Billy V

Off track,

The dual axis holders have been out for a while now. I've been running them on my boat for two seasons and they are without question the best accessory I've ever had for my downriggers. They mount between the base and the rigger. They make the rigger infinitely more adjustable and are worth every penny in my book.

Fishinman,

Rest assured that I had nothing to do with their decision as to which shirts to blur or not. I simply fielded a team, designed shirts that included my sponsors logos and went fishing. What they did with the pictures was solely up to them.

Come on now fellas...the company spends countless thousands of dollars to improve the product and all you can do is complain? I say kudos to Cannon for innovating - they've been listening to those of us who use the riggers in the field and have addressed all of the concerns with the old design. It's refreshing to see a company committed to improvement! Remember that this Cannon isn't the same Cannon that designed the older style riggers that most guys are still running. The old Cannon was sold to Johnson Outdoors a few years ago and the first thing the new Cannon did was make major improvements to the riggers that they were offering. Now they're putting their own stamp on the sport with the first truly new downrigger design to come to market in years. The new Cannon is doing their best to move the sport forward and is constantly striving to make better, more reliable products. I've been heavily involved with the design and testing of both these new riggers as well as the new IntelliTroll (which is absolutely fantastic BTW) and I can tell you that the people who I've worked with in the design and testing process are some of the most passionate, driven, quality-minded people I've worked with in any field.

Click here for details and pictures: http://myblog.billyvsportfishing.com/

I'll tell you this - we've been testing them for most of the season and they're SWEET!

Lots of tire kickers and even a few seriously interested parties, but no takers yet. She's still in Sodus and can be seen with a day's notice or so. We'll be fishing the Pro-Am there this weekend (July 16-18) and it can be seen any afternoon over the weekend at Krenzer Marine.

Yes, the 345 GT2 holds it - just barely. I have 3 of them on my boat and one of them is a 600 copper with 300 yards of 50# Power Pro. Put it on the reel TIGHTLY! I actually like the GT2 better than my old 345 GTi's. Drags seem to me to be just as good and the clickers have held up a lot longer than on the old American made GTi's.

$350 is a bit high for that reel. They regularly retail for $189. If that's still too steep, take a look at the Daiwa SG47LCA for around $90.

Totally sold on the Saltist here too. The high speed retrieve is amazing and the drags are the best Daiwa has ever produced.

Tag,

Fat Nancy's in Oswego has 3 left - my buddy Gump picked some up there just yesterday. You can give them a call at 315-216-4595 to make sure. It's a deadly spoon - one of the best new spoons we've had in a while. Here's what it looks like:

We haven't been out much lately - I needed to spend some time at home with the family after fishing 20 days in May and then the West end Pro-Ams in June - so we figured we'd take a shot at that deep water program rather than sort through all the small fish. It's typically been a good bet out deep like that at this time of year. There were a few fish out there - that's where we got the 20lb King and the 10 lb steelie, but it wasn't what we had hoped.

Nick,

I had the radio turned way down and probably missed your call. We'd heard about the biggest number of fish being taken in that 150FOW range but also heard that most of them were small. We were hoping to find some bigger fish out deeper - nope!

I ran flea-flicker probably 10 years ago or so and absolutely hated how badly it twisted and then retained that twist. But it might become necessary if the fleas don't let up!

We run 30# Big Game too and usually that keeps the majority of the fleas off. But yesterday in Sodus nothing kept them off - they were even stuck to the hooks on the spoons. We just got into a routine of cleaning lines every few minutes. It's lots of work but seems to be about the only thing that kept the lines semi-clean yesterday.

Today Tim, Jay, Gump and I fished for a few hours out of Sodus Point. We worked some way deep water looking for colder water and bigger fish than there has been inside the past few days. We found 42 degrees down 90' out over 350-600 FOW but only a few marks and those were down 300' or more. I ran a rigger out 350' for a good chunk of the morning but it never took a shot. We did OK out there but never lit them up - it was just a steady pick for us today. It sounded like the better bite was in 100-180 FOW this morning. Our 400' copper pulling a DW SS Midnight Special took several fish today, as did a NK Mixed Veggies fished off of our 90' rigger as a free slider. We also had the NK Die Hard, and DW SS Glow Frog take shots today. The Mixed Veggies took our biggest steelhead of the trip at just over 10 lbs:

A Green Double Crush Glow Spinny/Sigg's Green Hypnotist fished off of our 400' Diver took our biggest fish of the day, a 20 lb King that fought like he was a 35 lb'er.

It was mostly a spoon bite for us today. The fleas were terrible - maybe the worst I've ever seen - especially when we were fishing the inside, warmer water. Even though it wasn't fast & furious we still had a great time and are all looking forward to the Oswego Pro-Am this coming weekend.

Sorry to hear of your loss Vince. Thoughts and prayers from my family to yours.

bump

Hey Jim - Welcome to LOU!!!

If it was just me out there I would have been disappointed with the fishing. But then again I would have been out there at 5am and stayed all day rather than starting at 11:30am and staying out for 2 hours or so. Days like that make me realize that its not the size or number of fish that matters to the kids. It's having an adventure with Mom & Dad that's so important to them. Kind of puts it back in perspective a little bit for me.

That spoon has been a regular producer for us for a couple of years now. Its been a good low-light spoon - that glow lasts forever when you charge it!

Nick,

We'll be in Sodus for the rest of the year. I'm sure we'll see you around. We drove over to Arney's at the end of our day and saw your boat there, but there was no one around.

Today we took the kids out for a mid-day troll in front of Sodus Point. We got a late start and finally left the dock at Krenzer's at 11:30am and ran out to 150 FOW and set up. Right away we began hooking up with small Kings - lots of them - and they were perfect sizes for the boys to enjoy. It was a spoon bite for us and pretty much any spoon that we put in the water took fish for us today. The DW Superslim Da Shiznit, Green Alewife, Glow Frog, and Midnight Special all took fish as did the Northern King Sea Sick Waddler, Gold NBK, and Die Hard. It was a rigger bite for us today - 90-125' down. Best speeds for us were 2.8-3.1 mph on our Cannon IntelliTroll. Here's a few pics of the boys having fun with today's fish:

We never did get a major bite today, although we only gave it about 2 hours right in the middle of the afternoon - not exactly prime fishing hours. But the boys had a lot of fun and the fish & sun wore them out!

We'll be back out to give it a more serious shot next weekend and I'll be sure to post a report then too.

Great videos Mark! Thanks for posting them!

They run better than my Sharks ever did Mickey - they're not tail heavy in the least. All they do is run straight and true. Nothing sexy about them except for the lower price tag! They just work.

My oldest son William got his first compound bow this weekend - man was he stoked!

Back to the top. The boat is now located in Sodus Point and can be seen by appointment with a days notice or so.

I have a brand new extendable boom for your Cannon. PM me if you're interested.