Adrian and Gerald catch more than an independent salmon on Independence Day, July 4, 2012

A boat full of Canadians likely contributed to our luck finding more than one independent Chinook salmon on the American holiday Independence Day.

Adrian Fleming is the previous owner of Grimsby Tackle but retired from the business and has spent more than half the year in the United States living in Florida. Adrian has been staying south, living primarily independent since his wife Heather still continues full time work here in Southern Ontario.

From Photo_Gallery8

Since his return to the great white North, he has been busy building a new house and hasn’t had the opportunity to go fishing. It was fitting to ask him if he had time to spend a morning on Lake Ontario now that signs of bigger Chinook salmon are starting to show up.

The evening before, the Strait Line Anglers Club had our monthly meeting, this month it was held at Grimsby Tackle for a BBQ. While at the meeting Adrian and Gerald and I discussed fishing in the morning and we made it a plan to leave the dock at 6:00 am.

From Photo_Gallery8

We motored out to slightly west of the Grimsby weather-marker and we began setting lines. I mentioned to Adrian and Gerald, that although there have been a great number of rainbows in the area, we will look to target Chinooks and see if we can develop a pattern to catch them. Two evenings before on a charter we had discovered the return of good Chinooks to the Grimsby waters, but we were still figuring out what they want and where they are. It was todays goal to target them with all rods focused on Chinook salmon. This meant running three riggers, three divers and targeting the 50- 70 foot part of the water column.

Braid Diver was set to 3 and out 175ft with Gerald’s pick of a great set-up using a Mountain Dew ProTroll and an Atommik Tournament fly called a Crazybitch. Setting the next rod inside of that, was a wire diver on a 1 ½ setting and out 140 ft using a Green Dolphin 107 sized Walker Deeper Diver, with a Spin Doctor NBK and TG fly, and the wire diver on the other side of the boat was Glow Frog 107 Walker Deeper Diver, with a Black Green Glow SpinDoctor and Glow Frog Fly (this rig was named 7 o’clock by Mark Penner since he had success with it before 7 in the morning or after 7 at night). On the Downriggers the starboard boom rigger set 69 ft down and pulling a Yeck 88 NBK spoon stretched back 50 ft. The middle rigger had a White Killer Spin Doctor and #1 MC Rocket Reg size down 55 ft and on a short 15 ft lead. The Port side Boom rigger had a Yeck 88 Mnt Dew NBK spoon that was stretched back 60 ft and down 75 ft.

It is hard to determine the best set-up as all of them were firing at a consistent and regular basis. It wasn’t long and we were into doubles and the majority of the fish that came to the net were in the high teens to mid twenty pound range. No real big fish, but enough reel drags screaming for mercy to make it an enjoyable morning.

Gerald and Adrian were a good group to fish with and we had some great information, stories and fishing conversation. The morning fishing effort resulted in a fair number of good salmon on the line that we would complement a great group effort and not an independent effort.

Shane Thombs
www.FINtasticSportfishing.com