Vision Quest Sport Fishing, LLC

2009 Tournament season concluded.

2009 Tournament Summary:

Wow, was this ever the year that another fish or a bigger fish mattered. What do you mean? Well, the VQ slogan for tournament fishing is "EVERY FISH COUNTS" and that means a lot. Some events, you just get your butt kicked and another fish or two or even three would not matter much because your box was not very good or your overall weight was too low. However, there are those days where another fish or one larger fish would have propelled you from a top 10 finish to "Numero Uno". Each year it seems we have one event that we could have won "if only"... This year was a decent year but could have been an awesome year: Why...... Some teams can say that but most cannot.

Starting with the EPSFA Spring Trout Challenge, we dumped a phenomanal 15 fish/bites, many were nice fish and just boating 50% would have given us 2nd for sure and maybe 1st. The Scotty Spring event found us with all the fish we needed but we needed just one more replacement fish ( an 17.5# for a 12.5# fish) and we would have walked in to 1st... The Niagara Pro-Am found us with plenty of bites and a couple of fish short of a top 3. Just could not keep the fish stuck!. Scotty Whitby found us missing our last hooked fish as well as a few wild wire diver fish that cost us a top 3 for our first visit to Port Whitby-Close again ! We would have taken 1st in the Dreamweaver Big catch Friday event by a whopping margin but got hung in traffic and missed the weigh-in deadline. (there goes a walk-in 1st place. Wayne County Pro-Am found us boxed out early each day and if we did not catch a couple Browns(by mistake)that ate our Salmon program we would have walked into 2nd or 3rd. On day two of the EPSFA Pro-Am, we fell short by a 2.5# fish-just one more baby! but we did not get it and lost to capt. Mike of Vision Quest 4 (if you are gonna lose, I guess losing to our other boat and a skilled Captain is not a bad thing-but three second place finishes in that event is getting OLD !). Scotty Fall, we found ourselves just one fish short of a top 3 finish and settled for 9th. That also cost us a top 3 finish in the King of the Lake event-OUCH !. However, we concluded our events by taking the Fall Trout Challenge in Erie and taking big fish honors in an event that went well, we made the right calls and landed a high percentage of our fish.

I have found that in order to win an event, things must go well for you and mistakes, break-offs, and a poor bite-land percentage does not win it for you. Guys who win events have all cylinders working: that means the right decisions were made, there was a high landing percentage and quality fish (or a kicker fish) were mixed in to the box. You do all that and you are taking the trophy home.

I can say again that we learned from our bad events and learned a lot overall again. Some of out new tourney techniques paid off for us and in 2010, we look to be even more consistent and to apply the knowledge gained in the past few years. I as well as our team mates are excited about 2010.

Erie, PA Sport Fishing Association Fall Trout Challenge (Erie, PA): 1st place for VQ 5 (Capt. Pete) and 8th place for VQ 4 (Capt. Paul) Big fish winner with 11.6# Steelie.

The 2009 tournament season concluded Sunday with our 2nd annual Fall Trout Challenge. A weigh your best 6 fish one day event. VQ 5 was able to boat our 6 tournament fish (9.3# AVG.)limit out of 8 bites on a tough day of fishing where there were( 8) zero's and mostly 1 fish boxes. We started the day at 6:45 AM by dedicating our day and this tourney to two friends that passed away this year (one just a few days ago). We were going to win this one for Big Jim and Bullit Bob. And yes, we won and also caught the big fish of the event with a 11.6# Steelie. Team VQ started well by taking our first fish before all lines were set and then grinding away after making numerous changes. Super Slims took most of the bites for us today. Fishing was/could have been better for the field but strong winds and rain hammered our Lakeshore the day and night before making the Lake very muddy and unstable. Some boats tried but did not do well and the majority fished the Presque Isle Bay waters where fishing is usually tougher and we have to contend with weeds. Well it was def. a weed fest, the water was dirty and the big run of fish have not arrived yet. However, it was a grind for most today including us. But in the end, we pulled off a victory and our mission was complete ! Rest in peace Bob and Jim cuz this one was for you guys !

King of the Lake-Fall (St. Catharines; ONT): 8th place Big Fish Friday and 9th place main event and 4th place King of Lake Overall-"final"

Headed up Thursday with Ray to get boat dumped and set up. Everything went smooth and we had some time to fish so we headed out to check water depth/temp and get a feel for the Lake. Set up in 70 f.o.w.
Was not long and we were "locked"... Ended up boating two, breaking off a slob (broke fly off spinny) and missed two in an hour and one half. hmmmm.

Ran charter trip Thursday. Set up same spot but lost one small fish. Ran out deeper and got into smaller Kings and Steelies. Ended up 11 for 21. Two of the steelies were in 11-13 pound class. Heard a lot of whining about a slow day and no kings and were considering the Olcott run for Friday (30 miles).

Thursday evening, we headed out with the team (Hinks, Jer, Ray and myself) to do some LOC fishing and ended up 5 for 5.. (3) lakers and (2) big Guys.. That was a good warm up for the guys.
Captain Paul joined us Friday and Saturday...

Friday, I decided to check the Niagara River again but closer in from where we fished the day before, even tho. the localss were crying about NO FISH at the Niagara River... Found good screen and great temps. Set up there and worked. Was not long and we were "locked". Ended up landing 10 Kings (see picture) and missed 4 more bites inc. another break off (Spinny and Fly twisted by a raging king). Finished in 8th place for Big Fish friday with 24.4 pound King.

Saturday, we went to same spot and ground out a 9 for 12 day which consisted of our best 5 fish weighing about 22 pound avg.. 8" and 10" Spinnys and Atomik flies again ! Ended up in 7th place but only 3 pounds out of first place. (there were 17 teams in range of first after day one) We also bumped into 3rd in the King of Lake Race because Shirley B stroked with only 2 Kings on Day one.. Nice !

Sunday----debated to start out front or go right back. Some good boxes came from out front on Day one so we thought about it.. Decided not to break up a good thing and go back for a third day of hopefully the same class of fish and kill ratio... So, we head back to river and kill first fish while setting up... Sundays bite was tougher for us as we boated 9 fish but one was a steelie, (4) were 18"-19" Kings and only 4 were good ones... Struggled to get our 5th big guy after 11am and the NE winds picked up... Good news was that most of the guys who fished straight out struggled all day.

Ended up in 9th overall and 4th in King of Lake. Unfortunately for us, Shirley B came roaring back with the biggest box of the weekend (119 pounds) and reclaimed the 3rd and final money spot in the KOTL race...

The weekend's weather and fishing was pretty darn nice. Averaged 9-10 fish each day. Fished with awesome guys each day. We had a blast ! Learned some things up there. This was our/my first September tournament and first time chasing fall/prespawn Kings. Learned a lot and will be ready for 2010.

We boated 46 fish out of about 70 bites over the course of (4) days and (2) brief evening trips. 18 or 19 fish were between 21 and 25 pounds..

King of the Lake-Oswego (Oswego, NY): 6th place Big Fish Friday and 12th place main event.

Back to Oswego (NOT EXCITED) to fish the 4th leg of the Scotty King of The Lake competition. Fishing there was still brutally tough and everyone said-GOOD LUCK catching 5 Kings each day... well Thursday afternoon we started our pre-fishing and managed 5 salmon and lost one. Hmmmm, that was not that tough. Saturday, we headed west and ground out 14 bites. Taking 7 salmon, 1 Brown and 1 Steelie. Only the salmon count tho. we lost 3 screamers and another rigger bite down deep that had to be a king. We ended up in 4th after day one and were only one of four teams (37) to take their 5 salmon. In fact, there were (13) teams total that did one or none on day one. (THATS TOUGH FISHING).

On Day 2 we decided to go back and grind again. Grind it was. We had no screen and no bait. Our water was dry and it was time for a move... We moved offshore where we saw some bait and an occasional mark. We managed 2 small kings there but we were on the board.. Well, that spot died and we picked up and moved close to port. We managed one bite there and lost it after a short battle... I elected to END THE MISERY and pull rods early. We discovered that fishing was tough for most again and we got bounced to 12th and we left on a suck note.... Good bye Oswego and thank you very much ! See ya.... That was some tough fishing there. Only one team managed their 5 each day and ran 20 miles for them. Most teams did 2-3 fish each day including many skunks and singles. After this event, we found ourselves in 4th place overall for the King of The Lake event with one more tourney to go to decide who wears the title for 2009.

Erie, PA walleye & Steelhead Pro-AM (Erie, PA): 1st place team VQ-4, 2nd place team VQ-5, Big Fish overall winner, Big Steelhead Saturday winner and Big Jim memorial Fish award winner.

Our 4th annual Pro-Am is back on. Man, I love fishing out of home.. So much easier... We started out Friday entered in the Dreamweaver Lures Big Catch Tournament (weigh your best 3). Team V.Q.4 captained by Mike Hinkel finished 8th and Team V.Q. 5 was late at the weigh-in but would have WON. We (me) weighed 36.6 pounds of steelies but it did not count cuz we were late to the weigh-in. The winner by default, weighed 29.8 pounds. Our hefty weight was bolstered by a 16.6 pound steelhead a 11 pounder and a 9. I ran a charter trip today and we had a great day on eyes and steelies, too bad we were late at the weigh-in.

On day one, team VQ 5 (me) was in 1st place and one fish short of our box. We hammered the eyes early and spent a good part of the day trying to get our 5 steelies. We fell short and took 4 and lost the 5th... Captain Mike on VQ-4, boxed 10 eyes and ran out for steelies. They took 2 and weighed 12 fish total, good enough for 3rd spot. Most boats STROKED and averaged only 6-8 fish total.

On to day 2, the CRAP weather set in. The eyes came slower with the frontal systems pounding through and we fished thru tough water and torrential rain... We took our 12th eye at around 11:30am and headed offshore for steelies. With only about 2 hours to fish, we knew we needed to boat only 2 or 3 to seal the deal. We fell short and only managed one steelie. Captain Mike on VQ-4 boxed on eyes and boxed on steelies hitting a flurry and did them all within an hour.. We both headed to the weigh in knowing we each took 29 fish overall and it would come down to which 29 were bigger... It would be 4 vs. 5 at the weigh-in... Captain Mikes Vision Quest 4 team prevailed and they won with VQ 5 coming in second. That was the plan on Friday 1st and 2nd for the Vision Quest Teams.

VQ 5 also swept the (3) big fish awards with a 12.2 pound Steelie. Overall, it was an oustanding performance for both boats under tough fishing conditions in Erie, PA. Both boats used a lead core program for the eyes and a Super Slim spoon program for the steelies.

Back to Erie finally and we fished the Pittsburgh Downriggers annual event. First time we fished this club event. It is a weigh your best 5 fish event and walleyes and steelies count. Our plan was to target steelies and I headed offshore to "the spot". It did not take long for the spot to produce and produce it did. we took 35 bites by 2:00pm and boxed out on Steelies (20) plus took one walleye. we had a good box and felt good about the weigh-in.

Team VQ weighed our best 5 steelies and they weighed in at 48.9 pounds,plenty good enough for 1st. the second place team recorded 37 pounds. It was ana wesome day of steelie fishing as the Super Slims slapped them hard today.

Wayne County Pro-AM (Sodus Point, NY): 7th place and Big Brown Trout Award Day 2.

Back to Sodus again, a place where one bad decision kills u cuz the fishing can be tough here. The word was tough fioshing and no Brown Trout to pick on. How true it was... We fished Thursday evening for a couple hours and managed 2 good Kings in short order. friday, we headed out and fished the mid waters and then tried the deep waters for high Kings or steelies... We found decent fishing at the mid waters and a few fish out deep. Most of the fish were deep 100-130 down. On Saturday, we elected to run west a ways because we received a tip that the fishing was decent there, so we pounded into the waves down west and began. Boated our 12 fish limit and put 3 extra fish back (undersized King and 2 Lakers). Our catch consisted of a mixed bag of salmon, BT, lakers... We were the third boat back in and felt good to box in Sodus. We were in 10th after Day one and most teams failed to box but some of the teams had some hefty Kings which helped their scores.

Sunday was much nicer and we elected to fish deeper (gamble) and target strictly Kings because we needed a big box. The plan worked and the 10" Spin Doctors fished off long and deep wires and deep riggers worked. Again, we boxed early and headed in. Our box was a good one and I stated to my team that if anyone beats this one, I will be very impressed. Well, no one did and we recorded a 305 point box with 12 fish. Biggest single dat box registered in the last 2 or 3 years of Pro Ams. It boosted us from 10th to 7th. We also took the largest Brown Trout on day 2 and earned a check there. 10" Spin Doctors and ATOMIK flies were the big producers for us this weekend.

Our strong Sodus event also earned us a 7th place finish in the "Best of the East event".

Oswego Pro-AM (Oswego, NY): 23rd-we stink. day 2 is cancelled (I hate that !!!)...

The Oswego fishing was tough again. We fished hard on friday and boated about 9 fish. These were Browns, lakers, Kings and Steelies. Did not land any big fish and did not weigh in at the Friday Big Fish event. Saturday, we took 8 bites and only boated 3 fish. We lost 2 mega kings that would have greatly helped. We finished a lowly 23rd out of 36 teams knowing that if we just landed a couple more we would have made top 10. It was tough-tough fishing and the teams that landed their bites did well cuz YOU WERE not gonna get a lot of opportunities in Oswego... To make it worse, Saturdays fishing was cancelled due to high waves and winds. No chance at redemption and we had to put the boat on the trailer very disappointed... next event will be the Sodus Pro-Am and we were hoping for better weather and better fishing !

Summer King of the Lake (Whitby Ontario): 7th place Big Fish Friday, 12th place weekend event.

Traveled across Lake O to fish from Port Whitby for the first time. Nice Port and great people. I recommend a trip there. Decided to start about 10 miles East of port and hit several fish on our troll to port after we arrived on "the other side" Fish seemed to be from 50 to 100ft. down. On Friday, we motored back to where we hit fish on Friday to find that the fishing was spotty but there were fish to work with. We hit some Steelies and Kings and weighed a big fish that was around 22.5 pounds. Out 5 fish would have weighed about 100 pounds if today was T. Day.

We decided to go back east on Day one because the fish were large and in a 5 fish event, size matters more so that qty. We found a very tough bite on Day one. Only boated three kings and lost a few including one with 10 minutes left... We wer in 14th place after Day one. Mpst of the boats that caught 5 or more all went way west (23-35 miles)

Day two we decided to work east again but not as far. We ground out our fish and landed 5 or 9 Kings. We broke a large fish (22 pounds) and missed 3 other great King bites which hurt. We were close to weighing in the largest box overall on Day 2 but.... we settled for 8th best box on Day 2 and 12th place overall. Tough fishing again unless you ran FARRRRR West to Toronto. Not an option for us. Currently, we are sitting in 5th place in the King of The Lake race with two more events to go.

Erie, PA EPSFA Walleye Challenge (Erie, PA) 11th place VQ-4 and 14th place VQ-5, Biggest Lake Trout Award winner.

Walleye fishing was lousey and the fish are not here yet. Only hi-lite was that we won the big laker Award with a small laker-the onlyn one caught by any boats that day. Team VQ-4 and VQ-5 struggled trying to catch fish that were not there. Over 40 teams enetered this one day event and most did 0 to 2 fish.

Orleans County Pro-AM (Oak Orchard, NY): 7th place Big Fish Friday, 8th place Pro-Am and 8th place Best of the West Final Finish.

Off to defend our 1st place finish from 2008. The Lake conditions were cold, unstable and fish spread everywhere. Tough conditions were upon us. The two charter days prior were grind days and we worked hard to manage 10-13 bites each day. Mostly taking Kings.

Saturday, we knew if we could box ANY 12 fish we would be in great shape. We targetted Coho's inside again and went 1 for 3 by 9am. Not good so we decided to pull and go further west. We sat down near Olcott and fished a great picture and huge amounts of bait. We got a program going and boated 8 fish and lost 5 in just three hours. 2 of the fish were just under sized Steelies so, we had to place them back. We managed a couple good steelies in the mix with one weighing in at 12.4 # pounds and another just under 11#. It was tough fishing for most and we were in 5th place after day one with weighing just 7 fish. Orange back Super Slims and LD spoons were hot for us today as they took most of our Steelie bites including one that GOT BIT Off.

We decided to make the long run back and did on Sunday. We found a vapor screen however we hooked and lost our first Bow there. After a while with no bites and a zero screen, we decided to run back east and see if the fish/bait picture went there. It did and we were able to grind out an 8 fish box. We went 10 for 17 overall but two had to put two smaller steelies back again. The fish were high with most coming from the top 45 ft in the water column.

We finished in the 8th place spot out of 39 Pro Teams and also finished 8th overall out of 30 Ppro Teams in the lake Ontario Best of The West, a title we claimed in 2007.

Monday, was the first annual BIG BOYS Shootout event. Only 10 teams participated and the entry was $1,000. Team Vision Quest ran part way offshore looking for a good break and a home run. We did not move a rod the first 45 minutes and watched a bleak screen. Here we go AGAIN, off to a late start and behind the 8 BALL...We were quick to rack, move and reload and join the spot where the majority of the teams went (West by the Niagara River). We were quick into Kings and Steelies. As the NE winds increased, we watched our good water and fish finder slowly evaporate. Wehere did it go, east winds suck up there. It was time to deploy some Coho baits to ensure we get our box. Out go the 6" Spinny's and coho Axction Fly's. We picked at Cohos until fish no. 12 came with time to spare, it ate a 35 ft. rigger and I watched the fish come accross the screen to die!. We racked and were happy with making our box in the now cold and BLACK ICE water. We took the long ride in to 3-5 ft. waves out of the NE. After the weigh in, Team VQ claimed the 3rd place and final pay spot. Good for a $2,000 paycheck.

Niagara County Skip Hatrmann Pro-AM (Olcott, NY) 3rd place Big Fish Friday, 1st Place largest King and 12th place Pro-AM

Friday, was the Big Fish Friday event. We did fair Friday but never found a great spot. However, we managed to catch the largest King 23.55# and take 3rd place overall in the weigh your best (3) event. These were good for two nice paychecks... Mr. Big King ate a 8" crush-glow white Spinny off a wire diver.

The Pro-Am went fair for us. Saturday, we gambled and tried to target off shore Steelies and Kings and fell short of a limit. We felt we may be able to do 12 fish out there on a break we found late Friday. However, It was a tough grind out there and managed an 8 for 13 bite day. Sunday, we changed our game plan and went inside and east looking for Coho Salmon in the 50-60 foot depths. After Saturday, we discovered that many teams ahead of us caught decent numbers of Coho to make their catches. On Sunday, We were gifted with 13# laker and 7# Steelie in addition to boxing out with 10 more Coho. We were one of the first Pro's to be in on Sunday. Our finish allowed us to take 12th place and it was good for a nice paycheck. The 6" Dreamweaver orange and white crush glow spinnys and Coho Action Flys were hot as well as the SS get er Dun spoon and Eagles Goldie Hawn Glow SS. We stuck most of these out when needed and ended up catching fish no. 11 and 12 on the same rod to end our day. we finished 12 for 21. To add to the excitement, we had Jake the camera man on board with us filming.

Scotty May-King of The Lake (Wilson; NY) 3rd place Dreamweaver Big Fish Friday and 29th place Main Event (sucks !)

Back to Lake Ontario and the Port of Wilson, NY to prepare and fish the May Wilson, NY King of the lake Scotty. Fishing on Friday was fair with a mix of smaller and larger Kings. 10" white crush glow and 10" green crush glow spinnys and flies took most of the deep fish and larger fish. Super Slim spoons were the size spoon the fish wanted this week also. Team VQ took the 3rd spot in Dreamweaver Big Fish Friday. The winning King was 21.2 pounds and only an ounce from the 2nd spot. This was good for a nice paycheck.

The weekend event was tough for us. We caught fair numbers of fish but not big fish. Sunday we only boated 9 fish and weighed 4 Kings with the balance being Cohos that were just under the tournament size limit. So, we weighed 9 fish out of the allowable 10, that hurt us but would not have helped us make the top 10. This weekend, we just could not get dialed into a program or a spot.

Many of the top teams fished from 120-170 ft. down with riggers and stretching wire divers over 400 ft. This was not typical May fishing but some guys tapped into it to get their fish and the bigger fish. I guess we will be ready for this next year !

Scotty Spring-King of The Lake:(St. Catherines; ONT) 9th place Dreamweaver Big Fish Friday and 4th place Main Event

This week we were up in St. Catherines, ONT to prep. and fish the 2009 King of the lake Spring Scotty. We started on Thursday by looking at the inside waters and found a few Kings way inside including a 19.5# King, a bunch of Coho, a Laker and a Brown. Decent fishing for the first excursion on Lake O. Friday we moved out deeper looking for a King bite and found some... We figured we had our starting spot for the tournament.

Day one of the event and rods were blazing. We boated many Kings on Saturday and only missed a few. Dreamweaver mags smoked them today off riggers, 7 color and 10 color cores. A 200ft. copper working the chute did very well also. Team Vision Quest (Kevin, Jeremy & Captain Mike) were just ounces (one Alewife) out of first after Day #1 out of 74 competing teams. Saturday afternoon it blew amazingly hard out of the West for hours and we figured that our pocket of fish will have moved east like they did in 2008. Our 5 Kings that we weighed were (89.8#) We boated nearly 20 Kings today.

On Day 2, we gambled a little and west opposite of where we fished Saturday, hoping a pocket of Kings moved. We were the only boat in this spot but we did not move any rods, so afer 15 minutes we ran back west a little ways and immediately started popping rods. We had a good morning bite until the NE winds shut us down. We struggled the rest of the day and figured that we may have gotten bumped down a little. We still had a good box (85#) for 5 salmon but we heard there were a few mega boxes taken that day. After the weigh ins were done, we found ourselves in 4th spot overall after being in 2nd place Day #1. The day #1 leader only boxed two fish and slid well out of the top 10. We had very good fishing over the 4 days and found fish from 9 f.o.w. to 76 f.o.w. and took several fish between 19# and 21.5# which are very nice sprink Kings. It was not easy fishing up there. Only 22 teams out of 74 weighed in their allowable 5 fish each day and the day one leader went from 1st to ? after only taking two fish. It was not easy and we did OK with our finish to start the lake Ontario Tournament season. Next stop will be Wilson, NY for the second lef of the King of The Lake event.

Erie, PA Sport Fishing Association "Spring Trout Challenge": (Erie, PA) 3rd place for VQ IV and 8th place for VQ V.

Today was our first tournament of the season, a members only Association event that 26 teams participated in. weather was good and the fishing was tough. We began our day by missing the first 3 fish... Writing may be on the wall hmmmmm... We struggled to land our fish today and only boated 5 out of 20 bites. Did I just write that???? I said to myself at one point that I had never seen anything like this after going one for eight during the last two hours of the day. We took a disappointing 8th place despite grinding out 20 hits using a measly 6 rod program (tournament rule).

Captain Paul, running the Vision Quest IV fared better and took 3rd place by landing 7 of 11 bites. The higher bite to die ratio paid high dividends. Captain Mike Hinkel, who also runs Vision Quest IV sometimes and fishes on our tournament team landed 10 of 11 bites to take first place. Second place went to the Jones team. These guys also fish with me also from time to time and are very good fishermen. The good side of not doing well today was that I was surrounded by the guys who captain, mate and tournament fish with me and they all won... By"NOT" taking advantage of the bites, despite getting a lot will not help you at the scales. Lesson learned-As my only tournament rule says "EVERY FISH COUNTS"

Results of the tournaments from Lake Erie, Michigan and Ontario. They include the Friday events, Lake Ontario Challenge Cups and weekend Tourney events.

2008' RESULTS: (1st, 2nd, 6th, 7th, 15th, 5th, 5th, 1st, 5th, 33rd, 1st, 2nd, 27th, 6th, *4th Lake Ontario Challenge Cup, *6th West Challenge Cup, *5th East Challenge Cup)

****Team V.Q. finishes in the top 10 in (14) out of (17) events and (22) out of the last (27) events during 2007 and 2008****

Our Association put together a last minute Steelhead tournament held out of Erie, PA. Due to major, major winds we were restricted to fishing the Bay/Channel/Point area. Our Team hooked up enough fish to do better but could not put them all in the boat and finished a lowly 6th place. A couple of the up and coming fishermen of the future won the fun event. These young men happen to be my mates (Shawn and Mike-The young Mike) and they beat me at my own game by fishing where we did not. Guess they learned a couple things from me anyway. This concluded the tourney season and was a fun local event to end the year.

Recently, we competed in a Dreamweaver Lures Big Catch Friday Tourney and we finished 1st crushing the competition by 7 pounds. This was a weigh your best 3 fish event. We did it with 12.8, 11.5 and 10.5 pound steelies. What a nice box... We fed them Dreamweaver Super Slims and what a great Steelhead this spoon has been for us. It consistently catches those Steelies and has great action in the water.

Erie, PA Sport Fishing Assoc. Walleye & Steelhead Pro-AM: (Erie, PA) 2nd place, 6th place for Vision Quest IV (Captain Mike Hinkle)..

The Pro-AM event was held this weekend of Aug. 3rd and 4th. We managed 2nd place after sitting in 3rd after Day one...... Just 11 points shy of 1st place. We were the "ONLY" Pro team to weigh a limit of fish "each day". The last three years we finished 1st, 2nd and 2nd. Each day we averaged 30 bites and boated 23 fish. (walleyes and steelies). This year, we fished with Dick's Sporting Goods who was a charter sponsor for the event. After losing quite a few the first day (23/34), we were in fish killing mode on day two going 23/28. The Walleye fishing was very good each day and we could have boated a 4 man limit with no problem in add. to some steelies but we stuck with our plan of leaving some extra time to try to get the Big Steelies like we did Friday. We lost our 2 largest Steelies on Saturday which ould have made it very close but that's the way it goes. Congrats. to The Pro and Am winners-Team Pacific Time and Storm Warning on good hard earned victories.

We used the SS and DW spoons to take our Steelies and a few extra Eyes each day but hit the Eyes hard using Deep diving plugs with the necessary weight to get them in the Eye zone. On Sunday, we had a true quad as 4 Eyes bit at once-they all found the ice chest. (Good job guys)..We had the pleaseure of taking Dick's Sporting Goods people out each day on a charter/sponsor package deal. The people were great and I would have them back in a minute...

The Vision Quest IV run by Captain Mike Hinkle took 6th place honors again in this years event. Capt. Mike also was out on a charter/sponsor deal this year and did well with his clients. The 2nd and 6th place finishes for both boats were identical to the 2007 event.

Wayne County Pro-Am: (Sodus Point, NY): 7th place Big Fish Friday Event and 15th place Pro Division

After running a productive charter on Thursday and having a very good Friday Tournament we were very confident going in to Saturday. Friday, we were able to find a good pocket of Steelies with a couple Kings. We took a 23.5# King and a 12.5# Steelie there as well as several others. We were shaking fish off before noon and headed in. We placed 7th in the Friday event even though we fished til 11:30. As usual, Lake O. had different plans and we struggled over the weekend. However, we did take some nice fish including a 24.5# and 21.5# Salmon. Saturday we were in 15th place and needed a big Sunday to catch up. We decided on a plan and we runned and gunned looking for a hast/hot bite but never found much. Catching was tough in Sodus this weekend. Most top teams ran 30 miles to find decent catches of Browns. The top teams took Browns for their boxes. There were few Salmon caught and most teams that targeted them during the event did not do well as most struggled top ull 3-5 Salmon each day. Our Erie Pro-Am is coming up next and I am looking forward to a 20 minute drive to the marina and fishing my own waters where we have more fish to poke at and I can sleep in my own rack.

Oswego County Pro-AMm: (Oswego, NY) 5th place Pro Division (currently in 2nd overall in the Lake O. Challenge Cup)

No boat issues in this one... We traveled all the way to Oswego to the land of Waves, Fleas and Warm water to catch the fish (What fish?). Thursday we sat at the dock while waves crashed the breakwall and did a boat maintenance day. Pre-Fish Friday, we roamed all over both in and out looking for signs of life. We found some but no spots that would find us going to on Day one. Day one, I set up inside on bait and temp and worked the BT's (Brown Trout) Good move! We were able to hook 16 and boated our 12 fish late AM and were one of very few to box out on Day one. A steady diet of Super Slims led to the demise of the BT's this morning. We were in 5th place after Day one and only one fish out of 2nd and 2 away from 1st. Knowing that Lake O. changes on an hourly basis, we changed our Day two plans and went for the win in lieu of banging the BT's inside with the fleet. (Coincidentally, the fleet struggled Sunday on the BT's)This move almost paid high dividends (10K) The Day one leader fell and we managed 5 fish in our deep water program but a dropped fish by me at the end cost us 3rd place and two early break-offs cost us 2nd placet Close but.... We managed 5th spot overall but our consistent catch allowed us to charge to 2nd place in the Lake Ontario Challenge Cup event. Oswego was tough this weekend for a lot of teams. Many zero's, one and two fish boxes in the Pro Div.

Boat issues put a DQ on the board this AM. We had a power steering problem earlier in the week and thought it was fixed after fishing a full day charter on Friday with a nice catch and no leaks. When we ran to our spot Saturday, there was a large puddle of power steering fluid all over the deck. We made several attempts to repair it with no success. The hose was deteriorated and it kept leaking. After considerable thought and an attempt to troll with no steering but by using the transmissions, I decided it was not worth risking further boat damage and operating the boat with "0" steering. We motored in early just as high winds began. We considered jumping on VQ 4 but with strong winds, a late start and spending another $200 in fuel, we opted to sit this one out and help set up for the picnic-weigh ins. We will hve to wait for the Erie Pro-AM to get back at the fish...

Orleans County-Oak Orchard Pro-AM: (Orleans County): 5th place Big Fish Friday and 1st place Pro Division and 7th place Best of The West

Pro-AM time... Round #2 of the NY Pro-Am series. We were headed to Oak Orchard-Orleans County to fish the 3rd annual Pro-AM event. Our prior two tourneys there netted a 6th place, 2nd place and a 1st place Big Fish Friday event. Last year we were close to a victory and 10 missed Day 2 fish cost us the big pay check. Close BUT no cigar !

N.East winds still hampered the fishing and it was tough at the Oak. How tough? some zeros were put on the board and the average box was a whopping 3 to 4 fish. We started off good on friday and took 5th in the weigh your best 3 fish Friday tourney that had 41 teams participate. (Only 13 teams weighed in out of 41 and that was a sign of how tough the tourney was going to be). With cold clear water almost everywhere, the fish were scattered and the overall bite turned to Steelies. We ran a 6 rod Steelie program and kept 2 rods parked for the occasional Salmon bite. After Day one, we were in 10th place and only one fish from 4th spot. The top three guys had decent day one catches and we figured they would be tough to catch, unless they BOMB on day two. With highly unstable and moving water conditions, we knew there was no guaranteed day one spots and day two would find people starting all over again. We chose a different day two spot and put two fish in the box before we had our 8 rod spread out-a darn good start. As the morning went, we began to hear no fish, no bites, one fish and two fish boxes galore and we knew we had a good chance if we can get the rods firing again. We were sitting with (3) fish in the box at 8AM. Three more than a lot of teams. We moved back in after a long north STROKE troll and moved into a honey hole which was not far from our AM starting spot and took 7 more fish (one under sized Steelie) and missed 6 more in the next 3 hours. We pulled 16 bites today under tough conditions and took the $10,000 1st place prize, a nice calcutta and some ego-side bet action. Nexy tourney is out of Erie, PA on June 28th and it will feel good to fish home for a change... We also finished 7th in the Best of The West Challenge Cup series out of 30 participating teams. Team VQ took first place honors in 2007.

Skip Hartman Niagara Pro-AM: (Olcott, NY): 5th place Friday Don Johannes Tournament and Poor finish Pro-AM

We pre-fished Friday with the team and thumped them good. Many quality fish which most teams were not catching. Did the same program we have done the other 4 trips out of Port. My guys were crying as they held up the racks for the "Kill" shot photo at the end of the day. We were confident we had a good plan and hoped to continue to catch the bigger fish.

Day one started in a down pour but we took two fish pretty quick, then it slowed and we struggled. We worked our prior spots hard and stayed with the plan. Eventually, we picked up and ran west a few miles hoping to sit on some fish. Still slow. We knew the far west bite was very good for the 2-7 pound fish but we held course hoping to get the big fish going. We were going for the win and did not want to succomb to small Salmon. This eventually hurt us. We did however take a 23.7 pound King which was the 3rdlargest of the tournament and made the day one L.O.C. derby leaderboard 1st place fish. It ate a Carmel Dolphin Spin Doctor and green action fly on a wire diver (and it was a "vicious bite")

Day two, we decided to succomb to the west run and ran 15 miles west to fish with the "pack". We elected to run a big fish only program which helped. Eventually, we had to change our tactics and put the small Salmon program out to mop of the balance of the fish we needed, the clock was ticking and we wanted to make sure we ended day two with our box. When that happened the small fish bite was good and our observer even got to reel in a couple extras as we started to pull rods. Our early limit catch on day 2 was a good way to end the trip but our day one put us in a hole we could not recover from because the fishing was good for most and most did not fall on day #2. (which is common in this tournament) Although we did not place in the main event, we did do well in the Friday Don Johannes tournament and got a nice pay check ($700.00) as well as take the 3rd largest King in the 2008 Pro-AM event.

St. Joe Michigan Southwest Steelheaders Summer Challenge: (St. Joe MI) 1st and 2nd Place

Fished with the Dreamweaver guys in Lake Michigan for this event. Targetted Lakers mostly because the Kings did not show up yet in good numbers and the available Coho's were to small to weigh in for a total weight tournament. Finished 1st in the "333" event where you weigh your largest 3 fish of the two day tourney. We took the 1st, 3rd and 6th largest Lakers of the event and walked away with this one-easily. Finished 2nd in the Pro-Am against 39 other Pro teams. I got to crank in a 19.8# Laker-good for Big Fish Day one. Shane Ruboyianes cranked in Big Fish Day two and biggest overall 22.8# Laker. It ate a 10" white Spin Doctor and Strong Fly. Overall, we boated 47 Lakers, Kings, Steelies and Coho over the pre-fish and tourney days.

Scotty Spring Tourney: (St. Catherines ONT.) 27th Place==="ouch" pitiful start, glad we got this one out of our system...

Going, Going, Gone= described the last few days. Prefishing went good but the tourney was tough for us. Finished 27th out of 70 teams. Overall, we boated 26 Kings, Steelies and Coho over the pre-fish and tourney days. Sunday was awful for us. We found cold-clear ice water everywhere we pre-fished. This was due to a major windage that occurred Sat evening. The good water moved accross the Niagara River and so did most of the fish. Our fish went to NY and we did not count on this and did not have our NY licenses, so we roamed around looking for a golden horse shoe. The teams that went to NY did well including the winner. Hopefully, we got our Albatross out of our system early this year. On to the next one in Michigan.

The last three years we made a commitment to get better and be a tournament contender at each event. The 06' and 07' season found us placing in the top 12 pay spots in 11 of 15 tournaments entered and 17 of 32 events since we started to fish these events. We were close to adding another top 12 finish and were in the top 10 after day one in Oswego but an inhaled sea anchor and wire diver-drag issues kept us out of contention. Keep in mind most of these events are fished outside of Erie (our home turf) and on totally different Lakes. Which makes it very difficult. However, we have held our own as they say. Team V.Q. also won the Lake Ontario Challenge Cup West Division Championship and placed third overall in the 4 event race. The results of the (6) local events we have fished: (3) 1st place finishes (1) 2nd place finish and (2) 6th place finishes. Being home is a little less challenging that on another Lake with little practice time.

We really started fishing tournaments in 2002 with just one event and in 2004 we decided to get more involved in tournament fishing. Why? because they are challenging, fun, you leave with a great overall experience, we always meet new people and shake a lot of hands. Tournaments allow you to fish against the very best certain ports have to offer. There is a rewarding feeling when you trailer a boat 150 miles or further, pre-fish a day or day and one half on foreign waters and then, get called to come up and get a check at the end of the event. We hope to continue to get better and make that rewarding walk to the "Check Man".

Erie, PA Sport Fishing Association Walleye & Steelhead Pro-AM: (Erie, PA): 2nd Place for Vision Quest V (Capt. Pete) and 6th place for Vision Quest IV (Capt. Mike)

Team VQ V went in to this years tourney as defending champs. On day one, we were met with some adversity by having a shaft/prop shear off and we were stuck with fishing most of day on one motor and it limited our places to fish. However, we managed to catch all of the fish plus extras and manage to be in 6th place after Day one. I was unable to get the boat repaired and the big VQ sat idle in the boat sling. We were able to fish on another Captains boat on Day 2 and made some tackle adjustments and put our plan together.. Our goal was to catch 18-20 Eyes and try to get a few big ones plus try to get a few bonus Steelies while targetting Eyes. We did this easily but only managed one 10# fish plus a couple above "Pencil" size fish. However, we managed to boat 4 Steelies and miss a couple which helped. The plan was tomove out to Steelie country to get our last Steelie and then work on size by trying to land bigger Steelies. Our Steelie move paid off immediately and I killed the 5th while setting lines. We were also able to boat two more and we missed a couple in a short time. We had our 17 fish again to weigh in plus some extras. I felt pretty good about our catch and figured we would move up in the rankings. Move up we did, all the way to 2nd, just 8 points out of 1st. Team Vision Quest IV captained by Mike Hinkel finished a respectable 6th while operating the 29ft. Tiara with his team.

We boated 16 Steelies and 33 Walleyes in the 2 day event which allowed 12 Eyes and 5 Steelies to be brought to the scales each day.

A spoon program consisting of Dreamweaver Super Slims in conjunction with Storm Thunderstoicks contributed to our success in the EPSFA tournament.

This concluded the 2007 tournament season which was very good for us. Team VQ had (2) 2nd place finishes, (1) 5th place, and (3) 6th place finishes in the 8 tourneys fished. We also won some additional prizes throughout those events.

Erie, PA Sport Fishing Association one day "WALLEYE CHALLENGE": (Erie, PA): 6th Place

We participated in this years first event, a one day weigh your best 9 Walleyes fishing tournamnet. 39 Teams competed and Team VQ posted a 6th place finish and missed 4th place by a pound or so. We fished the shallow waters today and pounded the eyes. We boated 24 in 5.5 hours of fishing.

We headed to Sodus with a goal to stay in the top 3 spots for the Lake Ontario Challenge Cup and make the Top 10. Goal accomplished. We finished in 6th place after holding on to 8th after Day one with a Heavy 9 fish box. Fishing was tougher for the field on Day 2 and we managed 10 fish and moved into 6th place comfortably. We caught 5 Kings and 5 Browns on Day 2 after boxing all Kings on Day one.

This concluded the NY Pro-Am season.Team Vision Quest managed to place in 3 of the 4 events and held a top 10 pacing on 7 of the 8 tournament fishing days. We also won the Best of The West Challenge Cup and finished 3rd overall in the Lake Ontario Challenge Cup. A good feat for an out of State/Lake team.

Did well on our day and one quarter pre-fish on Thursday evening and Friday. We boated about 20 Kings, Steelies and Browns out of the two areas we fished. Seemed that fishw ere located everywhere and the Key would be to finding mostly Kings. Browns would not win it....

After boxing out on Kings and Browns on Day one, we were in 9th place and not far out of the Top 5. We boated most of our fish on Dreamweaver Mags and regulars. After we just boated our 12th fish, an outdown fired and we boated a 13# Steelhead but had to let her go.... This started a run of bad things to follow....

Day 2 we had a great plan and it worked. Started inside and within minutes hooked a Major- It ran out to 600 ft before getting off and a bent spoon returned. 0 for 1. Within minutes, the other wire diver rod fired and it ran out to 500 ft. before getting off and a bent hook on a fly returned. 0 for 2. We boated our third, then lost a slob on the surface after a 20 minute fight. 1 for 4. We then boat a Brown Trout that is 18.25" (just a hair over the min. limit) and make a decision to let it go. Then, we double on Steelies. One is a keeper and the other is just a tad too small. They have to be 21.5". OK, now we just let two fish go, THE idea is to kill, not let go.... Then we boat a couple more... Our next fish fires and screams out a board and gets off. THEN, we suck up out trolling bag into our prop and have to switch motors and try to get it out-NO LUCK. OK we decide to keep fishing and proceed to lose 5 MAJORS in a row including another wire fish that rips out to 550 ft. and bent another hook. (My observer is shaking his head in disbelief) Drags guys !!! Then an outdown fires, Fish On, appears to be a Brown Trout but when it nears the surface-a Sheephead rears its UGLY mug. At that point-the towel is thrown in, flag raised and FAT lady stands. Of course we lose our last fish and end up with landing (7) returning two of them, dropping 10 fish including 8 Majors, two bent hooks, one mangled spoon, one d.o.a. motor and a Sheepshead. To make it worse, "I", the skipper mistime the quiet ride in on one motor and take a 90 point penalty. This bombed us out of the top 10.... Shell out the side bets and On to the next one!!

Bad info..., that's what I had when we arrived at Lake O. Kings fishing and Coho fishing had slowed and was a tough bite, hmmmm. So, we devoted our pre-fish day looking east for Steelies and Coho with a 12-fish plan in mind. Day 1 plan was to catch 12 silvers-big or small and we almost did this. We started off 0 for 6 and finished 7 for 21 while targetting steelies and Coho-they hadtheir way with us... At the weigh-in, we discovered some nice boxes of Kings and Coho being weighed in. hmmmm. Bad info. We ended 24th of 44 after Day 1.

Day 2, we changed our plan and went King and Coho fishing in the same spot as the leader and some top 10 teams. Plan worked and we boxed out next to them, while the leader only tok 4 fish..... We took mostly Kings and Coho with fish #12 being a 25" Steelie. Today was just opposite of Day #1. We boated the majority of our bites and the entire program, including spoons and presentation changed. However, we dialed them in quickly and charged all the way to the 5th place spot. We took the majority of our fish on magnum VQ alewive, VQ green alewive, greasy chicken DW spoons as well as a few Coho on green flies and bab Spin Docs ran high on mono-divers. Riggers, cores and divers all contributed to our 12 fish box.

Our strong Day 2 finish boosted us and we were able to win "The Best of The West" Challenge Cup. The Cup is an award and cash given to the team that accumulated the most points during the (2) west end Lake O. Pro-Ams=Olcott and Oak Orchard.

After running some charters and our Friday pre-fish day, I felt pretty good about having the fish and spot dialed in.. We took limits of good fish up to the tournament. Team VQ won the Pre-Fish derby on Friday by weighing in the largest King on Friday-a good start to things and good for $180 cash...

Day 1, we headed 24 miles West to the sweet spot and were rewarded with a 12 fish box late in the morning. Our Team took care of business quickly while landing 12 of 15 bites. We headed back, fueled up and prepped for Day 2 while waiting for the weigh-ins to start. Team VQ was in 1st place after Day 1.

Day 2, we decided to fish deeper and try to selectively harvest larger Kings in the AM. The plan started good and we were into quality fish right away. Then things slowed down and we begin to miss fish after fish. Our 2nd consecutive wire diver fish was missed even though it was ripped hard and screamed. GONE AGAIN! That was the 2nd of 4 fish that crushed the divers but never died. Our "picture" totally evaporated and we were looking for 3 more fish. We ended up getting 2 more and losing 3 and went to the weigh in with 11 fish, one short, did I say, one short? We weighed in last and fell 5 points short, a 1/2 of a fish short. The winning team boated 3 in their last 15 minutes of fishing to "eak" us out of 1st place=KARMA. However, they did not enter the "Calcutta" which gave us an added bonus of $2,000 in cold hard cash-nice... So close but yet so far. Tournament rule #1 "EVERY FISH COUNTS" was really applicable in this one...

Scotty Downriggers Spring Tournament:(Lake O/St. Catharines ONT): stroked it.

After three days of fishing-looking-scratching my head-wondering- I asked myself if I just came back from Lake Huron? Nope. Fishing was tough for us over the two tournament days and we struggled to find/catch fish each day. Our pre-fish day was our best day of the three BUT did not count. The Laker fishing was good but they don't count. So, like most of the teams in this years event-WE FISHED FOR FISH that were not there yet. Lake O. is still very cold and the Kings have not arrived in good numbers yet. There were some fish for the taking if you were on them in the AM. We were not. We boated 32 fish in the three days but the majority were Lakers with some Kings, Coho and a couple Browns mixed in. The water was so cold, that on our pre-fish day, we trolled in to 6-12 f.o.w. looking for pods of Coho but managed to catch Lakers- Non-Stop, in those shallow waters. Hats off to this years winners. This is the first time in the 6 events we have fished at the Spring Scotty that Team V.Q. did not weigh our 5 Salmon in on each day and we managed to not do it on back to back days this year...

Team V.Q. will be back.. Heading to the Orleans-Oak Orchard Pro-Am Tournament next on May 26-27.

WASH!!! traveled to the Scotty Downrigger Fall Salmon Tournament with hopes of the weather turning more favorable than worse. It went to worse with Gail winds forecasted for the first day of the tournament with rough conditions into Sunday. (This weather was spurned on by the hurricane) We made the decision to bail instead of waiting around hoping to fish... I cancelled the rest of the team because they were still in Pittsburgh. The tournament did fish on Sunday for 4 hours after the wind settled enough but conditions were still rough and fishing was very poor. The winning team killed 2 medium sized Kings while 20 teams of the 24 teams that entered failed to land a Salmon. A poor showing and tough conditions=a good decision to bail on this event.

Erie, PA Sport Fishing Assoc. Walleye and Steelhead Pro-AM, Erie, PA: (Aug. 12 and 13th) 1st Place "Champs"

Saturday began fast and furious. We started in 58 f.o.w. and worked 58-62 on a N & S troll. In 3 hours, we boated 18 legal Walleyes, kept 12 over the 17" tournamnet min and released 6 that were between 15" and 17". With a 12 Eyes in the box and no Steelie bites, we decided to motor offshore and scan until we found bait and fish. It wasn't long and we were into bigger Eyes. We proceeded to boat 17 more fish including 10 keeper Eyes, 2 good Steelies (12#) and 5 small Steelies just below the 17" min but legal size. We also lost a few Steelies that HURT. Dreamweaver Super Slims did most of the damage in glow frog, green icicle and blue icicle. A custom taped Dreamweaver regular sized blanks with kevorkian tape and a glow ladder also worked great. After Day 1,we were in second place and only 7 points behind "Fish Stix".

Sunday, we reversed the plan. Go for the home run and fish deep, even though we knew we may not get 12 Eyes for sure but they would be much bigger than the Eyes in closer. At 6:39, 9 minutes after starting, we boxed our first Steelie, 65 down over 88 f.o.w.. We proceded to peck away out deep working one general area, 88-95 f.o.w.. We boated 22 fish Sunday. Not as many but the deep waters do not contain the numbers of small fish that the inside waters do. AT 12:00, we had 14 tournament fish: 11 keeper Eyes and 3 Steelies. We also boated 3 smaller Steelies, had a 6#er go airborne, crash and open a Sampo split ring (AHHHHHHH-Can't believe it!) Then had a MAJOR Bug Eater eat our 80ft. rigger and screamed line. A Captains error caused that MEGA fish to be cut off (AHHHHHHH-Can't believe I did that!!) We lost a couple more Steelie rips and then missed one but landed it's eye ball (AHHHHHHHHH), we dropped a smaller but good Steelie in the prop wash (CAN'T Believe this is happening to us....)We also had a crew member go over the stern and float away from the boat. M.O.B. We were able to recover him after the life ring went sailing but had to re-rig everything and start over. That cost us about a half hour but we did manage to land 2 fish while our crew member floated away... THAT's a first! Since it was good for 2 fish we asked him to do it again (He said NA)With one hour to go, we made a Team decision to run into "Pencil" land and get our last Eye because it was a for sure(Yeah right) We set up in 62ft. and rigged quickly. Our first fish was 16.5", second fish was 15.5", missed our 3rd, had an electric rigger go dead, missed another Eye, then with 1 minute left, I we started to pull rods most likely to have a "hanger". I elected to pull my stud diver rod pulling a black/silver shallow Thunderstick. BINGO ! I knew it was over 17" just by the weight. I milked that fish in as the observer "Dale" counted off the seconds. With 30 seconds left, the other diver goes, I landed my Eye (a 18" fish) with 25 seconds left. The other diver fish was brought in at 10 seconds after 2:00 and we had to release it. WHEW! We headed in with our 15 tournament fish plus others. A great finish. What a day of mishaps though.

At the weigh in, we discovered the first place team did not land any Steelies and only weighed in 12 Eyes, we GOT IT! We knew that unless someone weighed in a monster 17 fish box we could not be beat. Our team finished 1st, winning by 28 points(without needing that stressful 12th Eye) The gamble to stay deep and go for silvers and bigger eyes paid off!!! The 2nd place team, (Shirley B) friends from Cleveland OH fished in our day 2 spot which helped push them into 2nd place. (They also won "The Big Boys Only" tournament held out of Ludington MI last week and came into Erie on an obvious roll)See you boys in Port Credit for the Fall Scotty Tournament. (Pic is big Day 1 catch and my quality prefish trip with my 3 year old girl; Maya with her first Eye and Noah; my 7 year old son. Now that's what's important!!!!!)

Fishing was tough again on Lake O. After a decent pre-fish day we were still skeptical of our plan and if we were really on fish. After 2 tough days of fishing, we finished in 17th place. Several boats fished inside on Day 2 and bopped the Brown Trout. Team V.Q. went after Kings and tried to win it with a King program but the Kings did not cooperate. We fished both in and out in search of a good pod of fish to work but never had an handle on them. Failing to place/cash in this event cost us our almost perfect season of tournament fishing to date. We finished in 4 of 5 events to date. There are 2 more Tourneys in 2006: Lake Erie Pro-AM and the Scotty Downrigger Fall Salmon Tourney.

We heard the fishing was slow and had been relatively slow in these waters for some time now. That's what we found. Had to work our butts off to get fish . Day number one found us in 13th place with no back up plan for a spot that would move us up the ladder fast. So, we decided to fish the same waters and do our best to gind out a respectable box.... Day number 2 started slower than Day one. Uh Oh! After missing a couple fish and landing an undersize King, we finally broke the ice and landed a 12# King on a junk line. After that, we went dry and decided to take a shot to deep water without much to lose. I scanned until we saw bait and a few marks and decided to set lines. We just got the 8 lines set and a Steelie grabbed a Yeck spoon on a slider. It died and it felt good. We managed to work that little spot and grind out a 20# King and a #16 King. Lost another fish on a junk line and headed in. This weak box was good enough for 12th spot in the Pro div. and a paycheck. Team VQ finished 18th out of 71 overall and I believe is still the only Team this year to place in EVERY Lake O. tourney this season.

To tell you just how tough it was: there were 8-9 combined ZERO's each day (Pro and Am div.) and almost the same on Day 2. Yes, ZERO fish weighed in. Half of the teams in the top 12 ran 34 miles and one ran 82 miles -one way to try to find numbers of fish. Some did and some did not. An X champion of this tourney pulled a ZERO on Day 2. And several damn good fisherman struggled to pull 2-3 fish a day... The fish just were not there. Hats off to the guys who pulled fish in this one. On to Sodus next week after a Walleye outing on Lake Erie.

Fishing was tough overall on Day number one. Cold water moved in and scattered what few fish were around. The water was dead flat to start, then it blew 15-25 out of the North West. We managed to boat 4 fish out of 11 or 12 bites. We lost 3 quality fish that would have given us top spot. Ouch! The winners boated 8 of 9 bites........ We did manage to land the 2nd largest Steelie and 3rd largest King in the pro division. We finished in 6th place in the Pro and 6th of 34 overall. Our biggest fish was a 21.5# King that ate a spin doctor and action fly combo.

After a solid seek and find Pre-Fish day, we had our Day #1 plan: Crush Coho's inside, go for the numbers and points, then go Laker fishing. Plan was a success except the Lakers failed to cooperate. Team VQ landed their 12th Coho on the deck at 7:55am and had 17 hits in 1hr and 55 minutes of fishing. We spent the balance of the T. day looking for Lakers with little success. After Day #1, Team VQ was in 10th place.

Day #2 plan: We decided to look for a big King or two out deeper but near our Coho spot, then go in and box out on Coho. We had 3-5's out of the N.E. and rain to start the day. Yuck! We had 2 hits out in the deeper waters but never had a solid hook up. We decided not to waste anymore time looking and thought we better start killing. We racked and motored in and had a quick double going before the lines were set. GOOD SIGN. The weather got better by the hour and we were able to box our 12 silvers including a 9# Brown Trout. We were anxious at the weigh in to see how the field did. We finished in 5th place.

We ran baby Spin Doc's (orange/orange) with Dreamweaver Peanut Flies and Yeck full size flies (green). Dreamweaver Super Slims (greasy chicken) and Yeck #66's (fire fly glow-Dr. death) run behind slide divers, as cheaters and behind balls accountede for the balance of the fish.

After a great pre-fish day (1 coho-25 dink pink salmon and 11 Lakers) we felt confident that we had a decent spot to start on Saturday. Well, we struggled a bit on Day #1 and ended up in middle of the pack. 75 Teams fished this event, down from 108 from last year. However, an ice cube rule violation cost us our box and score and we took a D.Q. for Day #1. Having a solid pre-fish day seems to be Bad Karma for team V.Q.

With 30-40 mph winds forecasted for Day #2, we were skeptical we would even fish. However the winds behaved until 30 minutes after the start time. Soon we were into 30-40 mph winds. With miserable conditions upon us, a long ride ahead, and an ice cubes chance in hell of making the Top 10, we made a Team decision and headed in along with a steady stream of other boats. (Theres's that ice cube thing again) We licked our wounds and headed home. The teams that stayed out and fished on Day #2 deserve a medal of honor and credit for fighting the wind and waves on Day 2. The winner drove 38 miles north each day and fished tough seas to claim the hard and well deserved victory. Lake Huron was a disappointment again in terms of size and fish.Very, Very few silver fish were landed and the overall size of the Lake Trout and silvers was about 5# avg. again. This has "officially" become a Laker Tournament and we may not be back again.

Team Vision Quest led after Day #1 and set a single day record for points/pounds. 68 boats from Michigan, NY, PA, OH and Canada competed in this 6th annual event. (we have finished in the jing 4 of the 5 events competed in). We boated almost 20 fish and had 28 bites.

Day#2 started fast and furious. However, after the morning bite ended and the winds started to howl out of the North East, I felt we were (1) good fish short of victory. So, we went hunting for one more 20# plus Salmon. After several smaller Kings and Coho's were landed, we went on a 2 for 8 streak including a missed Big Guy (clincher). I made the decision to change my spoon, drop that rigger to 60' and make one more up troll into the 3-5 ft. waves and go back to the "zone". It paid off, as the 60ft. rod fired, Team Member-Kevin McClean raced to the rod and was hooked into a Big Guy peeling massive line out. My man Kevin was a picture of concentration. I made the decision to pull some lines and go after the fish because we had too much line out and it was stretched between swells. Angler won this one! This was the one I felt we needed so we decided to head in 45 minutes early and take our chances. It boiled down to our box being weighed in. The 4th place team had a great day and had a 27# Rogue King to give them a big average and move into 1st but could they overcome us? We weighed in our biggest fish a 22# King, then the weigh master stated to the audience that we needed an additional 77.8 pounds to retain the #1 spot. The crown eagerly watched as the digital scale dealt the number..... 78.5, yes, we were the 2006 Scotty Champions. It was a great finish and a hard earned victory for our Team. Team members were: Kevin McClean, Mark Beck and Mike Madden. It was a great competition with a lot of great anglers. The fishing was great and size of this years Kings was awesome. We boated about 20 fish and had 27 bites on Day 2.

Our baits consisted of Dreamweaver Mag spoons, Dreamweaver Super Slims, some custom taped 3.75" spoons. Silver backs mostly with one hot white back.

	Captain Pete Alex 7007 Mooreheadville Road - North East, PA 16428 Phone (814) 725-0694 Cell (814) 602-8432 petealex@dreamsteelie.com
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