Billy V

What a difference a day makes! Wait, that sounds familiar....

Last night the wind blew hard from the East and when we got out to the lake we were greeted with 5-7 footers and dark blue death water - basically a freezing cold liquid desert. We couldn't go much further than right out the front door given the rough seas so we slogged our way out to 120 FOW and set up. In between customers chumming we managed to boat a few Cohos and even a nice 5 lb Atlantic. Spoons took all but one of our shots today with that same Dreamweaver SS Midnight Special going three times on a 45' rigger. Our other bites were on a Steelie Dan and our new NK WHAT!?!?? spoon. We did manage one nice rip on a diver out 150 on a .5 setting pulling a Green Plaid Pro-Chip pulling a Sigg's BVGG, but we lost it after a few minutes.

Today was a real tough day to be on the water, but the guys really wanted to go - so we went and gave it our best shot. I would have rather re-scheduled for another day but sometimes you just gotta go. I have a few pictures that I'll post later but the internet connection here is really slow and it takes forever to load them, and we have a double tomorrow and I need to get to bed. For now, here's a link to a short video I shot of the waves we were in. It really doesn't do it justice - I think I shot it at the flattest time all day!

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23qik

Hopefully tomorrow is more like the day before was. Lake Ontario was a humbling place to be today.

What a difference a day makes! Not that yesterday was bad by any means, but Charlie and Bill hit the Lake Ontario King Salmon JACKPOT today. We just wrenched on the fish today - it was incredible by any standards. We set up in 100 FOW and worked from there out to 160FOW as the day progressed. Our best setups were divers out 150 & 175 on a .5 setting and 250 & 275 on a 2.5 pulling a variety of Spinny and Pro-Chip/ fly combos. The Pro-Chip Coyote/Sigg's Green Hypnotist and the Green Dot Spinny/Sigg's Billy V Glow Ghost were definitely top producers today but we also took lots of shots on our old favorites Dalmatian Spinny/Sigg's Blue Dolphin, Green Double Crush Glow Spinny/Sigg's Green Hypnotist, and a Green Pro-Chip/Sigg's Green Apple. Hot spoons included the DW SuperSlim Midnight Special, and an NK THAT spoon fished off of riggers down 75-85 ft. To be honest, the action was so good today that it really didn't seem to matter what we put in the water as long as we had it at the right depth. From the time we got set up till the time we pulled lines Charlie and Bill were HOOKED UP - and I mean we were fighting fish allllllllllllllllll day long!

We saw Jax, Maniac, and Landingzone out there putting the smack down on them today too. It was crazy-good!

Here's a few pics:

We're back out again tomorrow, weather permitting. MAN I LOVE THIS!!!!

The group of guys that came fishing with me today are some of my favorite people to fish with every year. Dan, Chris and I met 16 years ago while teaching skiing at Greek Peak and we've remained close friends to this day. Dan and I ski together all the time and he's become one of my closest friends. So I was pretty amped to take them and Dan's brother-in-law Steve and nephew Jared out today. We had a 2-3' chop left over from the weekend storm and the water was all riled up but we pretty quickly got into some fast & furious action. Our best rig today was that same Green Dot Spinny/Sigg's Billy V Glow Ghost fished off of our wire divers out 180-240'. We also had a couple of nice Kings take an old favorite of ours - the Dalmatian Spinny/Sigg's Blue Dolphin combo fished off of a 210' diver. The best spoon today was a DW Steelie Dan fished off of a 30' rigger. We found our best action just inside the muddy water and we had a great mix of lakers, cohos, and Kings today. We threw a few small fish back but kept a few for the frying pan too. They wanted it fast again today - 2.8-3.0mph on our Cannon IntelliTroll.

Highlight of the day was easily watching Jared fight his first ever Lake Ontario King and then seeing it come to the net. He worked so hard for this fish and I think that his smile says it all - he's HOOKED!

Today we pre-fished the Scotty King of the Lake tournament out of Wilson. We had a great day and boxed several big Kings and a bunch of cohos too. Unfortunately the tournament ended up being canceled because we had 'em pretty well dialed in. Our hottest rig was without question a Green Dot Spinny/Sigg's Billy V Glow Ghost combo fished off of our divers out 210'. That rig alone took 4 or 5 Kings. THAT spoon was our best spoon, but the DW Midnight Special was hot too. The fish wanted it fast - 3.0 on our Cannon IntelliTroll. Our best depth of water was 210-240 FOW and we were fishing from 30-120 ft deep for the most part.

Here's a few pics from Friday:

I'd like to thank Kevin Jerge and the folks at the Wilson Boat House for a great event, even though the wind ended up keeping us off of the lake all weekend long. A lot of time and effort went into this event and we look forward to fishing it again next year.

Here you go:

No pics of it just yet...will try to post some after i get back up to the boat this weekend.

Beautiful fish and great pic. Congrats Jeremy!

We had a carbon copy of yesterdays wind & waves (virtually NONE! ) and we got to play with a few aggressive Kings, Cohos, and Lake Trout to top it off today. Today the Cohos and Lakers wanted spoons only and the Kings wanted Spinny/Fly combos as well as spoons. Our top spoons were the Northern King THAT Spoon and the Dreamweaver Midnight Special. Top attractor combos for us were a Green Dot Spinny/Sigg's Billy V Glow Ghost and a Green Double Crush Glow Spinny/Sigg's Green Hypnotist fly fished off wire divers out 125-150' on a #1 setting. Best depths for us today were 60-80 FOW. Riggers run from 20-60' down took multiple shots each. Nice to boat a few kings in the mid-high teens today!

We had nice flat seas and a very comfortable ride for the entire day and the cooperative Kings, Cohos, and Lake Trout kept us busy most of the day. While it wasn't fast & furious nor did we whack a big King, we did manage a nice mixed box of fish that was very representative of what Lake Ontario has to offer in early May. We worked the inside water for most of the day and found that 60-80 FOW area to hold the most receptive fish. Spoons did most of the damage today and the Dreamweaver SS Midnight Special and the Northern King Gold NBK were our standouts. We also took several cohos on a Candy Corn Kaboom stick bait fished off of a diver. The few bites that we had on attractor/flies came on a Green Double Crush Glow Spinny/Sigg's Billy V Glow Ghost fly fished off of our divers. Riggers down 30-50 ft, divers out from 30-150' on a variety of settings, and a 10 color core all took fish for us. All in all a very fun day!

Glad I have my lifetime AND lifetime's for both of my kids. This state is so messed up! Time to vote every single one of them out of office and start fresh. Even that might not be enough to save us though...

I was involved with the pre-production testing of the new Cannon IntelliTroll and I have one on my boat now. Installation took me about 30 minutes and was a piece of cake. It uses the same basic technology as the Moor and the Depth Raider but also has the added benefit of showing actual depth of the probe. The new cannon probe is a significant improvement over the old one too. If you want to read my impressions of the unit, check here for several blog entries about it: http://myblog.billyvsportfishing.com/

I can't comment on the Fish Hawk as I've never run one, but lots of guys really like them. It all boils down to your personal preferences - Coated cable and easy installation or no coated cable and an extra transducer to install. Everyone has their own preference but the truth is that either will work quite well for you.

Great video Dave! Thanks for posting it.

I love my Cimeter!

We've used the IntelliTroll a few times now and are very impressed with it. The true depth feature is going to come in really handy as I'm at the wheel...no more asking Jay what depth the probe rigger is. We still haven't let out much more than 50' of cable and the difference in blowback has been nil since we run 16 lb balls. Battery life isn't going to be an issue with it...we had over 100 hours on our test unit last spring and the guys at cannon tell me that they got over 200 hours on theirs.

The last 4 are sold pending payment.

Nice report Rick. Too bad you couldn't get them going on Saturday. Believe me, I know how tough it is to come in with a small box when other guys have their tourney limit....it's no fun! But, it's also a motivator to figure out what went wrong and to improve. I know you'll be back with more huge boxes of fish at the upcoming tournaments. See you in Wilson this weekend....can't wait!!

I want these gone....they're in like new condition!

Speaking of streakers...check out this one from yesterday:

Sorry about the poor picture quality, but we were getting tossed around pretty good at that point and I just couldn't keep the camera still.

We actually found a small pocket of 52 degree water right as we set up but once we got out of it I couldn't find it again. It's just a matter of time now!

Woody,

We had 46-47 degrees pretty much everywhere from 20-50' down.

We could have caught a hundred Lakers if we had wanted...they were crazy easy and very fat & healthy yesterday.

We fished West of port in 50-180 FOW and put a beating on the Lakers and took a few Kings today as well. We got a late start after having the boat trailered to Wilson from Krenzer's in Sodus, but once we got out to 50 FOW the rods started popping with some chunky Lakers. Mostly a spoon bite (DW Green Alewife, Glow Corn were good), but we also took a few whacks on a Chartreuse Splatter Spinny/Sigg's Ghost fly combo fished off a wire diver out 140' on a #2 setting. 2.0-2.5 mph down speed on the new Cannon IntelliTroll (VERY nice by the way) was our best speed. We worked the inside water and played with the Lakers for a while, then decided to try out deeper for Kings. We found the Kings in 120-180 FOW and they came on riggers down 45 and 55, and also on a 10 color core. The DW Super Slim Glow Frog, Glow Corn, and SuperGlow Green Machine were all good. We didn't have a King bite on a Fly combo today. Once the East winds picked up it got pretty snotty and the bite shut down. We called it a day earlier than we had wanted to but we still accomplished our mission - Kings on the deck of the boat and lots of rods firing! Another week or so and it'll be on like Donkey Kong in Wilson!

Since there's been an awful lot of talk about them here I should also mention that we ran our new Daiwa Saltist reels today and were universally impressed. We got to play with a few really big Lakers on our wire diver reels and what few concerns I had over the reel being too fast were quickly put to rest. The reels are just awesome. That high gear ratio is going to be the new standard in trolling reels if I had to guess.

Here's a couple of pics from today:

That's correct Jason. It's designed as a way to get INSTANT fishing information into your hands. We have put a ton of time, money, and effort into building Lake Ontario Tweets. I've personally put over 6 months of my time into the project. As far as having only a "select few" who can post goes, the idea was to get a couple of full time career professionals from most ports on the lake to report as often as they can. In the cases where we weren't able to find a career professional, we asked guys that are very active in the fishery and its day-to-day goings on to help us out. These guys are giving freely of their time to help provide current, up-to-the-minute information in an effort to help promote the fishery on Lake Ontario and I think that they should all be applauded for doing so. Most of the guys that are involved in the project didn't write regular fishing reports on LOU in the past anyway, so having them report via Twitter is a huge thing for us. We simply don't have the ability to allow everyone on LOU to tweet their reports. The effort that goes into getting just one Captain signed up and operational on the Twitter project can be monumental. For example, just this week I exchanged over a dozen emails, countless text messages, and spent well over an hour on the phone just to get one Captain up and going. And that doesn't even take into consideration the amount of time that it takes Chad to set them up on the system or the time I spent telling them about the project and convincing them to participate. Twitter is inherently a one-way communication medium, and was the best way we could come up with to get the information from the lake as its happening into your hands just moments later. So yes, it is a one-way communication tool.

LOU is a fantastic forum because people give so freely of their time, talent, and information to help others out. We see LOT as just another step in trying to help guys make informed decisions as to when & where to fish. We still have the regular Fishing Reports sections for all other reports and we hope that people will still write their detailed reports there too.

I hope this answers your question.

I'm glad you're enjoying the Tweets! Larry hit the nail right on the head. Keep an eye out for "Map Tweets" on the Tweet and that'll show you exactly where the guys are. Some guys have smart phones that allow them to show their GPS coordinates, other guys just have regular phones and can't show that info. One more thing that might help you to identify where the guys are fishing is to scroll over their picture on the left of their tweets. That should bring up a pop-up box that'll list our home ports. For the most part that's where we'll be fishing from unless its a tournament weekend. There are one or two guys who jump around the lake to follow the fish but for the most part guys are fishing from their home ports. My guess is that you won't see much info on a tournament weekend as there's a lot of money on the line and most of us will opt to keep the details about where we are and how we're doing to ourselves until after the tournament concludes. I know that I'll be turning the GPS coordinates feature off on tourney weekends!

Enjoy the reports!

I guess I'm not understanding the concern over a higher gear ratio reel and it not being able to stop a fish. The drag is the thing that stops a fish, not the gears. All the higher gear ratio does is allow you to bring line in more quickly. Unless you're just cranking the fish in with the reel, which we don't advocate doing on my boat, how is it ever going to be a problem? All I can see the new Saltist doing is being a major upgrade what with a greatly improved drag system and the higher retrieve ratio.

SOLD to the same guy pending payment!!