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Winni Derby

The Winni Derby

The Winni Derby kicks off this weekend on New Hampshire’s Lake Winnipesaukee. I wish all participants the best. My sister and my son were going to compete this year, but my son got held up in upstate New York, which will probably put my sister out of it due to the minimum participant per boat requirement.

There will be a lot of streamer fishermen out there and they work well. The Grey Ghost and Winnipesaukee Smelt come to mind. I always found the best lure to be the laker taker. It is made by the same manufacturer that makes the Swedish pimple and although I don’t offer these on our site, I’ll say they are great lures for lakers and landlocked Salmon. They work best at speeds less than 3 miles per hour due to there light weight and shape. I always found the silver with chartreuse stripe and red trailer to work best for lake trout when bumping the bottom with the downrigger ball and the silver with pink and chartreuse or red trailer within the upper 50 foot of the water column for Salmon.

The boat owner may get a little irritated with bumping the downrigger ball off the bottom, but lead core line behind the ball would remedy that. I always found the best lake trout bite to be coming out of Alton bay into the main lake near Rattlesnake Island when it dropped from 90′ to 120′ to bump the bottom. The best Salmon bite seemed to always be in front of Rattlesnake. There was a good Salmon bite inside of Alton bay, but they were usually small.

If you get into a nice 18 to 21 inch laker or salmon they probably won’t be big enough to place in the derby, but they are great eating. I always liked to keep them alive as long as possible (this also preserves the weight and adds those precious ounces for the win). I’d get them home still alive. Then I’d head them, gut them and scale them. I would lay down some foil and put a half a stick of butter into the body cavity and cover all surfaces with some oregano, basil, garlic, Dill, salt and pepper. Then wrap the foil and seal it and pop it on the grill for an hour and they would be delicious. That is the only way that I can say I have enjoyed these fish, but they taste so good that way….

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