1000 Island Open – The details & My Tournament
Just when you thought the Johnston brothers could not become any more dominant in Canadian tournament fishing they step it up a notch and break all the records. Chris and Cory weighed in 79.09 pounds of Lake Ontario smallmouth for the win. But the story wasn’t just the incredible performance of the Johnston’s, it was the performance of the lake and the top 50 teams. No less then 4 teams weighed in over 70 pounds. Imagine being second place with 72.77 pounds over the 3 days. A great performance by Brian Bylotas / Brian Bylotas Jr.Third placewith an impressive71.96 lbs was Scott Nagy / Denny Andrade, and 4
th was Chad Wentzell / Martin Szomolanyi with 71.35 lbs. Congratulations to David Roy and Bill Veirzen winning the Ranger Boat. I can imagine what it feels like to pick a key in a box of 50 and it starts the boat. They also had an impressive 64.22 lbs for 11
th place.
But the great weights didn’t stop there. No less than 26 teams weighed over 60 pounds. It was as if ever big fish in the lake was caught. For most, the lake and river were on fire. The teams that headed east up the river did very well and the teams that headed out on the lake to the islands and points south found the fish and 18 to 25 pounds came easy on day one. Not only were the fish plentiful, they acted like they were on steroids. For some reason, the rebound from the cold spell really pumped these fish up. When you did get bit, you couldn’t tell if the fish was 3 or 6 pounds until you seen it. Every fish left everything in the water. This posed a problem for fish care. Most fish came deep and exhausted themselves. Your livewell had to be pumping constantly and iced. The surface temperatures were far warmer then the temps they came from. The extremely high water and colder than average deeper water meant a lot of extra work keeping fish healthy.
Day one was perfect running weather with low wins and a slight chop from the south. Day 2 the waves got bigger and run time became an issue but it was still safe running to points south. If you were lucky enough to make the cut, day 3 was tough going on the lake as big south west winds overnight produced 5 to 7-foot swells and changing wind created a cross chop. Those with experience on the Great Lakes managed well but some new comers to big water stayed off the lake. The problem with running south or any long distance out on the lake in big waves is not just the chance of getting wet or flipping your boat. The problem is fuel or the chance of a breakdown where it takes a long time for someone to come and get you. The run from Rockport to the lake is about 50 km. Ad another 20 to 50 km running to your fish, double that to get back and you can be running on fumes. When you are ploughing through big water you are burning twice the fuel so you better know ever marina that has gas and at least double your estimated travel time. All of the appropriate warnings are given before the tournament starts and anything less than a wind advisory means the lake is open with extreme caution.
You can not say enough about how well this tournament is organised and how much effort the volunteers put in to this. Renegade Bass has made this tournament the first “must” event every year. The payouts are by far the best, the fishery is next to non, and everything works like a fine running machine. This is the reason it fills so quickly in the middle of winter. There were 78 teams in the early bird draw. I suspect it will be very difficult for newcomers to enter for next year. Even if the Johnston machine is difficult to beat, second place money of $12,000, 3
rd place of $10,000, 4
th place of $9000, and so on and the chance to win a new Ranger boat from the final day draw is extremely attractive.
It was another great tournament for Chris and Cory as they added another $15,000 to the coffers as well as contingencies. It was another record performance for both the brothers and the lake. I can’t think of another body of water anywhere that could produce these weights in August.
Our Tournament – The Fun Part
Partner Paul Legacy and I had 3 full days of practice and with out knowing what was to come, our goal was to at very least move up from 9
th place last year to top 5. After all, how difficult can it be? But something funny happened on the way to the bank. Our fish were gone. Eastern Lake Ontario is becoming a little bit like home Lake Simcoe for me. I have accumulated so many spots it become a little paralyzing where to start. The first thing we checked was shallow. The heat wave 10 days ago produced incredible shallow fishing. Many of the teams that came down to practice for an entire week to 10 days leading into the event had a great time. The fish were on fire, site fishing was great, and anglers thought this was going to be easy. But then the winds came up and changed direction every day, the temperatures drop hard, and the algae and debris filled the shallows. That was the end of the skinny water bite.
My plan was to have a very efficient milk run with no more than 6 spots, all within a 15-km area once out of the river. Two or 3 spots in the river and that should do it. There are big fish all over the east end of the lake and it is just matter of spending time to find them. Plus, I have a new motor just breaking in so I really didn’t want to hop large waves and have the prop blow out and the engine screaming. The reason for the consolidated milk run was the weather forecast. Day one was to be flat and warm but days 2 and 3 were blow days with big water. Taking a reminder from Chris Johnston that sometimes running all over the lake rather than just fishing hard where you know there is fish can backfire. More time fishing, less time running. There is an hour run time to the lake and 1.5 hours back on a bad weekend day with cruisers running the river. If big waves don’t get you cruiser wakes will. It’s difficult for me to stay in an area and fish hard. But I thought this would pay off. But our first two days of practice were terrible. We did catch a nice walleye in the river. This is one of the premier walleye fisheries in the country as well, not to mention huge musky. We found some fish but they were not big and when we did find big fish there wasn’t many of them.
On day three of practice things begun to come together. We found big fish on a very specific structure type and depth. Because of the debris in the water even out deep on the north side of the lake, the drop-down bite wasn’t working. What did work was using the pace of the current and wind to drag baits at the right speed through fish. We found fish in 3 locations all with the same pattern. We sampled 2 fish from the 3 locations and both were close to 6 pounds. All we needed was wind from the south west and a little luck.
Day 1
We are up at 3:00 and ready by 4:30. This is what happens when you have a narcoleptic and an insomniac (me). You’re in bed by 9:00 and up at 3:00. We arrive in Rockport early and are on the water and ready to go. We are pumped now that we have all these big fish. We get the boat checked and at 7:00 a.m. blast off. There was fog on the way to Rockport but the river just had a postcard haze off the water past the bridge at 1000 Island Bridge. As you are blasting off you are jumping wakes of the boats ahead but once you get to the bridge the incredible current absorbs all the wakes like a blender. We leave all the other boats and take the inside route. The fog starts to get a little thicker as we hit Big Bay but we are still running fast. When the air is that thick and the Verado hits a certain RPM on flat water, everything goes silent and you are just running on clouds. Just as we are in this perfect harmony we see a shoal off in the distance. I look at the chart and there is no shoal there and just at the last second, I realise that shoal in the distance is really a huge log drifting down the river 50 metes ahead. The fog can really play havoc with depth perception. I make a hard right and just miss it. This really didn’t install confidence in Paul who was just getting over the scare of a lifetime.
Paul was at the cottage two weeks before and while running down the middle of the lake at 50 mph, the steering broke on his boat. The boat went hard right and flipped. He was trapped in the hull under the boat. It was a miracle that he had enough air in his lungs to last while he felt his way along the boat and made his way to the surface. He suffered a bad concision and was still recovering. Our 3 days of practice really helped to get back into action. He really didn’t need a repeat scare two weeks after the incident. But when I saw the log the reaction was “not another motor”. We get back on plain and find our way to the lake. Twenty minutes later we are fishing. We dropped our first line at 8:00 and by 8:30 we had a decent limit. No really big fish but we had the whole day to cull.
The bite and the lake went flat by 10. We spent another hour trying to get big fish. Trying to create an artificial pace to drag baits wasn’t working and dropping down on marks wasn’t either. They would follow jerk baits but would commit. They must have been males! It was time to move. We had a deep ridge that was loaded up with big fish on day 3 of practice. At that time in the afternoon the fish were aggressive. When we pulled up on one end of the ridge the sonar was cluttered with debris. We worked the surrounding area for 2 hours but there was nothing. Marks that looked like fish could have been anything. Now we are off to spot number 3. There we found lots of small fish but the big fish had left. Back to spot number one to see if those big fish moved in.
We get there and cover the 400-meter ridge. One guy dragging and the other dropping down on marks. We cycle through baits but now nothing would bite. Finally, my rods loads up and a black monster breaks the surface. It takes forever to get this fish to the boat. Finally, its just under the boat and as I try to lift it to net the line goes limp. What a let down. That fish was a 3-pound cull and would have put us over 20 lbs for the day. Another good fish and we are in great shape. But as we started to cycle through old spots it was apparent that this promising day was going to be a disappointment.
With an hour left we head back up the river. I think this was the first time I have ever been back so early with a crappy bag of fish and no hook in my hand. We weighed in 17.66 for 54
th place. Now we have our work cut out for us. Fab Marchese and Nick Cousivis took the early lead with an impressive 26.79 pounds. The Johnston’s had 27.69 but had a one-pound penalty for dead fish. It turns out that everyone except us had a good day 1!
Day 2
When you are 54
th after the first day and 9 pounds behind the task seems insurmountable. Now the goal is to have a big day and make the top 30. We had the fish to do it but zeroing in on them and getting them to bite was the key. Once again we head down the river and now that my break in period for my new motor is over we could make some time. The new Verado 250 Pro is so impressive. It just hums and throws the boat out of the water to get on plain. It’s almost silent at 5500 RPM and is stingy on fuel if you stay within the top 80% of the RPM range.
This morning we would change up then order of our spots. Our biggest fish were deep and there was some wind out there and wanted to take advantage of it with the early bite. But when we got there it was baron. We expanded the area fishing deeper and shallow but by 9:00 we still had no fish in the well. Our next spot was about the same and its approaching noon and we don’t have a fish. We are now on spot number 4 and Paul boats a small fish. We didn’t even net it. About 20 minutes later he boats another the same way. Then I hook a nice fish and Paul takes it to the livewell. It’s a well known fact that I should not be allowed anywhere near the livewell. I have made so many culling errors and even dropped fish in the water. Paul didn’t know this. He was about to learn the hard way.
At 1:30 the wind is up and we are getting a better feel for technique to make these big fish bite. They really wanted the bait moving or active so we resorted to an old ice fishing technique. Put a very heavy weight on the drop shot. Use a 3-inch Gulp Fry Minnow and hook it wacky. Drop it down and pound the bottom and flap the bait. The attached video shows the action and results.
I see a big mark, drop the bait, work it hard and bam. We have a really nice fish on. This fish is fighting itself to death so I’m horsing it to the boat without breaking the line. We net the fish and it’s a 21 inch spawned out female. It eventually weighed in at 5.55 as skinny as it was. Ten minutes later Paul hooks a big fish the same way and its about 5 pounds. I get a 4+ and now we are collecting some weight. Paul hooks another one and its big. We finally get it to the net, I slide the net under the fish and go to lift. The fish explodes, does a tail dance and breaks off. That was a real bummer. It was an hour later before I hooked another one of these fish but on the second jump it came unbuttoned. Our day was going down the drain. We have a spot where we always get a big large mouth. It has produced 3 fish over 4.5 lbs every time we go the last 2 years. We were saving it in case we needed it. We head there and fish the spot but realise the extremely high water has changed the perfect spot. No fish.
It is blowing hard now and we see some teams working there way off the lake. Some of them have already been travelling for a long time. Out on the lake you can hear motors and see white water splashing up but couldn’t see the boats so you know what they are going through. It’s Friday and we know the river will be full of cruisers and tour boats. There will be 4 ft. wakes and crazy seadooers, and since we want to baby our fish we head in. We started icing the fish around noon. We plug the overflow port and ad ice on the way. We slow down for every big wake that we see. But there is one stretch of open water where we are going 50 mph and with the chop we don’t see the wake of a huge cruiser. When I finally do there’s no time to slow so down so we launch off the wave. I’m just praying the prop hits the water first when it comes down. It does, but the boat slams so hard screws are falling out of us and the boat. It was enough to put us in traction.
When we get back we couldn’t believe the weights again. At the end of the weigh-in I see Paul Shibata, co-founder of Renegade. I ask what the cut off is and he tells me I don’t want to know. We missed the cut by 3/100ths of a pound. Our lost fish did the damage but that’s true with a lot of good teams that didn’t make the cut. Everyone loses fish and its sometime the difference between winning and missing a check. But even though I’m not allowed in the livewell I managed to make a culling mistake. At the last spot Paul caught a fish about 2.5 pounds. He said it was a cull fish. I said no way, not even close. So, Paul tosses the fish. But when I’m bagging the fish I look and see a 1.5 pound rat. We weren’t going to collect a cheque with this bag but we would have been in for the boat draw and of course get to fish the last day. Everyone wants to fish the last day.
Not fishing the last day is disappointing because when you do your still playing. I love doing this. I am getting a little bit tired of the run to the lake but its all part of the experience. It’s what keeps me young. I guess I’m going to be a contributor instead of a taker this year lol
Can’t wait for the next one. Life is good.
Thanks to all the volunteers, Renegade Bass, Hookset Marketing, and all the great sponsors.
See you next year.
Your Privacy Choices