Game plan to start was to run the shoreline down to Beamsville where the night before we finished up with a few shots including the 22 lbs king. With the wind on our stern, we worked or way out from 40 FOW. It was going to be a five rod spread rather then run all 8 rods (four of us on board). Keeping the spread light in the rough stuff is not a bad idea. Two Slide Divers, Two riggers and a leadcore down the chute.
We worked our way out and the conditions were getting rough, but still fishable. But for some reason it was a tough go for the first two hours. I worked vigorously changing things up. The picture on the Sonar was favourable with plenty of fish and good schools of bait to suggest our luck should be much better then it was.
The fish on the graph were very active coming into the cannonballs and at first I was running our standard 70 and 100 ft leads. I kept on decreasing the lead length over and over again. 50, 30, 20 then I said, OK now lets do it OLD SCHOOL-> 8 ft behind the ball. 50 feet down, Halo Miami Dolphin Warrior Mag and I got the rod in the holder, cranked down so the rod tip is almost in the water (I sometimes get frustrated with the fish and add a little more bend to the rod). I turn to adjust a diver rod and the rod tip jerks dramatically down into the water, what I thought was already a maxed out rigger stick had reached a new level of bending capability. The rigger rod only slightly relaxes it’s extreme bend and the drag starts singing before I even get the rod out of the holder. It reminds me of those crushing short lead blows on a rigger in the 90’s.
Todd from BC has had plenty of kings (they call them Springs) and was a pro at fighting this fish to the boat even if he didn’t have his single action mooching reel on the underside of the rod. I cleared the rest of the rods and we chased the fish on the big motor into the waves after about 20 minutes of the reel continuing to loose more and more line as the waves pushed us further and further from this muscular fish. When we caught up to the fish the counter read 100 ft and it was almost straight down off the back of the boat in 80 FOW. Neat stuff. We boated the fish and it weighed 23 lbs on the scale.
I took the picture and then got back to work setting the same rod in the rigger the same way. Turn to put the second rod in the other rigger and sure enough the same rigger stick fires. This time the drag is screaming and I asked Terry how much line on the counter? 250! Then seconds later 400, So with one rod in the water we turn on a dime and chase this one down into the waves again. We boat it and it goes 17lbs on the scale.
OK, time to get back to setting rods. And this time I was able to get all five in the water before the rod in the rigger down 40 feet, makes Todd come to his feet and it is yet another reel burner. Love it! We figured it out. Same spoon, Same short lead and this rigger was out of temp as it was riding at 60’F water temp down 40 ft (BTW it is 56’F down 50 ft). We manage to boat this one without clearing too many rods and it weighed 17 lbs as well.
By 8:00 pm the wind just about stopped all together and the lake went from three footers down to a 6 inch. Now we were free to troll any direction and we turned back to where we hooked up on those fish and managed a rainbow on a slider and dropped two others, one on fullcore (10 colours) using a Warrior Mag, Yellow Fin Tuna (3 hr glow as we set for a dusk bite), and the other miss was a short strike on the rigger down 40 ft.
We ran back in when it was dark and the wind started to pick up just as we got to dock. What started off an uneasy feeling, ended the trip with two BC coast salmon fisherman now hooked on the Great Lakes Salmon fishing. We may not have the brutes they see, but they fight vigorously none-the-less. Todd and Terry were a good bunch to have on board in less then favourable conditions to start and they handled the rods well when the bigger bites counted.
Shane Thombs
www.FINtasticSportfishing.com
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