswego (aka "O-Town"). We set down a little west of the college over 150 fow and the FF screen lit up with bait and hooks. Soon after setting lines, the rods began to fly and the bite was ON! Our third or fourth fish was a real brute and pushed the scales to 21 lbs:
He went back to fight another day and we continued to boat fish with several doubles!
Then at 9:45, the port side rigger fired and began peeling line. My brother was once again on the rod and brought another slob king to the net:
This one pushed the scales to 24 lbs - finally a potential PEDD fish!! We continued to work that area until we called it a day at 3pm and finished 28 for 40+. Our best lures were the white/green dot spin doc with ultra green glow fly, gator nader, gator, and black with green glow mag spoons, purple diehard super slim spoons, and zilla and destroyah sushi flies. The large king for today weighed in at 24.10 lbs and took the PEDD for today! That netted us $100!
July 7th:
Today it was just Jeff & Tim fishing and we were initially torn between working the same area that had produced yesterday and working further east to find another honey hole for the weekend. We decided to "smoke 'em while we got 'em" and hit our honey hole just west of the college. It took us almost an hour to get our full 4-rod spread out this morning because we kept hooking up! The hot bite continued through 7:30 with kings up to 12 lbs, browns, and lakers. Since the fish were of a smaller class (and of mixed species), we decided to work into some deeper waters and at 8am, the port-side wire got hammered! Soon thereafter my brother boated this 20 lb'er:
We continued to whack 'n stack 'em and, had this been the Pro-Am, we would have boxed out by 8:30am! The next good rip came on the 95 ft rigger and Tim was on it! 15 minutes later this upper teens king hit the deck:
Then we had a bit of a lull before the 125 ft rigger took off singin'! With Jeff back on the rod and 3/4 of the spool out, we knew we had a good fish on. It took about 25 minutes to bring it to the boat and the net slid under another slob king!
This one pushed the scale over 26 lbs and we had another potential PEDD and LOC fish! Then, as luck would have it, our electric Mag-5 rigger stopped working and wouldn't come up with 95 ft of cable still out. So we had to manually wind-up the rigger from the depths and we decided with the slob in the cooler to call it a day and drop off the rigger at Screwy Louie's when we weighed-in the king.
The king weighed-in at 26.4 lbs, placing 12th in the summer LOC and took the PEDD too - the second day in a row for Jeff and another $200!!
July 13th:
Today we begun pre-fishing for Big Fish Friday and the Sodus Pro-Am Tournaments this upcoming weekend, so we targeted the waters between Sodus and Pultneyville. Today Tim & Jeff launched from Hughes Marina and were greeted with 4-6 ft waves out of the NW (a little too sporty for dad), making it a slow go out to 120 fow where we set down and put our spread out. With the strong west winds yesterday (giving us a down day and allowing us to install our new Mag-5 electric rigger) we expected to find the temperature pushed to the bottom, but were happy to find 50 degrees down only 100 ft. So we set the riggers at 125 and 140, and set the wires out 400 and 440. It wasn't long and we boated several skip kings (less than 4 lbs) as we worked deeper. Once we hit 220 fow, the port side wire gets whacked HARD and starts to sing! My brother got on the rod and after 20 minutes we hauled a beautiful 21 pound king over the stern. We then began to whack 'n stack 'em once again boating several mid to upper teens kings. We continued to work a 1/2 mile swath of water that produced fish in both north-south directions. We had to end the day early today at 10:30 and were 21 for 30+, including several more mid to upper teens kings and another pushing 20 lbs. No pics today due to the rough conditions and fast pace of the hits.
July 14th:
Today Tim & Jeff headed out of Hughes again, expecting to find tranquil conditions (as there were light winds), only to find 3-5 ft swells out of the NNE! So it was another slow-go out to our honey hole. We set down over 160 fow and put the same program down that had been producing day after day for us. The FF screen was the best we had seen this year with tons of hooks and occasional suspended bait pods. Soon after the 4th rod was set, the rigger took off and we were hooked up! After a short fight we boated this upper teens king at 5:30am:
We continued to boat several smaller kings and several in the low teens until about 10:30am when the bite died and the screen went blank, as if someone had flipped a switch! So we went into search mode trying to find where they had went. When we swung out deeper we found them over 300-350 fow...smack dab on the bottom!! Too many hooks to count and they were LARGE marks. So since we couldn't get our riggers that deep, we decided to pull all lines, shut down the motor, and try dropping a jig rig and a whole bait down 5-10 ft off the bottom to see if we could entice them to hit. We tried this for 25 minutes or so with no luck, so we geared back up and started working east towards Sodus.
With nothing happening, we decided to try in closer and swung into 100 fow, where we began to mark bait and fish. It wasn't long before we boated a couple skip kings and an 8lb brown just west of Maxwell. Then the port side wire took off screaming! After a 10 minute fight a nice 18 lb king hit the deck. We did a couple more low teens kings as we worked back towards Hughes before calling it a day.
