March madness on the salmon grounds

[Reelax]

Was looking to fish Friday as the 1st fishable day after the recent ice thaw. Joe and I jumped on with Fathead after deciding on his boat, as it is brand new and so pretty;)

Hit converse at 630. Bloodline launched in front of us and we both motored across to NY in the skim ice. The morning started slow. We started with riggers and lead core out over deeper water where there was bait. Not much action for a period, then we got a strong hit that pulled line. That was a good fish as it snapped line pretty quickly:(

Lake went from flat clam at 1st light to 3-4 rollers outta the north by 330pm. As the chop increased so did the bite.

We switched to big boards and long lines in the skinny water and found em. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 all
Salmon. No lakers. 8,9,10,11 some nice fish mixed in and a set of quadruples! 12,13,14,15,16 all still salmon!!!

17,18,19- Joe and Jeremey are having a ball trying to keep 6 rods in the water. And they are failing badly;)

20,21,22,23… how long can we do this??. No one is left on the lake and the bite won’t stop. Finally at 330 we decided to pack up the set and head for the barn. The ride back did a fine job cleaning the salt off the whole boat;)

We saw NO lake trout at all during whole trip! 100% salmon;)

All in all the sticks ruled the day and the company was so enjoyable the 9 hrs on the water seemed like 20min…

Thanks for the ride Jeremy.

Fish on!

[striper192001]

hey.........that is a nice haul of silver. Love to see that !!! Nice job guys !

[Gecha (Gerry)]

Beautiful boat Jeremy.... What a blood bath you had....
Thanks for sharing that enjoyable report.

[The River Rat]

Epic day out for sure guys! And not 1 laker, WOW!!! Won't be long befor this guy scratchs the itch. Just started hit the river down here in the south, we'll get some posts rolling soon. Great write up again Matty

[Surprise]

Great Day with a well seasoned Crew. Just Love the trail out thru the skim ice.......Knowing well that the Freeze is going the other way

[TUnamas]

Only Fathead can say "Don't get any Laker slime on my new boat!" and get away with it. Great job!!

[Bearcat]

Great day, I would say things are looking up for this season!

[Detritus]

Not much action for a period, then we got a strong hit that pulled line. That was a good fish as it snapped line pretty quickly:(

You guys picked an awesome morning to go out, fish or no fish. Those are some crazy numbers you put up. I don't know about you guys, but, I always wonder about the ones that got away. We've got a couple that will be stuck in my head forever.

One popped a rigger off of Thompson's on an 8' okuma rigger rod with a size 30 okuma cold water reel. That trolling gear is probably meant more for the great lakes, but when I bought it I was fishing with little kids that needed help reeling bigger fish in. That rod was cranked down pretty hard before it popped. After, it slammed down farther than it was before the release, losing drag just as fast as if it got caught on a passing boat. Liam fought it out of the holder, and goes "what do I do!" I told him there was nothing he could do. Just as hard and fast as it hit, it spit the hook.

The other was last year in the river. Something took Liam's heddon sonar on the fall, tugged a few times, then shot upstream. We watched the intersection of the line and the water get farther and farther away from us , as we were chasing it upstream at about 2.6 sog into a 1 mph current pulling drag like it wasn't there. Spit that hook too.

Gotta love fishing stories.

[tmcaul]

Not sure, but most are from the same year-class. Asking myself why, with all these salmon being caught, the salmon catch for me last year was Zero. Just one big rainbow and always a bunch of lakers keeping it interesting. Pretty good count of returning fish at the Ed Weed hatchery and other collection points and now all these young salmon. ???

[voyager]

Outstanding catch! Looks like a great day. Hopefully a sign of things to come. Quite the lamprey hit on that one fish.
New boat looks awesome, Jeremy!

[troutcrazy]

Wow! I just dropped in to the forum to look for inspiration, and you guys sure delivered! Awesome catch. See you on the lake!