| 2001 Spring Derby
Lynn Cunningham
Monday, April 30, 2001
Weight: 28.09
Location: Niagara Bar
Sooner or later it had to happen, especially in the spring when the salmon sizes are a bit smaller. Every year in the Lake Ontario Counties Trout and Salmon derby - spring or fall - it was the mighty Chinook salmon leading the charge. Paying tribute to the trophy quality of this great resource, this year's Spring LOC winner was a BIG lake trout, weighing in at 28 pounds, nine ounces. Lynn Cunningham of Binghamton, NY was the lucky angler while fishing the famed Niagara Bar off the mouth of the Niagara River in Niagara County. He bested some 3,000 other anglers in winning the $10,000 Grand Prize with his unique catch.
"We were trolling a green/glow Rebel Fastrak near the green buoy marker off the mouth of the Niagara River," reflected Cunningham at the awards ceremony in Rochester Sunday night. "We had been catching a lot of fish when this one hit and we thought it was going to be about the same as some of the others we were catching. When it didn't want to come up, though, we new we had something special." He was fishing with his brother, Bob and two friends, Harold and Danny Crocker, all from Binghamton aboard Bob's "Catch A Few." It was the second year in a row that they were derby fishing the Niagara area. Their biggest lake trout previously? "Only about 14 pounds," said Cunningham.
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