Billy V

Price reduced. $65.

Ive been running an IntelliTroll for the past two seasons and couldn't be happier. Ive owned a Moor, a Depth Raider, and an older Fish Hawk and IMO the Cannon is the best of the bunch. All it's done is work every single time out.

I have a brand new 12# Shark for sale. Regular chrome faceted. $75. Buyer to pick up locally in Ithaca or pick it up at either the Oswego or Sodus Pro-Am. [email protected] or PM me here.

Thanks for all your work in putting together the no comm agreement Pete. I hope more guys sign it on the East end.

Thanks for the pics of the boat Mark!

Part of the beauty in tournament fishing is making the hard decisions - which boat and equipment to buy (speed vs size/stability, etc), whether or not to give up fishing time (and gas money) to make a long run, what to fish for, how and where to fish for that particular species and so on. Limiting the field to specific boundaries that are close to port does nothing but give those guys with larger boats an advantage over those with smaller boats - like Rod mentioned above. It also gives a decided advantage to those who fish that particular port on a regular basis.

As far as I'm concerned, we ARE all playing on the same playing field - the US water of Lake Ontario - run as far as you want and live with that decision. Want to run further than you can now? Buy a faster boat but be prepared to make sacrifices when the weather turns nasty. For my money, I'd prefer to see the Pro-Am committee adopt a closed communication rule and leave the rest of the tournament as it is. We'll be signing the NO COMM sheet again at the East end events regardless of whether or not it puts us at a disadvantage because we feel it's the right thing to do and because we take so much more pride in knowing that we did it all on our own.

For the record, the Pro boats that placed in the top 3 in Orleans County last weekend all fished a lot closer to port than those of us who decided to make the 40 mile run to the Bar did. So much for the "advantage" of a faster boat and running longer distances, huh?

We'd had a great couple of weeks fishing down in Wilson, but we were really looking forward to fishing in Orleans County this weekend. We've never done well at this tournament in the past and we were committed to doing what it took to get it done this year, including making a 40 mile run back to Wilson to get in on the King fishing that was still good there. We spent Thursday night on the boat in Wilson and had planned to fish there on Friday, but after checking the forecast on Friday morning we decided it didn't look favorable for a 40 mile run over the weekend, so we decided to run east and fish closer to the Oak to try and figure something out closer to that port. We found lots of smaller fish willing to take our baits out in 140-200FOW west of the Oak, but we really didn't feel like that class of fish was going to be big enough to put us in contention over the weekend. To be honest, we didn't have much of a plan B figured out if we couldn't run west but fortunately for us the forecast had changed and it was looking like we could make the run back to the west on Saturday morning. It was either run west on Saturday morning if the weather allowed, or head out of port on Saturday morning and try to figure something out on the fly. Not the best feeling to have the day before a tournament...

Mother Nature cut us some slack on Saturday and we were able to make the run West like we had hoped, although the run was a bit bumpier than the 1' or less that NOAA had forecast. We made it down to 6 mile in about and hour and 15 minutes and set up the same program that we had run the previous weekend at the Niagara Pro-Am - 400, 500, and 600 coppers, divers out 240-350, and riggers 85-120' deep. We gave up about an hour of fishing time in the morning and we were worried about the weather all day long, but after our first hour of fishing we had 5 good Kings in the boat and it looked to me like we were going to have our 12 in another 90 minutes or so. Unfortunately we then encountered a bad case of the drops and we dumped 4 or 5 more good fish and had to throw back 3 or 4 smaller ones. Then the bite stopped and we had to grind. We only put two more Kings in the boat before 10am and we were all starting to sweat the clock. We knew we needed to be on the road back no later than noon and our bite had dried up. I was convinced that all the boats back at the Oak were hoovering up their 12 fish like they did the day before, and when we saw Cold Steel pull up at 10:30 and run back east I was even more convinced that we were way behind on our numbers. We had a quick team meeting and decided that we needed to get out of there and run back to the Oak to pick up a few "easy" smaller fish like we'd found the day before. We put the hammer down and ran into 2-3 footers out of the East at about 30mph - not a fun ride at all, but the Penn Yan handled it beautifully. We got back to our waypoints from Friday at 12:30 or so and set up our program from the day before to get some of those "easy" fish. Man was I wrong. There were no "easy" fish for us. We pulled two bites in the last 90 minutes of our day, one we dropped and the other was a 16" throw back. We went back to the dock with knots in the pits of our stomachs because we just knew we'd blown it. You gotta love not knowing what everyone else has. Turns out most everyone struggled on Saturday and our 7 fish box put us in 11th place, which was a pretty big surprise for us.

The forecast looked good for another run west on Sunday and we were committed to heading back to do something about our case of the drops from the day before. When we got out to the lake we found perfectly flat water and we let the Penny hum along at 34mph. We made the long run in just over an hour and set up in 140 FOW a mile or so west of where we were the day before. There was a slug of colder surface water from Wilson to 6 mile and we didn't like what we saw at our waypoints from Saturday so I kept pushing west till we found 61 degree surface temps. We ran the same deep program as we had the day before, but we got off to a much slower start. Our first bite didn't come for almost an hour - talk about stress on an already shortened fishing day due to the long run. Once we had that fish in the boat I looped back around in a big circle and we took 2 or 3 more Kings on that troll. As soon as we got back to where we took the morning's first fish we hooked up again and landed another good King. So around the loop we went again, although this time I made a smaller circle in an attempt to get back on that spot sooner. On our third pass over that spot we doubled up and landed both Kings - one on the 88' rigger pulling a pro-chip/Sigg's gangster, and the other on the 400 copper pulling a green dot spinny/Sigg's green hypnotist - those two rigs would take over half of our fish on Sunday. As soon as we landed those two Kings back around the loop we went again. We did this for 5 passes, and each time we hit that exact spot we hooked up. It was pretty cool to see on the GPS - we took 6 fish from a spot the size of a postage stamp and each time we looped back around I made the return trip tighter so we could get back to that spot faster. We had our 11th fish in the boat at 11am and then it died for us. We watched three competing boats pull up and leave early (we thought they had all boxed and were going home - again you gotta love no comm!) and we were sweating the clock and the bite again. We never did pull that 12th fish and at noon we pulled gear and pounded our way home. We had a few minutes left on the clock when we got back to the Oak so we threw a Hail Mary in 40FOW right in front of port hoping to pull something from there, but to no avail. When we got back to the dock it was quickly apparent that most boats had another tough day and we had hopes of moving into the top 10. When it was all said and done we ended up with the comeback of the day and wrapped up the tournament in 4th place. We took a beating and burned a lot of fuel running 80 miles each day but in the end it was worth it for us.

I gotta say that we had a lot more fun as a team under the no communication agreement and it made for some real suspense for us. Not knowing who has what really impacted our decisions over the past two weekends and at times left us feeling like failures because we mistakenly assumed that others were way ahead of us because they pulled up and left our area early. Two very enthusiastic thumbs up to Pete Alex and Vince Pierleoni for spearheading the effort for no communication - we love it and will be signing the agreement for the rest of the year.

It's been a fun two weekends on the west end of Lake Ontario for us and we're looking forward to the last two Pro-ams of the year on the east end. We'll be taking a few weekends off to rest and spend some much needed time with family before we get back after it in July.

Sorry I've been so negligent in posting reports here lately - I've had some pretty major life changes going on (all good stuff) and it's been all I can do to make it to the boat on weekends to fish let alone post reports afterwards. Here's a quick report from the Niagara County Pro-Am for our team. It's been a crazy couple of weeks so some of the details are kinda fuzzy...

We pre-fished right out in front of Wilson and had a great day taking lots of Kings and a few cohos in 125-150. We primarily fished the top 70 FOW with spoons and found both big and small fish in those depths. Best spoons for us were the NK glow frog, DW midnight special, and NK Die Hard fished off of riggers. A green dot spinny/Siggs Gangster fly was our best paddle set-up, but it really was pretty much a spoon bite for us on Friday. We felt like we had a pretty decent program put together for the weekend and we were hopeful that we could put together a decent box each day.

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On Saturday morning we went back to our waypoints from Friday and found that our 60 degree surface temp had plummeted to 56 degrees. We checked the sonar for about 10 minutes and didn't like what we saw, so we saddled up and made a 15 minute run West towards the red can and sat the boat down at 6:00am and set up in 150 FOW and pointed it NW. We had a lot better water temps there and we found tons of receptive fish. Like most of the rest of the field we had a stellar day and were completely wrapped up with our 12 fish by 10:30 am or so. The same spoons and flasher/fly combos we'd used the day before worked great, but we didn't have the size of fish that we had the day before. It was primarily a spoon bite for us on Saturday but late in the day we figured out a program for pulling a couple of bigger fish that would end up saving us on day 2. We saw all the boats around us fighting fish all day long, so we knew that there were going to be a lot of limit catches and we figured that we'd be mid-pack with our box. Turns out we were in something like 22nd place after day 1, but we were part of that tight group of boats bunched up with 220-240 points or so and we figured with a better box on Sunday we might be able to cash a check.

On Sunday we headed back to the same water off the red can and set up out a bit deeper in 240-300 FOW where we found our biggest fish on day 1. The program that we put together on Sunday was entirely different than the way we had fished on Saturday. On Saturday we'd been fishing the top 70' with mostly spoons and took a lot of smaller fish, but late in our morning on Saturday we threw out a 400 copper pulling a flasher/fly combo and that pulled our two biggest fish of the day for us. Hmmm...could it be that we fished over the top of the bigger fish?? We thought so, so we loaded up our east end deep king program on Sunday and had at it. We set up with 400, 500, and 600 coppers, all pulling flasher/fly combos, divers out 270-340' loaded with flasher/flies, and riggers with spoons down 80-120'. Turns out our hunch on fishing deeper with flasher/flies was right on as we found bigger kings and came in on Sunday with the 3rd biggest box of the day at 263 points. Our best combos were a green Spinny/Sigg's Greeen Hypnotist, and a green dot Spinny/Sigg's Gangster fly fished off the 400 and 500 coppers. We also took some nice Kings on the deep riggers pulling a variety of our favorite spoons - Glow Frogs, Die Hards, NBK's, and Midnight Specials.

At the end of the day on Sunday we ended up coming back from 22nd to finish 7th, which we all felt really good about. We loved fishing under the no communication agreement, had a blast fishing together, and were looking forward to fishing at the Oak the next weekend. Kudos to Yvan and his Get it Wet team for a great two days and the win, and also to the Pro-Am committee for their hard work in putting together another great show.

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SOLD

I have a SD/901P-2 East Great Lakes Platinum card for sale. $150. PM me here or email me at [email protected].

SOLD pending payment.

Okuma CLR-553LS - Brand new in the box. Looks to be a great reel for leadcore or short coppers.

Capacity is 680/25, 520/30, 440/40. 6.2:1 gear ratio.

$125. Buyer to pick up locally or pay actual shipping costs. PM me here or email me at [email protected]

Today we were joined by Larry, Lenny, Kevin and Kody for a full day out of Wilson. The Kings hadn't shown up in any numbers prior to today so we decided to give the inshore brown trout fishing a try first thing in the morning. We set up just west of port in 8 FOW and trolled for about an hour without so much as a touch. We quickly decided to give up on that and I pointed the boat north. Once we got into 40 FOW the screen just lit up with fish, much like we saw last weekend. We put down a mixed Laker/King/Coho program and hammered that water pretty hard and only had one Laker to show for our efforts. Oddly enough, that Laker took a stick bait flatlined off the surface - go figure. Since the 40-70 FOW range just wasn't producing for us either, I kept pushing the boat out into deeper water. Once we got to abut 140 FOW we began taking cohos and a few small kings pretty regularly. They loved our Firetiger and Silver/Black KABOOM stick baits. In anywhere from 140-180 FOW we had plenty of action to keep everyone busy even though they weren't the big boys that we were all hoping for.

When we got out to 140 FOW the surface temperature was 45 degrees, but as the wind backed down the temp began to rise, and it peaked at just under 48 degrees by the time we had to pack it in for the day. The fish seemed to want our offerings at a faster speed today - 2.8 mph on our IntelliTroll was the magic spot. We didn't have a single bite on a downrigger or a diver today. It was all stickbaits all the time for us.

While the fishing was good today, the bugs were awful. The boat was just covered with them and it took Jay and I quite a while back at the dock to clean them off. They were literally everywhere.

We never did find the Kings we were after today, but we did manage to come home with a cooler full of cohos and lots of great memories.

Saturday is good Larry! How's 6am sound?

The boat is in the water in Wilson now. We'll be around a lot during May if you want to see it.

Good luck! Put a Kings or two on that EMPTY LOC board would ya?!?!? Holy cow - only 2 Kings so far!

Today we were joined by Chris and his Dad Tom for a morning trip out of Wilson. Jay and I had fished the day before, so we were pretty confident that we had a program dialed in for today. But, as often happens, Mother Nature had her way with us and threw some East winds into the equation. The nice colored water that we had yesterday had been replaced with coffee colored water everywhere we looked. Ugh! There were no definitive temp or color breaks for miles either direction of port, so we headed back to yesterday's waypoints and set up. We had a slow pick of Lake Trout for the first few hours of the trip and the East winds kept the lake riled up enough that we really had to pay attention to our GPS and the waypoints we were working. But then the winds began to subside just a little and we were able to find a very faint color and temp break in about 65 FOW just West of port. Once we got on that troll we began lighting up the Lake Trout and this was my view for much of the rest of the day:

We had a very nice class size of fish - most of them were low-mid teens fish, but no LOC Derby sized keepers and we didn't boat a single salmon today although we did have one real good rip on a diver that we lost. Whereas spoons had been the hot ticket the day before, today was all about our divers. We took fish on a white Spin Dr/Siggs Rigs Glow Ghost fished 140' out on a 2.5 and our Green Spin Dr/Siggs Rigs Gangster setup was the hottest of the day when it was set out 120' on a 2.5. We also took multiple spoon shots on a NK Die Hard fished at 57', and a DW Superslim Midnight Special parked at 45'. Oddly enough, we didn't take a single bite on our flatlined stick baits.

Of course, just as the trip was wrapping up the wind changed direction and we could see the color changing yet again. That's part of what makes this lake so much fun to fish - you jut never know from day to day what you're going to get and then its up to you to figure out what the day's gameplan is!

Today the guys from Krenzer Marine towed the boat down to Wilson for us. We met them at the Wilson Boatyard at about 11:30am and then drove over to Tuscarora State Park, where we launched the boat. The boat trailered really well, and all we had to do once she was in the water was put the nets and antennas up and start the engines. Jay and I were anxious to start fishing so we headed right out front and set up in about 50FOW. There was a ton of color in the water - chocolate brown on the shore, coffee colored water just outside that, and some greenish outside that. We set up in the greenish water and within 5 minutes had our first two fish in the boat, both Lake Trout. Late April/early May in Wilson is often a lake trout fishery, and this whole weekend was no exception. Jay and I ran a simple 4 rod program - two riggers and two divers, but at times we swapped out one diver to run some copper, which didn't produce for us at all.

We took fish on riggers from 20-50' down pulling spoons - the NK Glow Frog and Die Hard were both hot for us. We also took fish on divers on a 2.5 setting out 120-150' pulling Spin Dr./fly combos. Our best combo was the new Siggs Rigs Gangster behind an 8" Green Spin Dr. Like I mentioned earlier, most of the fish that we took were Lakers, but we also managed a King, and Atlantic, and a Coho today as well. It sure felt great to see that first silver fish come to the boat!

The water was moving all day long and as long as we stayed in the good colored water we took consistently took fish today in 50-70 FOW.

Something I wanted to mention to you guys here - be sure you have sunglasses on at the back of the boat. I was reminded of just how important they are today when Jay had a big laker right at the back of the boat and the hooked pulled out and hit me in my right eye just as I was about to net it. Thankfully I had on my sunglasses and my eye is OK, but I have a big welt directly over my eye. My glasses took the brunt of the hit and I'm positive I would've had an eye injury if I hadn't had my glasses on - that hook came out so fast and hit me so hard that it nearly knocked me over and it made my eyes water. So please, be careful at the back of the boat and wear something to protect your vision!

I've always like Flip Pallot and Jose Wejebe.

Our thoughts and prayers are with Lew and family.

The official word from the engineer who designed the new riggers is that they actually draw less than the old riggers did. They draw at least 2-3 amps lower then the old units with the 20 lb weight. You should be fine with your current set-up!

I ran both the DT5 and the DT10 last year and noticed no increased draw from either of the riggers as compared to the old Mag 10's & 20's we used to run. In fact we drew a lot less from those riggers while at the dock than we did with our Mag20' DT's because we were able to turn them completely off whereas the Mag20 DT pulls current whenever they're plugged in. Just to get some clarification on your questions about the actual amp draw on these riggers I've emailed the product manager at Cannon and asked him to shed some light on the subject for us. As soon as I hear back from him I'll be sure to let you know. I seem to recall hearing during the design and testing phases of the new riggers that the new motors inside them draw a little less amperage than the old ones did.

As far as the DC Alternator charger goes, we've been running the Minn Kota MK DC 2 for about 3 years now. It's a great piece of equipment that keeps our batteries fully charged all day long out on the lake. Where before we could watch the voltage drop on our fish finder over the course of the day we now stay pegged at about 13.2 volts all day long.

Last chance to come take a look at the boat. Once it goes in the water this April it won't be available again until our tournament and charter schedule is completed.

SOLD pending payment.

I have 3 Cannon Mag 20DT TS riggers for sale. These riggers are in excellent condition and have only 2 seasons of light use on them. They come with the mounting bases, weight retrievers,single rod tube, and locks for each. I also have covers and swivel bases for two of them that I'll throw in. Two of the riggers are spooled with 400' of stainless wire and are terminated with Cannon terminators, and the third is empty. These riggers were $1100/ea. new. The first $550/ea. takes them. Buyer to pick up locally in Ithaca, NY or make arrangements to pick up at the lake. PM me here or email me at [email protected]

* In addition to a stylish white finish, rod holder and line release, the Mag 20DT/TS features a monofilament-ready stainless steel spool for tournament fishermen

* 250-feet-per-minute retrieval rate is the fastest in the industry

* 20-lb weight capacity

* Positive Ion Control with adjustable voltage lets you regulate the fish-attracting electrical field around your boat*

* IP68 waterproof power cable connector

* Short-Stop safely stops weight retrieval at waterline*

* Low-profile swivel base, rear rod holder

* Heavy-duty, stainless steel telescopic boom extends from 24" to 53"

* Three-digit depth counter

* Ball storage hook prevents boat damage from swinging weights

* Pre-spooled with 400 feet of camouflaged 150-lb test 316-grade stainless steel cable

* Saltwater-resistant construction

* Compatible with CannonLink™ Fishing System Module (sold separately) allows control of up to six Mag 20DTs (a feature found on 2002 and newer models) directly from select Humminbird® fishfinders

* Limited lifetime warranty

* MAG 20DT/TS Short-Stop and Positive Ion Control features do not function when spooled with monofilament or super lines.