Grimsby and Blue Zone Salmon/Rainbow, August 23, 2009

It has been almost two weeks since our last time out on Lake Ontario , and reports were dismal to say the least. None-the-less we needed to discover it for ourselves. We had a late start leaving the dock at 10:30 am and setting up in 80 FOW directly in front of Grimsby at 11:00 am . We would mark a good number of fish on bottom and we ran a number of baits near bottom to try to turn a strike with no avail. It was 39- 41’F water on the bottom and the thermolcline was between 50 and 60 ft. We trolled out to about 140 FOW and the sonar screen went blank for most of the way. At noon we decided to run out to the Blue Zone and not long after going under power we marked a school of bait in 240 FOW. So we set up again and marked the odd fish, but again- no takers. So we made one last ditch effort at around 1:30 to find fish out in the Blue Zone and salvage the day

Out to 305 and inline with Oakville , we set up and immediately marked good bait and some fish. Get four rods in the waterat 2:00 pm and the first rigger rod goes off. 40 feet down and 50 ft lead with Lemon Drop Warrior Mag. Rainbow. My 4 year old son reels the fish in. Set it up and minutes later I see it bump, but no release or shakes, then a minute later it gets a strike and releases and another rainbow shoots out of the water behind the boat on the slider. Aidan reels the fish in closer to the boat only to find that a tiny salmon took the spoon on the main line and pulled in this rainbow on the slider. Two fish on one rod!

The Lemon Drop Warrior Mag was getting regular shots of rainbows and then one nice Coho guessing around 15 lbs comes airborne behind the boat then charges the boat and goes under the rigger cable and then out of the water again. The speed!!! We run the rigger rod around the cable and thought we would have broken this guy off, but we wrestle with the line around the rigger and the other line meanwhile the coho is in the air over and over again. Finally get the line cleared from the other rigger and the fish finally came off. But we didn’t break off! So we strip the line off the reel that got chewed and retied on the Lemon Drop Warrior to get back to business.

We pull the other rigger rod that was running meat down out of temperature for a king and changed it up to a Yeck 88 King Thing and down 45 ft. It managed a fish not long after.

The wire diver had a good crack, but no one was home when I got the rod up and out of the rod holder. It did catch another rainbow near the end of the trip at 4:00 pm when we managed a triple header. The Wire had a 107 Walker Deeper Diver Green Dolphin on 3 setting and out 110 ft using a Glow/Mountain Dew SpinDoctor and an Adrenalin Atommik Tournament fly.

7 colour leadcore and slide diver didn’t get a single strike.

A slow start in tight and then Good action out in the Blue Zone turned things around for us.

Shane Thombs
www.fintasticsportfishing.com