This past Saturday I was in a small salmon tournament out of st catharines marine. 22 boats. 4 salmon box, 1 could be a trout (not laker).
It was a strong south west wind, making for a cold choppy morning. We got bumped and thrown around from blast off (6am) until 9am....when I called the "screw it" lets go brown trout fishing.
We went in tight and found a great pocket of fish in 8' - 14' of water. We picked through a large number of 3lbs to 5lbs brownies....secretly hoping for a mature king or at least some coho's (as they could be weighed in).
For us the hot baits were J11's in Orange, Jointed Challengers in Gold, and mad flash thunderstick's in chartreuse purple shad.... Having three people on board (first time this season) allowed me to fun a great brown trout spread....two inlines per side and two long lines. Surprisingly the long lines did well in the shallow water taking the biggest two fish.
Speeds were higher than usual, with the most fish coming between 2.5 and 2.75mph. Much faster than i've trolled so far this season. Water temps were 45 and again, my leads were kept short. 55'-65' behind the boards and 85' behind the boat on the long lines.
Here's the best fish of our day....with the tough salmon fishing it weighed in near the top of the calcutta list. She hit a long line jointed gold challenger.... (released with full strength after weighing her in).
Winning box was I think around 60'ish pounds for four fish....only two boats did the four kings, one boat did three kings....tough day but I think mainly due to the weather.
Looks like tomorrow and tuesday are going to be sick days. great weather coming up.