Monday April 11th – First Charter of 2011
We knew going into the morning that weather was creeping upon us from the South West. It was only a matter of time before Gail force winds and thunder boomers (according to the weather man), but we needed to get a few hours of fishing in at the very least. We pulled away from the dock about 6:30am and figured we would run the same troll as the day before. Well, we found out quickly that the mud from the Genesee River got pushed down it's Western shoreline. We trolled for a few hours in that milk chocolate until we reached Long Pond where it started to green up. Once we found the green water the fish began snapping.
Today's spread was a simple Brown Trout, or a typical April fishing spread, consisting of 6-8 lines off the planer boards and 2 riggers. We ran bright stuff on one side and natural stuff on the other. Again, today it didn't matter. They ate both! We ran our lines from 125-175' back on the boards and 40-60' back on the riggers. That Stinger Sea Sick Waddler was HOT again today on the rigger down 4' back 40'. It took our second biggest fish of the day!
Braddock point was the key area. I think the warm water getting pushed out of that bay from the South winds put the fish right on that point, and every pass 3-4 rods would fire. With about 2 hours of fishing left the board on the shoreline side of the boat's furthest line out, and furthest line back, takes a hit. It was a J7 GFR ran back 175'. I could tell it was a good one, but I wasn't ready for what came swimming by the boat 20 minutes later. My eyes about popped out of my skull when this thing hit the deck of the new Trojan. I called it a mid-teens fish, but at the end of the day on an official scale it weighed 16 pounds and 11 ounces. Our second largest Brown Trout ever, and one that made our customers mouth drop! On our last pass of the day we took our second largest fish on the Stinger Sea Sick Waddler weighing in around 12 pounds, which was a great end to a perfect day!
We really enjoyed Jerry Lapier and his crew today, and I know they enjoyed our charter too because they each e-mailed us at the end of the day. You could still hear the excitement they had while reading each e-mail.
Sunday April 10th – Shakedown Cruise
After a few small set backs our new Tourney/Charter boat was put in the water on Saturday. The weather was perfect, the lake was flat, and the scenery from Sodus to Rochester was kind of cool. I'm going to like these cruises up and down the lake I think!
Here goes the FIRST fishing report of 2011 with many more to come! We left the dock with a few Cold Steel team members, and our ladies about 6:30am. After watching just about every boat head East we decided to go West to get some virgin water. We started to think our decision wasn't a good one because it took a little while to get our first hit. Right where Buck pond empties into the Lake we found some warmer water and sure enough there were some fish in it. We more or less tripled up in there, but just kept trolling West because we had a parade of boats behind us. I knew there were more ponds and bays dumping warm water into the Lake ahead of us, so we took a shot. Well, we waited for our next bite for quite some time, but just after passing Long pond the water started to warm up and when we got to Braddocks it was game on. Everything was going on the boards. Bright baits and natural baits were all taking their fair share of fish. Our Stinger Sea Sick Waddler took the big boy of the day on the corner rigger back 40' down 4'.
We tried to hang in less than 10' of water for most of the day. Our trolling speed was between 2.1 and 2.5 on the GPS, and water temps ranged from 39 degrees to 47 degrees.
