SU Open
Saturday started early, with the smell of two stroke coming from my Mercury 150, my two tournament partners and I started heading out to the staging area for our first Salmon Unlimited Open tournament out of Racine WI. At 0430, we got the green light from tournament control to blast off. I did not expect my 8mi run to go as quick as it did and now my patients was tested to the max, having to wait 10mins to set lines. At 0500, I started setting out our spread consisting of 6 leadcore rods with various spoons and three dipsy divers. It wasn't a few seconds after setting all the lines I noticed my 4 color was bouncing more than usual. I had my partner Mark reel it in and a little shaker chinook was on the end and went back into the water. While watching the starboard dipsy I saw my Shimano Talora buckle back and let go. I'm pretty sure the guys in Michigan could have heard me yelling at that short hit. But to my surprise while reeling that rod in a very pissed off 6.5lb steelhead shot up from the depths and crushed my bloody nose spoon. This fish was not new to being hooked as it went flying towards my kicker and for the life of me I don't know how it didn't get wrapped in the prop. It wasn't any sooner as I reset that dipsy that a 2 color shot back with a small coho. With two fish in the box and fishing starting to get tough, I decided to swap out one of the dipsy rods for a mag dipsy and a lake trout rig. It only took 10mins for that rod to buckle back with a 6-7lb laker. As the day drug on, we picked away at a few more fish including two more coho's and a chunky 13.5lb laker. Despite the horrid current and wind we had to fight, I was very pleased with our performance. At the rules meeting the night before I decided to enter in the Southwest Salmon Series where you weight your 3 biggest fish and get 20pts per species and 1pt per pound. With that big laker, nice steelhead and a medium coho, they secured us a $100 cabelas gift card in the boats under 20' division for the series. Next up is Salmon-A-Rama, a 9 day salmon tournament on Lake Michigan. I would like to thank The Beef Jerky Outlet Store for being my tournament sponsor for the 2016 season.
