Super User J Francho Posted August 1, 2011 Super User Posted August 1, 2011 Erie!!!! This is Flower City's second year going to Erie, and I was looking forward to this event all season. Some boats venture out into somewhat rough seas, others stayed close to the harbor. Many brown fish at the scales, and a surprise bag of ALL GREEN FISH! Who knew there was a legit bag of harbor rat largies in Erie, LOL. Results: Place Boater/Non-Boater: Fish Weight/Lunker 1st John/Jordan: 3/2 16.02/3.97 2nd Brutus/Paul: 1/4 14.74/399 <--- All largemouth!!!! 3rd Reggie/Jaeger: 4/1 12.72/NA 4th Perry/Tim: 4/1 12.57/3.97 5th Terry/Guy: 4/0 7.79/NA 6th Web/Spence: 2/1 7.17/4.46 7th Brian/George: 2/2 6.60/NA 8th Kevin/Mike: 1/2 5.20/NA 9th Jeff/Jason: 1/1 3.60/NA 10th Mitch/Matt 2/0 2.53/NA Lunker: Web 4.46 Largemouth 1st place, John and Jordan finished with a solid bag of smallmouth. Drop shot plastics was the deal. 2nd place, Brutus and Paul brought in a remarkable bag. Remarkable in that they were all largemouth, and decent size to them. Creatures, jigs, and Senkos were the order of the day. 3rd place, Reggie and FNG Jaeger came in with a nice mixed bag. This was Jaeger's first tournament ever, so it's great that he was able to not only contribute to the bag, but finish in the money. My weekend! My weekend starts with practice on Saturday. No way I was going to fish Erie "cold" and I'm glad I spent some time the day before. Kase and I left Rochester around 5am, and were on the water by 6:45 am. If you are just going to fish, I recommend the marina at the north end, simply because parking so much closer then the Small Boat Harbor. Not really big enough for a tournament, though. Fees are the same, $7. Anyway, we had three spots to check out, a creek mouth, an underwater hump, and a point. The hump and the point held fish. I marked out each of these places thoroughly with way points, noted travel times, and gas use. Turns out neither of the latter two details was useful info, as weather was not as cooperative tournament day. I did also catch a few fish. We fished for three hours or so, and had figured a keeper limit of about 15 lbs. I was pretty confident I could duplicate that come Sunday, so we headed back. That, and Kase was puking his brains out from motion sickness, LMAO. Turns out screaming, "RALPH!!!!" off the back of the boat attracts fish. Headed to the lake! Kase's 1st Erie Smallie. Yeah, this works . Tournament day, we were greeted by 2-3' choppy rollers, with some bigger waves tossed in for good measure. Throw in wandering T-showers that you could watch move across the lake, and to say we had "weather" was putting it lightly. I knew that the showers were well off, and would miss so I took it easy, pointed the bow to the sky, and what is usually a 20 minute run took about 45 minutes. Not too bad, but definitely too rough to go to the second spot. I wanted to be able to get back to harbor should it kick up. It took a few minutes to dial in on the fish. Active fish were shallow, but the biggest fish were deeper, and much less active. We had an easy limit by 7:45 am, and didn't stop upgrading until the last minute. By 10:30, we had put together a great bag, anchored by a 4 lb. lunker. There were two sub 3 lb. fish that we wanted to upgrade, but by 10:30 I saw white on the tops of the chop. My 20+ years fishing Lake Ontario told me that it was time to get back. That was the suck part of the day, leaving biting fish due to weather. The other issue was how to keep these fish alive for another three hours. Temps in the lake were 74, whereas the harbor was closer to 80. We kept the well on recirc, used some peroxide and frozen water bottles, which worked OK, we did lose one, though it had a gill injury. We spent the last three hours peeking just outside the break walls, trying to upgrade those last two fish. I stuck a nice 3-05 fish while taking a break on the back of the boat, while Jordan tackled the TM. That left the one 2-09 fish in the well. With about ten to go, Jordan stuck a nice 3+ fish, and that was it, off to the weight in. I made sure Jordan weighed in last, because I knew we had this one. Sure enough, it was more than enough. Jordan was real proud....he just learned how to drop shot in Champlain last month. Good job kid, and thanks to Paul (Blue Daksi) for linking us, and many thanks to a couple NYBASSer's for some pointers. You know who you are . BTW, this was my 1st win ever (2nd tournament as a boater) and Jordan's 1st win. Conditions that sent us back to the harbor. Jordan with two nice Erie chunks. Thanks for reading! Quote
hookingem Posted August 1, 2011 Posted August 1, 2011 Your reports are epic! Congrats on the win, and those are some nice smallies......almost as nice as Dwight's :D :D Quote
Super User J Francho Posted August 1, 2011 Author Super User Posted August 1, 2011 It was an epic day, LOL. I talked to Dwight on the phone Saturday. I thought I saw his boat weasel in on my spot, and wondered why he was up my way. It wasn't him. Dwight usually fishes a VERY prime piece of super structure, that's too far for me to get to. The best spots on my end are Canadian, but that wasn't accessible to me. If I could have crossed into Canadian waters.....looking at more like 18-20 lbs. Quote
fishinkeebs Posted August 1, 2011 Posted August 1, 2011 It was an epic day, LOL. I talked to Dwight on the phone Saturday. I thought I saw his boat weasel in on my spot, and wondered why he was up my way. It wasn't him. Dwight usually fishes a VERY prime piece of super structure, that's too far for me to get to. The best spots on my end are Canadian, but that wasn't accessible to me. If I could have crossed into Canadian waters.....looking at more like 18-20 lbs. 16 pounds of smallies is respectable anyday! Good job! Quote
Super User Dwight Hottle Posted August 1, 2011 Super User Posted August 1, 2011 Congrats on your first win. Nice report John. Quote
Super User J Francho Posted August 1, 2011 Author Super User Posted August 1, 2011 Thanks Dwight! Good to chat with you, and hope you get on the water soon! Quote
ICU812 Posted August 2, 2011 Posted August 2, 2011 Congrats on the win!! And yeah I agree the report was a pleasure to read! Great job - you obviously what you're doing out there! Quote
MSAJAA Posted August 2, 2011 Posted August 2, 2011 J, I think I’ve read that you fish out of a aluminum boat? Were you on the main lake in a tin? Or do you have two boats? If you were in a tin can you give me the specs on your boat? Great write up! Quote
Super User J Francho Posted August 2, 2011 Author Super User Posted August 2, 2011 It's not your "average tin boat," though... Xpress Hyperlift 18: http://www.xpressboats.com/view/195 Heavier and sturdier than similar boats. Quote
Big-O Posted August 2, 2011 Posted August 2, 2011 Great Job and Congratulations on the Win! Nice photos too. Big O www.ragetail.com Quote
Delaware Valley Tackle Posted August 5, 2011 Posted August 5, 2011 Nice job John, congratulations! Quote
Super User Hooligan Posted August 7, 2011 Super User Posted August 7, 2011 Nice read, JF, and a great way to stick up the win. We're headed to Erie next month, fish out of Port Clinton. Strong, strong work, fellas! Quote
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