ckewley Posted July 19, 2015 Report Share Posted July 19, 2015 It's not everyday that you get invited to fish in a salmon derby so when it happens you tend to jump at the opportunity. Big problem usually for me is a work schedule conflict (& short notice with the invite), especially this time of year as my work is in a GMP maintenance shutdown so I was stoked when I got to have a day off to go fishing, HELL YES I'm going to this derby!!! I'm not going to say this was a small derby but more so local. Put on by Grimsby Tackle & I believe Straight Line Anglers (correct me if I'm wrong) out of Jordon Harbor, it was to be the best/biggest 2 fish with a bonus of a largest/smallest fish prize. Alarm fires off at 3:20am & out the door by 3:30ish, off to Burlington to meet up with team Roughneck by 4:30am then trek to Jordon & launch. Blast off was 6:30am & we were met with this.... FOG!! Man was it thick, rolled in out of nowhere & stuck around for a few hours, needless to say the "Blast Off" wasn't as crazy as it would have been!!! Humidity was incredibly stupid as well. We jet off to our starting point, somewhere off of St Catharines a few KM's out but who the hell could tell the fog was so bad. Apparently these are major shipping lanes (sarcasm) .......was waiting for a tanker to magically appear. It wasn't long getting our lines out & trolling around when a Dipsy SCREAMS!! It was a HUGE fish, peeled line like no other, then a screech followed by a huge jerk & the rod goes limp. Apparently the 5 colour line or the spool seized up, not really sure what happened but that rod almost found itself sleeping with the fishes, lost a Spindoctor & fly. It wasn't 5 minutes later when a rigger fires, set the hook & the fight is on... only it seemed to be a Laker, a fairly big one judging by the fight but as with our luck so far it became unbuttoned about half way to the boat. A few hours pass with not much action, marking very few fish when the other rigger fires, I leap for it, start to reel up, feel the tension build, set the hook & NOTHING!!! This trend would continue... The plainer starts to walk, grab it fight whatever for 2 seconds then GONE!!! Rigger fires again, have a small salmon on, gets to the surface & becomes unbuttoned!!!! Another rigger fires, fight whatever for abit but becomes unhinged. So we fire up the BBQ have some sausages & spend the next 4 hours cruising around Lake O just trying to mark fish. One of the team mates decides to have a snooze......NOPE! We finally decide to pull the plug around 1:20pm, weight in was at 2:30 so we thought we'd make it back before the rush. The guy's start to reel in the rods one by one, the last 3 rods (2 being reeled in & 1 still trolling) when it looked like something hit the rigger...."ah no that was me reeling in, think I hit it", pull that rod & start to reel..." hey man I think there's a fish on it" & so the fight starts Get it topside & it was a small Laker, perfect way to end the day And as luck would have it, we started making allot of fish!!! We head in & stick around to see how other folks made out, pretty dire. The top 3 boxes were decent, all having at least one fish past the 20lbs mark. The top box had 2 fish just shy of 26lbs each & they walked away with $1500.00 cash. Biggest fish on the day was a 28 pounder $600.00, smallest fish on the day was just over 5oz they won a rod & reel combo. There was 28 boats entered in this derby, they barely had 10 boxes to weight, last place was something close to 6 lbs, fishing was hard this day. I think the top 3 teams ran to Toronto but most lips were tightly sealed. It was a great little derby with some great people & great food, sucks we didn't land a target fish but hell I could have been at work.........dammit I'm there tomorrow! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leaf4 Posted July 19, 2015 Report Share Posted July 19, 2015 Nice day! We were out on lake O out of forans marine caught two Lakers the salmon didn't want to come and play but man was it hot out there past 10:30 when the fog lifted it was blazing hot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freshtrax Posted July 19, 2015 Report Share Posted July 19, 2015 What's the saying? Beats work right. I'm sharpening hooks right now for an outing for some salmon tomorrow hopefully the weather cooperates and the fishing picks up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckewley Posted July 19, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 19, 2015 From what I was hearing around the derby, the salmon are very hard to figure out this season. "They should be hear/there, but aren't" nobody knows where the numbers are, but good luck to you Freshtrax, hope you have a banner day!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnote Posted July 19, 2015 Report Share Posted July 19, 2015 Always fun to fish a tourney, a shame you couldnt keep the screamer. I went out yesterday for 10 hours and went 8/12 with biggest being 24lbs. Definitely getting better but slowly lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freshtrax Posted July 19, 2015 Report Share Posted July 19, 2015 2/2 today in a few short hours this morning, Biggest 10 lbs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
misfish Posted July 19, 2015 Report Share Posted July 19, 2015 Looks like a blast was had Ckewley. Thanks for taking the time to post. Thats better then 0-0 Andrew. Did ya keep for the smoker? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freshtrax Posted July 20, 2015 Report Share Posted July 20, 2015 Nope , releasedto go get their bigger friends and bring them back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillM Posted July 20, 2015 Report Share Posted July 20, 2015 From what I was hearing around the derby, the salmon are very hard to figure out this season. "They should be hear/there, but aren't" nobody knows where the numbers are, but good luck to you Freshtrax, hope you have a banner day!! Fish are stuffed, look at all the bait out there. I probably wouldn't be chasing down a SD + fly either if my belly was full, lol! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnote Posted July 20, 2015 Report Share Posted July 20, 2015 Funny you say that bill because i had 3 different meat options out at one point and only took 1 hit on meat all day which is very unusual, without my flasher fly combos i would have been screwed. I guess they are tired of the main course and are looking for dessert! There is a lot of bait out there and ive done better by staying away from it cause those fish are stuffed! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckewley Posted July 20, 2015 Author Report Share Posted July 20, 2015 You're probably right Bill, we did run into a few bait balls out there. I was just reporting what the more seasoned folks were saying Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris.brock Posted July 21, 2015 Report Share Posted July 21, 2015 It's extra exciting when you're in a derby eh? Looks like a great way to spend the day Chris. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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