7-19-03 Port Sanilac - BWSA Club Tour

The BWSA had held several twilight tournaments in years past, but this was our first.

We knew fishing was going to be really tough. Sanilac in July is a hit or miss type of thing with fish action, and in 2003 it has been pretty much a miss. So our goal was to catch 1 fish to collect a couple of bonus points for CotY.

We fished Saturday morning and only managed 1 for 1, a small Laker, in about 10 hours of trolling. So in the afternoon, we only had 5 hours to duplicate it.

We decided to run N up toward Harbor Beach. We decided that we would motor 40 Minutes and setup. We got all of our lines set in 100 FOW and our wish came true. One of our diver rods started to bounce and we boated a small laker. We celebrated a bit, and then got serious again thinking that we had a chance to win the tournament. 

Well, we trolled the rest of the evening without another hit. We pulled lines early so we would make the 10:30 line cutoff with ease.

We ended up in 9th place. 5 other boats did not catch a fish, or did not make it to the line on time.

Crew - Capt. Dave Rymar, Mike Rymar, & Jason Reams

7-12 & 13 Harbor Beach - BWSA Club Tour

Saturday morning, we were all greeted with a stiff NW wind and 5 ft waves. We had wanted to fish the can off Lighthouse Park, but it was a bit too rough to get up there. We started fishing a little bit N of Port Hope and made a long 18 Mile troll S with the waves. Right off the bat we got 3 lines in the water and then flipped a planer board. We got the board in and found that it had hit bottom in 80 FOW. we had just got it safely out when 2 of the 3 rods that we had set took off. We boated a double of 2 kings and kept working at them. We finished the day 3 miles S of Harbor Beach and went 9 for 12. We weighed in 44 lbs and had the lead by 10lb.

Sunday, was a much calmer day, and everyone ran up to Lighthouse Park. We got our spread set and were ready for action, but the fish made us wait a while. We were wondering what was going to happen. Radio chatter told us most people were having slow action, so we stuck it out in our spot. We made a NE pass out to 100 FOW, when one of our downrigger rods was acting a bit funny. Mike hit the up button on it to bring it to the surface without popping it from the release, thinking that it was tangled. Mike was reeling in the slack, when all the sudden, the drag started to peel off the reel and a nice King broke the surface behind the boat. While this was going on, the other downrigger rod that we had set had popped to but pointed straight in the air. Phil grabbed that rod and reeled in the slack and another King broke the surface. We were quite surprise to have a double of silver fish on our hands. We worked quickly and had a bit of tangles, but got those two fish in the boat.

After that, action was slow, but we still managed to go 7 for 9. Also, our partner was by us all day long and they got into a few fish too going 7 for ?. We ended up with 104 lbs, 1st Place, and our 2nd win of the year.

We really got lucky on this one. Only about 8-10 king were caught by the fleet, and we had found half of them. 

Crew - Capt. Dave Rymar, Mike Rymar, & Phil Clark

6-22-03 Port Austin - BWSA Club Tour

Well, for the first club tournament all year, we made it to the staging area before 5:30 am and were on time for a change. We had prefished a little bit on Saturday and found 4 kings and a couple of other bites. So, our game plan was to get out N of Alaskian Bay in about 85 FOW and troll around there until the fish shut off and then move out.

We fished the skinny water for about 2 and a half hours and only produced 4 fish in the cooler. So we decided to put it on a NE troll until we found another pocket of fish. Well we went for 85 ft all the way to 195 ft without another hit, but we found one of the largest scum lines out there that we had ever seen on Lake Huron. The surface temp went from 57 to 52 in about 100 yards. We rerigged with some different tackle hoping to pick up a steelhead or 5, but the scum line was not holding any fish. We hit it hard for 2 hours and only had 1 very small steelie take a half core but it got off right at the back of the boat. It was about 10:45 and we still had time to take a few more fish, so we pulled lines and headed back into skinny water. 

We were really surprised that most everyone that was fishing the tight water earlier had moved out as well, so we had the water pretty much to ourselves with no pressure. As we were resetting lines, we had a really nice rip on a diver, but it got off. Then we had another diver go and boated a nice laker. Next a Fullcore went and it was our biggest fish of the day, a 9 lb salmon. We only had about 45 minutes left, so we were hoping for one more rip, and we got it on a diver rod, another nice laker.

Heading in while drinking some beers, we were hoping for a top 3 finish, it sounded like the boats that ran to Port Hope had got into some more fish, and we wasted a lot of time in that scum line. Boat after boat weighed in, then finally a really nice catch of limit Lakers was weighed in and we knew we did not have 1st place. We weighed in last and had 36.8 lbs, which was good for 2nd place.

We ended up with 8 fish and loosing 4 others, it was a great day on the water.

Crew - Capt. Dave Rymar, Mike Rymar, Phil Clark, & Adam King

6-7-03 Sarnia - TOC

Our first tournament not aboard the Fishigan. We decided 2 months prior to fish Matt's boat. It is a 26' Grady White CC with twin 200's. We chose Matt's boat for the speed and fuel that it could hold.

Reports prior had told us that there were a lot of fish N of Port Hope. Friday we prefished up there from 7:30 until noon and boated 18 kings along with a few laker trout. Our five fish tournament limit gave us about 52 lbs, and we knew that would be a good weight for the tournament for one day.

Saturday, we had a shotgun start from Sarnia. Matt's boat blew everyone else away at the start and soon we were going 51 mph up the coast. When we got to Lexington Heights, there were no more boats our sight behind us. The 70 mile run took us 1 hour and 35 minutes or so. With that long of a run, we had missed the morning bite, and knew we would have to pick away at the fish. action was really constant all day long and we boated 11 kings and kept 3 more lakers. Our fish were much smaller than the day before though. We pulled lines at 3 o'clock and had to be back at 5 pm at the Sarnia marina. We made it with 20 minutes to spare. The amazing thing though, is that Matt's boat can hold 200 gallons of gas, and we did not even go though half of a tank running 140 miles. Our five fish weighed 30 lbs, and it put us in 6th place, 10 lbs behind the leader.

Sunday, we had a little competition at the starting gates.  A 30 ft Donzi kept right up with us until Lexington, but they had to back down or they would have run out of fuel.  We fished the same spot and had lines set at 7:40 again.  Right off the bat, we nailed a big 11 lb king and we had the lead in the tournament as the other boats were still running N to catch us.  Action was not fast and furious at all, but we kept with our program and picked at a fish every 1/2 hour or so.  At 11:30 we got the break we needed and had a king smash one of our divers that was set at 110 and it took it out to a little over 500 ft.  10 minutes later, we had another 11 lb king on the floor of the boat.  Our phone rang at noon and we got a report of some nasty storms in the area.  We fished a little bit more and pulled lines.  We had 3 big kings, a smaller king, and a nice laker, plus we had 4 other kings that we could not even weigh do to the 5 fish limit.  Reports on the radio had us really excited, as the boats ahead of us had not done well at all.  We only had to worry about one or two of the boats behind us.  Everyone pulled into the dock at the 4 pm cutoff time.  From what we gathered from friends we had 2nd wrapped up.  Rumors said that Rawhide had a great catch, and we would need about 46 lbs to take the win.  We knew we were short of that, as we had a rough estimate of about 40 lbs.  We weighed-in before Rawhide and were the top boat at 71+ lbs.  Rawhide needed about 44 lbs to jump over us.  The weigh-in was like a bass tournament and the stress was a ton.  The Weighmasters announced a weight for Rawhide of 46 lbs.  We had taken 2nd, missing first and the cash prize of $15,000 canadian by 4 lbs.  We congratulated each other on great fishing.  The Rawhide crew had back-to-back wins, and were very deserving of their wins.

It was a great tournament, and with our finish, it looks like BoatersWorld is going to sponsor us again in this event.  It was really tough to walk away from that tournament with no check though.

Crew - Capt. Mike Rymar, Dave Rymar, Matt Gordon, Ryan Baker

6-1-03 Port Sanilac - BWSA Club Tour

Saturday was a blow day, with a stiff 30 mph wind out of the N.

Sunday, our fishing program had changed completely. The strong winds had changed the surface temps in our spot 8 degrees. We only managed 1 weighable lake trout, 1 salmon that was not long enough, and 2 missed hits. 

Our 8 lbs was good for 8th place.

Crew - Capt. Dave Rymar, Dave, Bob, Al

5-17-03 Port Sanilac - BW Classic

Prefishing had told us that there were quite a few silver fish inside of the Regina in 50 FOW and we did not have much luck up north.

Saturday, at the start, we watched majority of the boats run N and only a couple, including us, run S. The morning bite was slow for us, but we kept changing things around and kept picking away at the fish. We ended up going 7 for 7 and a weight of 39 lbs. When we got back to the dock, we had realized that we did quite well for running S. But a couple of the N boats found quite a few larger fish. The top boat had a limit of 9 fish and sat at 70 lbs. Our weight put us in about 15th place.

Sunday, we knew we had to make up weight and made the long run N. Our boat cruises at only 24 mph; we ran a little harder than that at 27 mph. Our plan was to run 1 hour and set lines. Again, the morning bite was slow for us and to add to that, we had to figure out what was going in the new area that we were fishing. At 10:00 am we had only 3 fish and had lost 2. But we finally got a program to start going good. We ended up with a total of 6 silver fish and a laker, but our size was small. Our only hopes was a top 10 finish, but when we reached the docks, we quickly realized that we would not be taking home a check.

We ended up with a total of 70 lbs. which was good for 18th place. And out of 170 boats, that is not a bad finish.

Crew - Capt. Dave Rymar, Mike Rymar, Adam Heinrich, and Phil Clark

5-10-03 Port Sanilac - BWSA Club Tour

Our first win of the year!

We started out the morning with a delayed start to thunderstorms, but we had lines set at around 6:45 am South of Sanilac. We bounced around in skinny water for a while with nothing. Reports were telling us that action was slow, but some boats were catching fish out deeper than us that we were not aware of. We made a bold move at 9:30 am to make a run north and try to get anything to go, as we had fished for 3 hours without a hit. 

We reset up 10 miles N and just kept trolling north. Finally at 11:00 am we boated our first fish. We ended up going 5 for 6 on lakers and won the tournament. We were the only boat to weigh-in the 5 fish limit.

Crew - Capt. Dave Rymar, Mike Rymar, Adam Heinrich, and Phil Clark

4-26-03 Algonac - Algonac Lions Tournament

We choose to fish the Power Plant. We had lines set at 6:05 am. The first two passes through our target area produced 5 for 7 and about 20 lbs of fish. We pulled lines at 7:30 am to go back up for our third pass. Third pass, nothing, fourth pass, nothing, fifth pass nothing, sixth pass, well you get the picture, nothing. No more fish for 5+ hours. We started out on fire and then it just went to nothing. Finished the day 5 for 8, and weighed 23 lbs of fish. Very disappointing with the start that we had. 

Meanwhile, further down the river, action started out slow and then picked up at the day went on.

The top two boats had over 40 lbs of fish. They started at the mouth and then both hit the car ferry.

Crew - Capt. Dave Rymar, Mike Rymar, Lloyd Rymar, and Gary LaBelle

4-19-03 Port Huron - BWSA Club Tour

Well we decided to roll the dice and fish the river for this tournament. Reports that I gathered from the week were not so good in the lake. Several boat fished the press day for the Salmon Stakes with boats in the river doing just as good as the lake boats. Fridays conditions in the lake had told us the lakes water may be too cloudy for great action.
But what we did not take into account was the 3 days of east wind piling warm water onto the Lakeport Beach. Saturday the water cleared just enough in the lake and the lake boats surprisingly had 41 degree water.

Choosing the river we thought we had a temp and water clarity advantage, plus the long ride to our spot in the morning was not that bad, seeing that it was still dark the whole ride down the river with the 5:30 start, not to mention getting the first beer opened as well with the long boat ride. We were willing to give up one rod and fish 8 with the 4 guys on board.

I think we had all lines set at 6:30 and action was soon to follow. But we did not have hot hands right off the bat going 1 for 3 to start and then just barely getting to 500 at 3 for 6. At this point, we pulled lines to make another run in our hot areas, and also had a conscious discussion to starting getting these fish to the net.

It seemed like we were stuck at those 3 fish for a while and were questioning our decision and maybe a bait switch was in order, but at the end of our pass, fire struck. A double, diver took off and a rigger hit, both solid fish. They managed to tangle each other up and then one hit the net. We could not gain on the second fish with the rod and reel, so we handlined 3 pulls and the second hit the net. We were excited to say the least to have our 5 weighables for the tournament. 

After the 3 for 6 start, we proceeded to land the next 9 fish. Finishing the day 12 for 15, a 4 man limit of Kings at 11:30. More beers were cracked open as we pulled lines and headed for a joyride up to the blue water bridge and then back to port.

But as the Lakeport fishery does every year, the fish show up there like someone turning on a light switch. Not there Friday, great action Saturday. We ended up taking 5th out of around 20 boats. Our five fish weighed 32 lbs.

Crew - Captain Dave Rymar, Mike Rymar, Craig Wealans, and Dave Goldenbogen