tbromund

Here she is in the cooler next to a 13 lb steelie, just for a little perspective Tim

that one is called green nuclear (or perhaps nuclear green) that one has been a super flasher for me this year mated with either an Atommik blue glow hammer or Atommik pro-am fly. Tim

Here's one from yesterday 7-11-10 She was bouncing around between 30 and 31.5 on the digital boat scale. Tim

The excellent fishing continues out of Olcott. No mature kings today, but plenty of coho, steelhead, teenage kings, shakers and browns to keep us busy. We had new LOTSA member, Morris Fried with us today. Another 20+ fish day. We started inside, setting up in 60 fow in front of the red barn and had some immediate action on steelies, teenage kings, and 3 nice fat brown trout. Picked at them in 60-100 fow until 0930 or so when the inside action dried up, so we headed north and continued picking fish all the way out to the marks we've been working the past couple weeks out to 400 fow, including a beautiful 12 lb coho. We had cold water inside early, 48 deg down 60, but that went away as the morning progressed, and as the warm water moved in so did the fleas. They were bad today, but not quite as nasty as saturday. Had our first atlantic on, dropped off right at the back of the boat as I was about to net it. It was just a little guy, but he was a jumping fool. Dreamweaver SS NBK on the 45' rigger and blue dolphin stingray on the 160' wire diver were the hot rods today, but all rods in the spread took fish. The 12 lb coho came on a laser spook on the 10 color core. Nice wild teenage king (notice the adipose) about 9 or 10 lbs the 12 lb 'ho trio of nice fat football brownies and of course: where have we seen THIS before 8-) Tim

Thanks guys, it's been a fun summer season so far and much better than the one day back in May when we pulled our first skunkeroo in 4 or 5 years. Tim

Another great day out of Olcott. fished with Dad and Adam Gierach from 6:00-1:00 and again lost count of the bites, but I know it was over 20. We went back out to the marks from last week in 200-350 right out front of harbor and worked north, picked at a nice class of steelies and some super nice (10 lb+) cohos, but the mature kings we had last week were gone. We ended up swinging way back inside and ended the day in 90-110 fow, picked up a 25 lb king in 100 fow near Wilson on the nuclear green spin doctor and glow blue hammer Atommik on the 60' rigger in 64 deg bath water. Ran it in to the scale but fell just short of making the LOC board for at least a little while, it was 24 lb 14 oz on the derby scale and 20th place was 25 lb 3 oz. riggers were fairly quiet today, junk lines took most of the fish, both of the wire divers (240 and 160 on a 2 setting) and the 400' copper took a bunch of hits. first hing in the morning as we were setting lines Adam had a nice coho smash the mountain dew SD green crinkle howie as he was lowering the rigger. That was the only bite that combo took today, the Nuke green SD glow blue hammer Atommik set at 70 feet took several hits. The 240 wire with green/dbl crush glow opti inticer/green krinkle Atommik took a lot of bites today. the 160 diver with a blue dolphin stingray really lit up in the early afternoon once we moved inside. Fleas were horrendous today, they were bad offshore, but were manageable, the stuff inside was absolutely horrible. It seemed more like cottonwood fluff and was clogging up everything including the wire divers. It wouldn't slide on any type of line and even collected very badly on the 30 lb big game I splice onto my rigger rods for just that reason and which has always worked great before. I ended up hand over handing in the 25 lb king the last 20 feet because I just couldn't reel anymore. Adam with a nice teenage king and with a nice coho and where have we seen THIS before I realized afterwards that in our haste to get in to the weigh station, neither Adam or I took a pic of the big guy (gal... it was a female) .... oops Tim

for the past 4 or 5 years, day in and day out, by far my best combo has been the mountain dew/crush glow SD with a green crinkle fly (either Howie or A-Tom-Mik depending if they are wanting a smaller of larger profile fly that day). Especially in overcast conditions. That combo on the 80' rigger fired 13 times on Saturday. Tim

It's a 1986 Thompson 8652 Offshore Hardtop, the forerunner of the 240 Fisherman. From what I understand, that model was discontinued after the 1985 model year and replaced with the 240, but dealers kept ordering them, so Thompson kept building them. Tim

Another super day out of Olcott. Just Dad and I today so 4 rods in the water, 2 riggers and 2 divers and today that was plenty. fished from 0600-1400 hrs (6:00 am to 2:00 pm) started out heading East of harbor set up in front of the microwave in 60-120 fow. Saw Bob Fishlock in there and worked it for a while, picked up 3 dinks and decided to head north. We got out to 200 fow and headed towards our waypoints from last week. Got about a mile from them and rods started firing. We spent most of the rest of the day with fish on. 200-350 fow, straight out and slightly east of harbor. I lost count at some point but we were over 30 bites for the day and at least 15 or 16 boated (dropsies again today, not sure why, checked hooks and were sticky sharp) with 4 doubleheaders (thank god for autopilot ). 3 matures, 1 nice fat brown trout several steelhead and lots of shakers (2 more wild ones today). We had 1 little skip that couldn't have been more than 8 or 9 inches, clipped adipose, had to be this springs plant. Early on it was spoons with a blue dolphin stinger stingray on the 60' rigger taking several hits. As the morning wore on it moved to a spinny/fly bite in a major way. With the overcast conditions, mouintain dew spin doctor w/ green crinkle howie fly was on fire, took 12 or 13 hits on the 80' rigger. With the action the mountain dew was getting I put down the nuclear green spin doctor w/ glow blue hammer Atommik on the 70' rigger and it started firing regularly as well. Light Green double crush glow spin doctor w/ B-fly Atommik on the deep diver (back 240 on a 2 setting) took a couple hits, including a major screamer that took dipsy leader and SD/Fly when the wire jammed up on the spool. (I put fresh wire on both diver rods over winter and this was the first time I had both in the water this season. This was the first time the second wire diver rod had left the cabin and I forgot to let it out and reel in under pressure to make sure the wire was spooled tight ) I let it all out, reeled it back in tight and put it back out with a green double crush Opti Inticer and green crinkle Atommik and it wasn't out 2 minutes before it fired with the brown trout. Not sure what he was doing 80 or so down in 260 fow, not normal BT territory) Shallow diver (160 on a 2 ) with a dalmation R&R superlight took multiple hits with steelies and immature kings. It was a good day to have a boat with a roof as it was raining on and off for a good part of the day. Really seemed to have the fish active though. A few pics; hmmmm as Ted Nugent would say: " Now where have we seen THIS before" Dad with a Mature about 22 lbs Me with a 21 lb Dad with another that bounced between 19.5 and 21 on the boat scale Let's hope these fish stay put for the summer. Tim

Thanks guys, no big guys this trip (though that steelie was awful nice) but it was great to have the rods popping like that after the last two trips out back in May (skunked on 1 trip and an 18 mile run from Olcott to the Niagara Bar for 3 small coho the other). Wish we could have stayed out, because the fish kept biting, but the other two on the boat, my dad and my friend Dave are both in their 70's and couldn't take the pounding once the seas built. Tim

After taking the last three weeks off, based on some of the reports this week, we gave it a shot this morning. Got to the marina at 0600 and had rods in the water around 0630. Steady action all morning, ended up 8/16 when the lake started to get snotty and we pulled lines at 0900. Had a bad case of the dropsies this morning. Kings, cohos and steelhead. Slightly West to straight out in front of harbor in 200-300 fow, North/South trolls. All rigs were working and all 6 rods in the spread took fish today (gotta love when that happens). Deep rigger at 95 with a green double crush glow spinny and green and chart Atommik fly (sorry, don't remember the pattern off the top of my head) went a couple times. Shallow rigger at 70 with a gator SS on the main line and NBK SS on the free slider went a bunch of times, both on the main spoon and the slider (a lot of our drops were on this rod, probably slider bites). Wire diver with green dolphin protroll and matching Atommik fly at 180 on a 2 fired twice (one was a hit and run not counted in the bite total above). Power Pro Diver at 165 on a 1.5 went once with a nuclear green spinny and blue glow hammer Atommik. 200' copper took a nice coho on 6" red double crush spinny and green/blue/silver peanut/coho type fly (homemade). 400' copper with green double crush glow Opti Inticer and green Krinkle Atommik took a nice 9+ lb steelie. Doubled up 9+ lb steelie Some of the evidence of the piscatorial bedlam that ensued this morning 5 shaker kings caught and released, 4 clipped 1 wild. 16 bites in 2.5 hrs, great start to the summer fishing at Olcott, Hope it lasts all season. Tim

Dave Mull responded over on the GLA website. that is a Jim's Break-a-way flasher. The pin pulls when a fish hits so you're not fighting the drag of the flasher as well. http://www.qcove.com/ Tim

Because of the shape of the tail, it is rigid. A coho's tail is not and will fold up on you. Tim

finally dropped the boat in saturday and everything went fine on the shakedown, so we went fishing sunday morning. Great picture from the harbor west in 50-90 fow, nice green water and 52 deg on the surface with lots of hooks on the graph, but the fish seemed to have lockjaw. Very slow for most boats. We ended up 2/4 with a 5 lb king (adipose clipped) and a mature just under 21 lbs landed. All 4 bites today were spoons on riggers. The small king took an R&R magenta shad down 45 in 85 fow and the mature took the good old standard NK28 black and purple down 75 in 80 fow. No action on the divers, 5 color core or the 200' copper. great to be back in the water and looking forward to the fishing season. Tim

Oh, and by the way, if you guys haven't seen the leaderboard, there be some pigs out there this year on the Big O. http://www.loc.org/derby/leaderboard/currentadult.asp Tim

actually the lake trout numbers are WAY down in Lake O right now, so we released all but one small one that chad wanted for the grill. From what we saw on the graph, it sure looked like every lake trout in the Western Basin of Lake Ontario was parked in front of Olcott yesterday though. Tim

I was invited to join my friend Chad and his brother for the Gill-T Hooker's shakedown cruise this morning. We found gin clear water along the shore and nothing happening on the browns and cohos, so we moved out to 45-55 fow and the screen absolutely lit up with what we figured were lake trout. It took us a while to figure out what they wanted, but once we did we ended up with 11 lake trout between 8 and 16 lbs. What we finally figured out was that what they wanted was dodgers and flies and ONLY dodgers and flies, no bites on spoons, stick baits, Spin Doctors, etc, only bites came on dodgers. all bites came on a west troll, couldn't buy a bite going east. Right around 1.5 mph SOG on the gps. Riggers and braid divers both took fish. Beautiful day on the water. Tim

On Thursday April 8th at 7pm the Lake Ontario Trout & Salmon Association (LOTSA) will be sponsoring a Seminar on Spring Fishing Lake Ontario for King Salmon off of the Niagara County shoreline. This seminar will be put on by Captain Bob Stevens of Sunrise II Charters. Captain Bob moves the home base for his Charter operation to Wilson every Spring because the Spring King fishing at this end of the lake is the best in all of the Great Lakes. Captain Bob will review the tackle and techniques he uses every day to provide his Clients with limit catches of Kings. This seminar will provide beginners with a starting point to catch their first Kings along with providing experienced trollers those little things to make them more successful this Spring. Bob, who is a field rep for Church Tackle, Big Jon and A-TOM-MIK Flys, will review how he uses these products to make him more successful on the water. LOTSA is a group of mainly weekend recreational fishermen who are dedicated to the enhancement of the Lake Ontario Sport-Fishery including the pen rearing project at Olcott. Each meeting also features a sharing of information the current fishing conditions. So come join us and become more successful at fishing Lake Ontario! The meeting will be held at the Cornell Cooperative Extension, 4487 Lake Avenue (Route 78 two miles north of Lockport), Lockport, NY 14094. The Seminar is open to the public with a $5 charge for non members. See www.lotsa.org for any questions.

OK, here's a few Tim

Tim

whatever model you end up getting, Garmin is the clear industry leader for GPS equipment. I have a 4 YO Garmin GPSMap 172C Color chartplotter on my boat and it is amazing. The newer units with the 3D charts are out of this world. Tim

a quality Antenna is much more imortant than the radio itself. Shakespeare Galaxy 5225 XT is probably the best one out there IMO http://www.shakespeare-marine.com/antennas.asp?antenna=5225-XT http://www.boatfix.com/shop3/store/viewItem.asp?idProduct=18408 Tim

I believe one someone signs up as a fan, they can post on the wall there. I just did Tim

If someone tries to unload an old 840 on you, punch them in the face and run away before they stick that POS in your pocket when you aren't looking. I used to have one of those, nothing good to say about it. I now have a depth raider and love it. You'll hear people whining about the coated cable, but it really is no big deal. Personally, I'd rather have the coated cable than drill more holes in my transom below the water line to install ANOTHER transducer. The Sub Troll and Depth Raider are essentially the same unit, the only difference is an analog vs digital display, so between the two, it is simply a matter of personal preference. Tim

If one of your New Years Resolutions is to be more successful catching Salmon & Trout in 2010, you might want to consider attending the Best Chance Too Super Salmon Clinic on Saturday February 27th. This 6 hour clinic, taught by Captains Dave Engel and Bill Bale will focus on the detailed techniques they use to become the winningest Salmon and Trout Tournament team on the Great Lakes. Best Chance Too, featured as the cover story in the April 2009 issue of Great Lakes Angler magazine, has accepted LOTSA’s invite to put on their Super Salmon Clinic for the first time in New York State. Captains Dave and Bill are experienced Fishing educators and will present a very much “hands on†Clinic including a significant amount of time answering questions on their techniques. The Clinic will also include a tackle “goodie bag†and a buffet lunch. So, besides being on a beach in Florida, where else would you rather be on a cold day in February than at this Clinic, learning from the best, mingling with 100 fellow Lake Ontario fishermen, receiving a tackle goodie bag worth the price of admission and getting a free lunch! A limited number of seats remain and when they are gone we’re full due to our room capacity and can’t take anyone else. So, if you’re thinking of it as part of your New Year’s Resolutions, signup now before the last seats are gone. You can signup for a seat and see all of the details on this Clinic, Best Chance Too and, the 2010 LOTSA Fishing Expo the next day (Sunday February 28th) at the LOTSA web site www.lotsa.org