Billy V

A couple of things to keep in mind when you're looking for a replacement...don't settle for less than 500 watts RMS, 4000 watts peak-to-peak. You'll need that amount of power at a minimum if you're going to be doing any amount of deep water trolling. Any less than that and you'll miss out on a lot of what's going on under water. I'd also look for a dual frequency transducer (50/200kHz) and a color screen. Once you go to color you'll never go back to monochrome. Several years ago I went through the same situation as you and went for the less expensive, lower powered unit. In the end I hated it and replaced it with a model that was more suited for the type of fishing I was doing and I ended up spending a lot more than if I had just done it right the first time. Now I have a Furuno 585 and couldn't be happier with my fish finder. If I had a $300 budget, I'd opt for more power and a color screen and wait on the GPS, especially since you already have a hand held. One that I've seen out there that would work well for you is the Eagle Seafinder 500C DF. Take a look at it here: http://www.byownerelectronics.com/store ... 578&page=1 Eagle products are basically the previous generation of Lowrance products. They have the same menus and look and feel. For the money I think you'd be hard pressed to find a better value. If your budget allows, I'd definitely look at the Humminbird 747C. It has 500 watts RMS and would be a great unit for you but it's priced at $399: http://www.byownerelectronics.com/store ... 660&page=1. In my opinion, Humminbird quality is excellent and their customer service is fantastic. I have their 955C NVB Chartplotter/GPS on my boat and we absolutely love it. Hope this helps!

I'm not affiliated with www.gloutdoorstore.com in any way either, other than Capt. Scott and I talked about the LOU community earlier this spring and he offered us a 5% discount at the beginning of the season. That discount offer has since expired. I read this thread earlier today and talked to him again and he's asked me to pass along a 6% discount to any LOU members who shop with him before Sept. 10th. Just type in discount code billvpennyan at the checkout and you'll receive that discount on your purchase. I don't benefit from this in any way other than knowing that I might have helped someone save a buck or two. I generally buy what I can from Screwy Louies in Fair Haven and at other shops around the lake when I frequent them. The hard to find items I buy online at reputable places like gloutdoorstore.

We use 30# Big Game for Kings and love it. Keeps the fleas off and is super tough.

I hope you're wrong Rod. But in all honesty I don't think you are.

Sharks on all of my riggers. 15# if we're running deep, below 100' or so, and 12# if we're shallow. They track beautifully and the 15# keeps our probe rigger from blowing back much at all when we're running it deep. I'm not sure I believe all the hooey about the facets on the Sharks bringing in fish, but they sure do track nice.

Tim, It was nice meeting you too. Thanks for sticking around and shooting the bull with me. Tom, I certainly hope that it's not the tournaments that's causing us to have this many fewer Kings in Fair Haven. Personally I don't believe that's the issue. I think the lake has been a mess all season long with the screwy winds that we've had and that's what's causing the East end to suffer. Or at least that's what I hope it is. I'm monumentally frustrated with the fishing out this way and I hope for everyone that relies on the fishery for their income that it improves ASAP. There aren't nearly the number of boats on the water that we used to see. I'm sure some of it is gas prices, but I'm equally sure that lots of guys are loading their boats on their trailers and heading West to catch fish.

You have no idea how much I hate to post reports like this, but I'm committed to posting both the good and the bad. It's starting to get to me and I'm growing increasingly frustrated with the fishing in Fair Haven but it is what it is. So here goes.... We went out on Saturday morning and found a few marks and some bait NW of port in front of the silos in 325-500FOW. We worked really hard for what little we managed to scrape outta there. The majors that we're all looking for just aren't there in any sort of numbers yet. Jim Jared from Shade Tree Charters did manage to boat a beautiful 26 lb major just as they trolled past us. Jim's been putting in as much time as anyone out of Fair Haven the last month or so and he certainly deserved to have the big fish of the day back at the dock. I saw the fish on the scale at the docks and it was a real beauty. I heard rumor of a couple of 30lb + Kings out of Oswego yesterday too. There were some small hooks up around 90-110' and we threw everything at them including the proverbial kitchen sink. The only set-up that we could really get to go was a simple white spinny/white crinkle Sigg's fly fished off of our 110' rigger. That set-up took 80% of our hits for the day. The other set-up that got bit was a chartreuse pro-chip/Sigg's Mountain Dew Pulse fly that we had down 135' on another rigger. We didn't have a single spoon bite all day long, and we didn't have a touch on any of our 4 wire divers. We moved 'em up out of temp, down into the middle of the temp, and down in the ice water and we couldn't trigger a bite. We sped up, slowed down, messed with colors, lead lengths, direction of troll, you name it. It just wasn't gonna be our day no matter what we did. The good news is that I talked to Andy Bliss from Cold Steel several times over the course of the morning on Saturday and they continue to light up the browns east of Oswego in 100-115FOW. His best spoons were the same ones he's been using all week: Stinger Frogs, Tuxedo's and the Mongoose. Andy said that they had consistent bait and hooks in there and they've been getting some fat browns up to 12 lbs or so. I ventured in to 100-120FOW east of Fair Haven and we definitely don't have the same screen that they do East of Oswego for the browns. In just over an hour's time in there I saw exactly one bait pod and one fish. Needless to say we couldn't get it to go in there either. I didn't fish on Sunday but I did talk to a few guys that went out of FH and it sounded like more of the same...lots of two and three fish boxes, with a few intermittent majors reported. Shade Tree dropped three or four majors this morning so he's at least feeling like maybe they're starting to show up here and there. I sure hope he's right...we'll be fishing every day from the 16th-25th and I could use a good dose of BIG Kings to get me out of the fish funk I'm in. Talk about a frustrating season.

PPPLLLEEEAASSSEEEE send some of those fish down to the East end!! Nice report. Way to go!

I just got an IM from the Cold Steel boys. At 2:25 pm they're headed in with their 5 man limit of browns. Same depths & lures as earlier today did the trick for them. Divers were the best deployment device for them too.

No brainer.....Go West!!!!!!!!! You can hunt bears on the East Coast any time bro.

Oh perfect! After we all spend the $130 to get one...wanna bet that they don't refund my $$$???

Yeah, we'll be around Saturday afternoon. We have a 6 hour trip on Sat morning and should be back by noontime or so.

I just got a phone call from Andy Bliss who's out on Cold Steel this afternoon out of Oswego. They're brown fishing East of port and already have 8 in the boat after just over an hour's time. Divers out 180-210' on a #2.5 pulling Stinger Frogs, Tuxedos and Mongoose spoons are the ticket. Their best down speed is 2.0-2.2 down 90 over 100FOW. Sounds like they're really into the fish this afternoon and they've had a couple of doubles and a triple already. Choices, choices...browns in tight and Kings out deep! I'm gonna try and keep you guys as updated as I can over the next month or so as I talk to my buddies out on the lake. So keep posted for up-to-the-minute reports as I get them.

I just got off the phone with Jim Jared of Shade Tree Charters and he's having a lot better morning chasing Kings than he did yesterday. He's hooked up with 5 majors this morning and was just about to dip the net under another one when we were talking. He said he's been in 200-400 FOW West of port and a Chrome E-Chip/LBB fly fished off of his wire divers out 300 on a #3 was his go-to combo. Jim's FF is on the fritz so he couldn't tell me if he was marking fish or not so I have no idea what the screen looks like out there. I talked to Jay at Shawn's earlier today and one of the rec boats out of that marina just came in with a nice major that took a Habanero Spinny/ Pro-AM fly combo. They were only out for a couple of hours before a line of thunderstorms chased them off the lake. Sorry, but he didn't have details for me. Sounds like things might be starting to heat up out there....keep your fingers crossed that this is the start of something good!

I just got off the phone with Andy Bliss from the Cold Steel boat and they had a great day fishing browns East of Oswego in 85-105 FOW. They were back at the dock by 9:30 with a 3 man limit. Riggers down near the bottom (88-100' down) pulling Stinger Mongoose, Frog, and Tuxedo spoons and divers out 210-240 on a #2.5 pulling the same spoons were the hot ticket. Andy said there were bait and hooks all over the place in the waters they were working. I also talked with Jim Jared from Shade Tree a few minutes ago and he was headed in after spending his morning looking for Kings just a touch East of Fair Haven in 250-300FOW. He had a slower pick going but tied into a hot major that they dropped and they've boated a nice 14lb King. Definitely not as fast and furious as the inside brown waters, but still some fish to be had if you put in your time. Best items for Jim this morning were his NK Sea-Sick Waddler fished 90' down on his riggers and his diver pulling a Chrome Spinny/Glow Hammer out 300' on a #3 setting. Sounded like it was getting pretty bumpy when I talked to Jim just now. He said the waves were starting to turn into OMG's so they were gonna call it a day earlier than they had planned. Hope this helps!

I'll be out of Fair Haven for the first 9 days in a row, then back for the final two or three days over Labor Day weekend.

Which end of the lake are you going to be fishing? That'll make a big difference in wave heights. If it's blowing 20 out of the NW on the East end you'll see much bigger waves than 1-2's, that's for sure. The West end will be much more fishable in that wind.

YT and I do this all the time. He's the one who talked me into trying it and it hasn't harmed our copper at all.

Well at least I know where it is now and I have a half-dozen replacement fuses on board in case it happens again.

Yeah, it definitely should've been hooked direct and it WILL be hooked direct before we go out again next weekend! It was a blade type fuse that went, not a glass fuse.....

Yup, that's the one. Why that's down there and not with all the rest of the fuses, etc. is beyond me. Once we finally found it it was a simple fix but it sure handcuffed us all day while were were fishing.

I tried the shower curtain/rubber band deal for a while and really didn't like it. As I was sorting through an box of old releases a couple of months ago I found some 20 year old planer board releases that we stopped using long ago because the tension on the pads was just too tight for browns and light line. They have a shower curtain hook on the back of them and they work great for copper. Not sure who made them but they're just about perfect for copper. If we ever lose those we'll do what YT and Gambler are doing now with the Scotty's.

No idea what caused it to blow. It went just as we unhooked the shore power, so we're thinking that maybe there was a spike when we unhooked it. Other than that we really couldn't find anything.

I hate writing reports like this, but tough days are bound to happen. Just as we were about to push away from the dock at 5am....ZAP...we lost power to most everything on the boat. Not exactly what we had planned. Jay and I scrambled around as best we could in the pre-dawn darkness and we couldn't find the source of the problem. Not much of a surprise there; it's dark enough down in the bilge and under the dash during the height of the day let alone an hour before the sun rises. The good news was that we had both engines running and charging our batteries and we also had our Sonar & GPS so we were pretty sure we just had a blown fuse somewhere. The bad news was that we were going to have to fish without our Depth Raider. We also didn't have any of our instrumentation on the dash. Feeling blind without all of our instrumentation, we headed out and set up in 90 FOW just a touch East of the chute. We had tons of bait in 90-100 FOW and even a few hooks in the mix, so we set up a brown trout program and got down to fishing. We worked that water for an hour or so without so much as a touch. One of our friends slid in next to us and ran his temp probe down and said that he had 70 degree water on the bottom in 85 FOW. OK, time for plan B, that's just too warm. We turned the boat out towards deeper and hopefully colder waters and just as we hit 200 FOW our low diver fires and we're hooked up. After a brief battle we boated a small 2 lb. King and the guys decided to send him back into the lake so he could grow up and make someone else's day in a couple more years. That diver was out 210' on a .5 setting and was pulling a Green Double Crush Glow Spin Dr./ Sigg's Rigs Green Hypnotist fly. After that fish we kept working our way out towards deeper water and we found a few suspended bait pods and a few small hooks in between 220-240 FOW, so we decided to work that area for a bit. We kept trying different speeds in an effort to make up for the loss of our probe, but nothing seemed to work. We just couldn't get the rods to fire. Looking back on it I wish I had rigged up a thumper rod and ran it down the chute to give us at least some indication of down speed but I was determined that we could figure it out with a little help from our friends on other boats with probes and by watching the angle on our rigger cables. Hindsight is 20/20. Man did I feel blind out there. We worked our way out to 300+ and just as the thunderstorms rolled in we had our 600' copper pulling a Chrome Frog Spin Dr./Sigg's Rigs Super Lime Glow Pulse fly fire. As we were hooked up we could see two or three water spouts starting to form in the surrounding clouds. I was at the wheel and had us headed into the wind so I didn't snap any pics, but it sure was an ominous looking sky and it was a lot bumpier than the below pic makes it look. We worked as quickly as we could to boat the fish as there were some pretty nasty thunderstorm cells in the area. As soon as the fish hit the deck the heaviest of the cells moved in and we just skirted it to the North. What is it with us being hooked up on 600' of copper when there's lightning in the sky? That's the second time that's happened this year and I hope it's the last! We stayed out for a while longer in an effort to put one or two more fish in the box, but to no avail. We gave it our best shot under difficult circumstances, but the few fish we marked didn't seem to want to cooperate today. After we got back to the dock we starting trying to troubleshoot our power outage. Chris Drogi from Anchor Resort stopped by to help us out and he ultimately found that a simple 30 amp fuse that was located away from all the other fuse blocks down behind one of the engines had blown. I'm not sure why that fuse is located where it is, but it sure did handcuff us today. I'm headed to the auto parts store right now to pick up a few extras to have on hand. Thanks for all your help today Chris. I really do appreciate it. I sure hope this wind straightens out the temp and the fish get here SOON!

We had three of 'em surrounding us out of Fair Haven on Saturday. Not fun!