The Cherokee has been busy the last week+. We welcomed my cousin Davey and his crew on Saturday the 11th. Hopes were high for the weekend with the forecast less than one foot for both days – of course when I arrived at the boat to get it ready Friday evening I learned it changed to 1-3 footers for Saturday and worse Sunday. We ended up starting straight out in 80-100 FOW to try for some trout – with strong west winds I couldn’t get a good north/south troll going and it resulted in one laker and a mess of tangles. We pulled the lake trout gear and went on a salmon mission covering a tone of water with no success. As we approached the projects we finally started to pick up some marks, mostly on the bottom. I dropped a ball on the bottom and it picked up a second and last fish of the day. Not a lot of fish, but great company made for a great trip.
Tuesday we welcomed Barry and Rob along with my first mate Delaney. Rob has never been on the big lake trolling and Wednesday’s forecast looked pretty rough so we did the 3:30-8:30pm troll just to get out and see what would happen. We started shallow, like 55-60-FOW infront of the projects and worked out way out to 90-100 FOW straight out without a bite. once we got to the start of the bank we picked up 4 fairly quick, pulled lines and went in. On the way in the Cherokee totally dies and would not start and we set anchor in front of the Coast Guard in the channel. A Tiara from Holland was awesome and towed us back to the dock where Todd Johnson met us around 8:45pm – Todd always treats us great! Todd sent a couple guys out Wednesday morning – long story short, the problem was that the port side vent for the gas tank cracked off and funneled water into our port tank – which was the on we were using. Since the tournaments were the next day, we decided to just use the starboard tank and deal with the water later.
I had the same crew from Tuesday fish with me Thursday for the Ruboy tournament. We headed 7-8 miles south and set up in 125 FOW on a west troll. We had 5 lines out went the port rigger took a hit with a nice mature king. Barry was locked up for 5-10 minutes and got it about 20 feet behind the boat when the hook came out. Little did Barry know that that fish would have put us in the money. We then had a 5 color hit and within a few minutes a meat rig on the same port rigger. These were both decent fish – Delaney took the core and Rob the rigger. About 5 minutes passed and we had a 3rd fish on another 5 color. We ended up landing all 3 (2 kings and a steelhead). We had a number of other king bites out there before 8:30am but only managed one more. Our last fish was another steelhead on a full core. We made several more passes and that bite died for us. We trolled into 90-100 FOW and worked our way back to the projects, ending up in 55-60 FOW – no bites after 8:30am for us. We were able to weigh our 5 fish and ended up either 12th or 13th (the spreadsheet kept changing) out of 72 boats.
Friday was the day I was really looking forward to. We normally enter the youth tournament (which Riley won in 2012). Our ladies for the day was Riley (17), Morgan (16) and Delaney (14). Laney though is would have been better for them to work as a team in the Ladies AM vs. against each other in the Youth so we went into un-chartered territory and join the Ladies AM. I was confident all 3 girls could set lines and reel in fish, but none have ever netted any fish. Laney practiced during the week and did a great job so she was the dedicated net-lady for the day. Also joining the boat was Scott and Gabe. We went to the same spot as Thursday. We had 5 lines out when boat riggers with meat rigs went off at the same time. We landed one and lost one. The girls got all 9 lines out and and we had a hit on a 10 color – Riley brought that to the back and Laney netted it perfectly. We were sitting on 2 fish with 6 more bites until 10 am. After several more passes without a bite we pointed the boat north for some fresh water. It wasn’t too long and a 7 color went and Morgan brought in a nice mature king right ino Laney’s net. With 3 kings and only being able to weigh 3 of one species, we pulled up everything and ran straight out in 90-100 FOW where we had a lot of lake trout luck. I thought it would be easy to catch a bunch of lakers and thought the challenge would be finding one with weight. We trolled for 1.5-2 hours without a bite and were starting to thik we were weighing 3 fish. About 12:30pm a rigger went and Morgan pulled in around a 17 pound laker. We planned to pull lines at 1:15pm. It was not looking like #5 was going to come so the girls pulled in the lead core and had one dipsy in when another dipsy quit digging into the bottom. Morgan took the rod and we were dragging a 4-5 lb laker! Morgan did a great job with a perfect pace ion the fish for 250 feet and Laney got it in the net. They ended up with 5 fish for 70.25 lbs. This was enough for first place in the amateur division for $1,000. On a side note, their weight also beat out every boat in the pro division. I’m not sure about anyone else, but for me this was the best day on the boat I’ve ever had.
The Pro/Am was to be Saturday and Sunday. Our crew was Scott, Matt, Jake & Mike. We thought if we could get to our same spot we could pick up a few fish right out of the gate. The forecast for the weekend was bad so we thought if we could pick up a few of those kings, they’d be calling us in early and it would be cancelled Sunday. We struggled, but made it out to our spot. Unfortunately the waves had already built to the point where I couldn’t get a west troll going (we had 17 bites there and all but 1 was on a west troll). We couldn’t really keep our lines straight except with the waves behind us so that’s what we did. We hit a steelhead fairly quick then went a while with nothing. We then got a mature king on a meat rig and were sitting on 2 fish. Again, thinking this would be called soon, we got to 100 FOW and put out 5 laker rigs hoping to have a king, steelhead and trout and hoping no one else did (333 has a special category for a combo like that). We finally hook up with a laker dragging a dipsy but lost it. That was it for us. The ended the tournament at 10:30am and cancelled Sunday.
