First year in wilson was much anticipated.   Since this is where we keep the boat half of the year, we were very excited with the venue.  First day turned out to be the exact opposite from the spring Scotty,  we got our bites…we just couldn’t put them in the boat….spin doctors and attomik flies were our hot items….at one point we had 11 bites and 1 fish in the boat…..finshed the day with two fish……the great thing about these tournaments is not only competition but the great times we have with our team and other competitors.  The event that Kevin jerge and mike Liss put on was top notch….food, drinks, prizes and a chance to hang out and party with friends from across the entire lake…these tournaments allow everyone to compete but also have a great time!…2^nd day our plan was to fish deep.  As soon as we set up, the rods were popping…..we boated our first five fish in 20 minutes….being able to upgrade at 8am is a feeling you want everday……think we came in with one of the larger boxes of the day……..we came out of the tournament obviously disasppointed that we were in  5^th place and 75 points behind the leader in the KOTL.

This year was the year of bad weather and storms….whitby was not exception…..most of the boats were caught in a weather cell with severe lightning…..our practice days were cut short because of this……regardless we started out the day with a slow bite in front of the power station…..dreamweaver spin doctors and atommik flies were the bait of choice…..wire divers and downriggers were working well…..think we ended the day with double digits kings on and landed…..when we got in we found out that the boys off Toronto really got into those bigger kings that we all were looking for……after talking it over with the team, we realized we couldn’t realistically fish those waters that were 30+ miles away….Whitby we decided should be a week long tournament…enought time to take in the town and fish….the people on the docks, the people in town, the marina we stayed were all top notch…As soon as we hit the docks, we had the bbq going, drinks pouring and hanging with fellow competitors….a good time was had by all..2^nd day….we decided to switch things up the second day and fish water west of port.  cold water moved in and hampered our efforts early in the morning….we had boated 3 fish and it was now 1pm…..into our last 30 minutes of fishing before we had to be inside those pier heads by 2pm….A rigger with a spin doctor and fly goes off at about 1:15…..as we are fighting that fish and are in neutral…the center rigger with another spin doctor and atommik fly releases…initially we weren’t sure what was going on….doubled  up with 15 minutes to go…knowing that we need to land both of these fish for our 5…..we land the first and the last 10 mintues felt like an eternity…we land the second and quickly real everything in to make it back in time…….obviously we knew we weren’t going to win the tournament but we felt we had a chance to move up from day 1….we wind up moving up from 10^th to 3^rd……and have now a slim lead in the KOTL overall…..great feeling knowing that we have Oswego next on the schedule.

We were looking forward to this Scotty the most…not only is this my home port, but.kevin davis who mates on hat trick charters is legendary in this eastern end….this all came to a screeching halt when the transmission decided to quit during the week leading up to the tournament.  Kevin and tim rookie of Oswego took the task of finding a transmission and somehow putting it in the boat from 1pm-4am on big fish Friday.   After many sleepless nights and hours, we were somehow fishing on the lake by 6:30 am on Friday…….we had zero fish in the boat at noon and decided to make a move……that move would eventually win us the tournament…..a “secret” spot 24 miles away was our last ditch effort to find some fish….within an hour of setting down on our area…we had 9 kings in the box….with no boats in site and fish biting we knew we had our area for day1…….the Oswego tournament offers many amenities, such as food, dining, and lodging which is very convenient,  Bud and Shane Broadwell hosted this event at their econolodge and restaurant steamers which everyone enjoyed and are looking forward to this year……the ability to drive up and drop off our coolers from the boats was a great and seamless idea…….day 1….we proceeded with our plan to go back to our spot hoping that we would have the are to ourselves….to our surprise…we did…..fishing was slow to start but once it picked up it was spectacular…..once spin doctors and flies along with familiar bite whole bait worked well off of wire divers and coppers…..our copper setup which we have been playing around with and finally have confidence in consists of Shimano tekota 700 and 800 reels coupled with Rapala RSC 8.5 copper rods…..these reels have super smooth drag and the rods are strong yet flexible to withstand these big kings and have the big eyelets to allow the copper to pass thru without getting hung up….

We boated close to a dozen salmon on a day when fishing overall was very tough….1^st place by 8 points on day one is great but 1^st place on day 2 is even better…….obviously our plan was to go back to our spot bt we realized other boats would be there….little did we know that other boats meant the entire fleet minus 4 or 5 boats…..we setup and were pushed off our marks and when we did land fish we couldn’t turn back around….we then ran north of the pack to try and work an area…..fishing turned out to be tougher for us on day 2….we managed 6 bites and 3 fish up until about 12 noon….knowing that we needed to pick up at 1 to make it back in time…we were on our last 30 minutes when one of the coppers goes off with a big king…we land that fish making it 4 in our cooler and are hoping for the last and final fish to complete our 5…..with 10 mintues to go…our center copper fires with another large king on…capt Davis who also baoted the last fish in Whitby is the man when reeling in fish on copper…..needless to say, we land the fish and after high fiving and fist pumping we reel our lines in to make sure we make it back on time….1 second late and you are dq’d…..we cleard the pier heads and made our way to the line of baots to drop off our cooler……many boats had big catches…sea devil and thrillseeker to name a few..we knew it was going to be close after hearing how everyone did…..after seeing the 2^nd place team’s catch we knew we had a 1^st place finish….Being a 4 time event winner….. the Oswego win is the most memorable….having friends and family there to celebrate our win is something we will always remember.   The big win in Oswego put us now in a commanding lead in the KOTL heading into the final tournament in Port Dalhousie…..knowing that Shirley B and Thrillseeker were behind us did not ease our minds heading into the final tournament.

Water temps were cold leading up to the tournament, fishing was not great for us…….we found fish late Friday afternoon and decided to fish west of port……fish seemed to show up tournament weekend…..doubles and triples to start each day…..dreamweaver spoons and stick baits were our lures of choice…..didnt seem to matter as we boated 25-30 kings each day…..Port Dahousie is a lot of fun….to say the least…..many places to eat and have drinks with our guys as well as the other teams……..fishing the second day was very good for us…started the day with a quad…..boated 3 out of the four….over the course of the day we.lost a few fish in the 20lb range that we knew would come back to haunt us and it did….finished 2^nd by a 1 lb behind team Big Jon…..consistent tournaments winner.   Needless to say, we had secured ourselves a great spot for the KOTL….

Returning to the western end of the lake and having beautiful weather was a great way to end this fishing series…..day 1 had boats fishing in front of port and down by the Niagara bar….we opted to fish the bar….fishing again was spin doctor and flies along with familiar bite whole bait…..we boated many big fish early and were upgrading at early time on Saturday…..getting back to port, we managed a 2^nd place finish on day 1…….once again port Dalhousie offers dining many places to to drink that are all withing walking distane from the marina….we did not go to bed early sat night……Sunday morning we all wish we would have….we went back to the bar and wound up having a much tougher bite…our fish moved a little further west and we didn’t make the right choices that day….we manged to boat our 5 fish and secure our 3^rd KOTL title  and a respectable 5^th place finish in the tournament….despite being way down in the overall… early on , we battled back and never gave up…all year..