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High School Fishing trip

Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2010 10:32 am
by JimW
Hello,

As I posted a few weeks ago 2 of my students from Athens High School qualified to fish the Edu-cast High School Fishing Championship on Lake Erie out of Turkey Point. 24 students out of about 800 qualified to fish the championship. Here are a few details of the trip.

June 26th 6:30pm
Picked up my students in Athens to make the long drive to Turkey Point. After a few stops along the way we arrive at our destination around 2:30 am.

June 27th
After a short sleep we wake up, get a bit of breakfast and head to the marina. My students meet the "pro" thet will be fishing with and load their gear into their boats. They were very excited one was fishing out of a Lund Pro v and the other out of a Ranger. After a quick meeting it was BLAST OFF at 7:30am

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The students fished a variety of techniques throughout the tournament fishing for both smallies and larges. Both of their pros taught them about dropshotting and flipping in the search for big bass.

The weigh-in was at 2:30pm. Apparently both my students caught more bass then they ever had in a single day (each boat caught around 60 to 70 fish), unfortunately they couldn't find a nice kicker fish or two. My 2 teams finished in the middle of the pack with weighs of 10.8 and 11.2 pounds, the winning weigh was just over 15 pounds.

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All in all they had a great day, caught lots of fish, and learned some new techniques. I personally had a nice day at the beach and walking around Turkey Point and Port Dover while they were fishing.

After the tournament we loaded up, just missing the approaching rain storm and headed for Toronto. Drove thru a crazy amount of rain on our way to Toronto.

June 28th
To make the most of our trip I arranged a salmon fishing trip for the boys with Greg Amiel (Fishing4Tails) on Lake Ontario. Neither one of the boys had ever been salmon fishing.

We meet Greg at the marina at 6am. He had motor problems during a tournament he fished on Saturday, but he borrowed his tournament partner's boat so he didn't have to cancel the trip. Very much appreciated. After a short ride out we were set up and trolling

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After a short time trolling I reel in a little "shaker" chinook which is quickly released to grow another 20 pounds.

Shortly after one of the boys is fighting his first salmon and after a nice battle a chunky 24 pound chinook is in the boat.

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After another "shaker" my other student is hooked up with a quality fish and lands a nice 15 pounder for his first salmon.

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The dipsey drivers continue to fire and I land a nice rainbow, our only non-chinook fish of the day.

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Later on one of the boys hooks into a large fish off the downrigger and the fight of his live is on. He originally had 200 feet of line out and after a couple runs the linecounter is reading 725 feet of line out.

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As he continues to fight the wire dipsey goes off!!! Double header!!! and after a bit of a battle I land a 27 pound chinook.

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Eventually after a long 30 minute?? battle my student lands his second salmon of his life..... it tips the scale at 33 pounds!!!!

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We get a few more fish including another double header of two 23-25 pound fish.

Eventually the action dies down and we call it a day. Final total 1 rainbow, 8 chinook (between 12 and 33 pounds), 6 or 7 "shaker" chinook, 2 good fish lost and a couple hits.

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Arrive back in Athens around 7 pm to end our 48 hour adventure.

Hoping to get more students out fishing next year.

Cheers,

JimW

Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2010 11:13 am
by brufan
freakin awesome!

Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2010 11:41 am
by S.M.05
Great report. Good to see you getting some kids out on a killer trip.
33lb salmon :shock:
Those kids will remember that trip for the rest of their life.

Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2010 11:57 am
by troutnmuskiehunter
Super report Jim!!!.....I remember catching my first Lake O salmon 30 years ago and those kids will too!!!!!

Good on you bud!

Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2010 3:41 pm
by bm_attar
Very nice report.

Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2010 4:29 pm
by Wall-I-Guy
Great report Jim.

Awesome seeing the young lads enjoying themselves without a game console or IPOD or whatever.. :lol:

This is the year for Salmon on Lake O for sure. A heck of a lot of 30 pounders being caught right now. Should make for a great fall season too.

Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2010 9:21 pm
by baz fish
Some nice fish guys :) .

Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2010 9:26 pm
by joco
this is just great.

some kids will remeber this for the rest off there life.

you the man JIM.

joco

Posted: Sat Jul 03, 2010 9:11 am
by Fishing 24/7
thats a HULA of a FEEESH.

Posted: Sat Jul 03, 2010 12:06 pm
by plncrzy
That's just awesome... I bet those kids had the time of their lives and will remember it forever!!!!

Posted: Sat Jul 03, 2010 5:03 pm
by Robert Goulet
Very very cool!!

Posted: Sat Jul 03, 2010 10:28 pm
by JimW
thanks for the comments guys, it was a great trip. Definitely looks like a good year for salmon on Lake Ont.

I'm hoping to get back out on the big lake again soon so my wife can try salmon fishing.

Cheers,

Jim

Posted: Sun Jul 04, 2010 5:38 am
by Mike P
Great report Jim. Those memories will be embedded in your student`s mind`s forever.

Posted: Sun Jul 04, 2010 6:49 am
by Trophymuskie
I'm sure those kids will never forget their trip.

Thanks a bunch for taking care of our next generation of fisherpersons.