Lake Ontario:

Capt. Dan, Capt. Charlie, Capt. Mark, Kurt and Chris fished the Wilson Harbor Invitational out of Wilson, NY on Lake Ontario.

Although the team caught plenty of fish and weighed their limit of 6, it wasn’t enough to cash a check.

Kings were still deep, 100′+.  Spoons and Spin Doctors/Flies got the bites.

The fishing on Lake Ontario remains the best it has EVER been so far this season!

Lake Erie:

Capt. Ken and Doug were joined once again by Ray P. and the boys from Pittsburgh, PA.

It seems as the spring laker fishing is starting to slow down as the lakers make their way toward deeper water.  The crew was able to boat 14 fish and only lose 3 others.

Once again, Pirate 55′s did almost all of the damage.  Dreamweaver Metallic Glow Frog was good for a couple bites.  ‘Riggers and divers took all but 2 of the bites.  LC’s got bit twice.

(above- Gene with the largest of the day, 17lbs!)

Check out the video from this trip:

Sunday, 5/13/12

Author Robert Clark was back with his buddies looking to get into lakers one last time for the season.

Capt. Ken and Doug returned to the same area as Saturday.  Beautiful weather and calm lake.

They pounded out 11 fish out of 21 bites.

Same program as above.

(above- Ron with a 18lb'er)

Click below for video from this trip:

-Buckets Charters Fishing Team

Capt. Dan and Kurt fished with Mike and his crew, from New Castle, PA out of Olcott, NY on Saturday.

An absolutely insane bite.  The entire crew boxed out very early.

Same program as reported in the previous reports.

(above- Doubled up!)

(above- Mike and his crew with their catch for the day.)

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Capt Ken and Doug fished on Lake Erie with Butler, PA’s Ricky B., Brian and A.J. on Lake Erie in the nasty 3′-5′(with an occassional 8′er) for lake trout.  The big wind/waves didn’t seem to effect the bite, though.

Same program as previous week’s.  Kill/Bite meters read 30/44 on the day.

(above- Brian with a nice Erie Laker!)

One fish, estimated at aprox. 30lbs, was lost at the back of the boat!

Sorry, no video from this trip due to knucklehead Capt. Ken forgetting the GoPro in the truck.

Hats off to Eyecon Charters, Capt. Scott Snyder and angler Todd Young for boating the new PA state record Lake Trout on Sunday morning.  The monster weighed in at 29.28lbs, 39″ long with a 26″ girth!!!  Great job guys!

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Sunday, May 6, Lake Ontario

Capt. Dan and Kurt returned to the same area as Saturday morning with Author Robert Clark, John, Mike, Tom and Peter.

They reported a little slower bite but were still able to box all of their fish.  Same program as previously reported.

(above- Robert and John hanging on with a pair of screaming hot kings.)

(above- Robert and his crew with their catch for the day.)

-Buckets Charters Fishing Team

Upon arrival to the “spot” and as soon as the boat got down to trolling speed, it was on!

29 fish were boated in the first 2.5 hours!

(above- One of the "quads" of the morning!)

Program consisted of 4 divers, 3 riggers and 2 LC’s(10 & 7).

Spoon color really didn’t matter as long as they were in the zone…bottom 10′.  Pirate 55′s and standard Dreamweavers were the studs.

Speed 2.2-2.4mph.  DOT-E/W.

(above- Kill(boated) and Bite Meters for the day!

Largest fish of the day, caught by Peter, weighed in at 19.4 lbs!  On the cleaning table, a 10-inch silver bass was found in it’s stomach!

(above- A limit of Lake Trout headed for the smoker!)

Click below to check out the video of this trip:

-Buckets Charters Fishing Team

They only had to make a very short run to the fish, 90′-120′FOW, and they were immediately into the kings…with a few coho and lake trout mixed in.

4.5 hours yielded a “conservative” 25 kings to the boat…skippers to 23 pounds!  Well over 30 bites for the day!

(above- Capt Ken with a 23lb king.)

The program consisted of all spoons fished very DEEP!  Hot colors were Later Gator, Gator Glow, Nuke Pink/Purple, VQ Green Alewife.

Divers on a #1.5 setting, 200′ back and a #2 setting, 230′ back were steady as well as 300′ and 400′ coppers.  Riggers parked anywhere 90′ to as deep as 154′ took plenty of bites.  A 110′ rigger helped stick the biggest of the day at 23lbs.

(left to right- Capt. Charlie, Capt. Ken and Capt. Dan pose with the final fish of the day.)

Waves started out as choppy 2′ers but laid down to lazy 1′ers.  SW-NE troll fished best in the green water.

(above- Helmut with a bright king.)

Killing speed at the ball was 2.2 with a fairly consistent temp of 46.5 degrees.

(above- A very heavy Meat Rack!)

Click below to check out the video of this trip:

-Buckets Charters Fishing Team

Big NE winds made fishing tough but it didn’t seem to slow the bite down. Divers and ‘riggers performed the best.

6 kings boated along with 3 lakers and a steelhead.  7 bites/drive-bys got away.

Hot spoons: Michigan Stingers in Green Glow Alewive, Sea Sick Waddler and Later Gator.  Custom Pirate 55′s also got a couple of bites.

(above- Capt. Dan with the day's catch)

(above- Chris with a big Lake Ontario King)

Capt. Ken had to cancel both of this past weekend’s Lake Erie lake trout trips due to ripping NE winds.

-Buckets Charters Fishing Team

Stinger, NK28 and custom Joe’s Pirate spoons did the killing.  Largest fish weighed aprox. 16lbs.  2.4mph was the speed.

Capt. Ken and Doug, on the “B3″ ran a little further east with Author Robert Clark, Peter, John and Mike.  They ended up boating 16 lakers out of 31 bites/drive-bys.  Largest 16.5lbs.  Mike had the pleasure of reeling in the first walleye of the 2012 season(via 5-color LC)…a healthy 6lb. fish that was immediately released.

Similar program as described above with all custom Joe’s Pirate 55 spoons getting the job done.

Both the “B5″ and the “B3″ particpated in the Erie, PA Sport Fish Association’s(EPSFA) Spring Trout Challenge today(Sunday, April 15, 2012).

Neither boat landed a steelhead, brown trout or a salmon to weigh in.  A little ice for the chin was needed today.  Only 6 fish were weighed in out of a 10-team field…4 brown trout and 2 steelhead!

If you are interested in participating in any of the EPSFA’s 4 annual team-style tournaments, visit:  http://www.epsfa.com/  and click on the Tournaments link on the left hand side of the page for more info including rules.

Keep an eye out during the next few days for this past weekend’s video clips!

-Buckets Charters Fishing Team

Click on the video to view:

-Buckets Charters Fishing Team

Expecting to only catch brown trout with maybe a few coho and lakers thrown in, they were very surprised to get into king salmon as well!

In 3 hours time, they ended up boating 14 kings and a dozen brown trout!  Largest brown was 11 lbs and the biggest king weighed in at 21.5lbs!!!  They also broke off 4 kings.

Fishing 8-20FOW, they ran Reef Runner Ripstick 700′s in Green Flash and Blue Hawaiian on one side and Storm Thunderstick JR’s in Black/Chrome and Firetiger.  2-2.3mph produced the most bites.

Lake temp was 48 degrees.

(above - Kurt with a nice Lake Ontario BT)

(above - Kurt with a 21.5lb king)

(above - Fresh, silver kings in the box!)

-Buckets Charters Fishing Team

B3 made the run east, fishing the inside waters. They
had fish on before the entire spread could be put out! Four quad’s and multiple
doubles throughout the day.

(above- Ray with a nice Lake Erie lake trout)

An east/west troll with an average speed of 2.4mph produced the best. Trolling slow did not produce for them.

(above-  Jay with an above average LT)

Segmented leadcore(weighted and unweighted) and mono off the boards consistently put fish in the net along with divers fished 50′-130′ back.

(above-  Gene with his first Lake Erie LT)

Riggers cross a few eyeballs down 25′-50′ with a variety of baits.

(above- John with one of many LT’s he brought to the net)

Custom Pirate Spoons (combo’d with some experimental baits) stuck the majority of fish.
Color did not matter.
Covering the water column was key.

The crew finished the day boating 34 lakers out of exactly 50 bites!!!

-Buckets Charters Fishing Team

Water was on the dirty side from Saturday’s NE blow.  They were able to put 3 fish in the boat.  They also dropped 3 at the back of the boat.

(above, Art A., from WV, with a nice Lake Erie Lake Trout)

No real pattern developed.  A few bites on divers, a pair of bites on riggers and a lone bite on leadcore.  Each bite came on a different color Michigan Stinger spoon, once again, no real pattern.

DOT: E/W   Speed: 2-2.2mph

-Buckets Charters Fishing Team