May 19, 2007

Fished 180—230 fow just west of Wilson, water temp 48 degrees. Slight west wind, increasing west bound current.

Today was a day that the KINGS showed up for us. We set up in 160 fow and began a NW troll, we did not go far before a Coho hit a black and purple honeybee cheater, then another on the red/white honeybee slider. We made a turn to head back to the southeast and the starboard dipsy rod pounded and then the real began singing. After several minutes we slipped the net under a nice 16 pound king. We made a quick turn and on the next pass the other dipsy did the same thing, this time the fish was 21 pounds. It was 8am and the guys were saying they really only wanted one more big king for Jason so everyone could boat one.

We continued to work over our waypoint and Jason boated a 7 pound Coho then a nice 10 pound king then finally the grape-picker parked at 40’ did the trick and fooled a good 14 pound king and we figured that was good enough for “J”, after all he did get a 20+ pound king last May. We began a south troll to look for lake trout and once again the grape-picker did the trick, swallowed by an 18 pound king, this time the fish-hog (Dad) did not give up the rod and battled the bruiser to the stern of the boat.

The fishing was fantastic and we ended the day boating about 18 fish in all. We found that the key to the Kings was a faster trolling speed, just under 3 mph (SOG) which with today’s currents made it feel like we were flying. Trolling direction seemed to make a difference with the NW to SE direction producing the most fish

Hot lures

Purple Black Honeybee 59’ cheater

Red & White Honeybee slider on 39’ rigger

Grape-picker 40’

Yellow flasher green fly WMD (200’ copper)

Purple dipsy, 180’ wire, #2 NBK stingray

Green dipsy, 110’ #2 black/pink/glow NK