Billy V

Time to start shooting at different dots on that target! Great choice on the bow.

We'll take a look over there Aaron, thanks.

Thanks guys. We've taken several really nice LL's this year. Now if we could just find some consistent brown trout action down this way! I'll be out on a scouting mission on Saturday evening looking for them in some spots we haven't been fishing much this season.

Sorry for the late report - things have been crazy round here lately. Today was a day in which Mother Nature held all the cards. When she was in a good mood, good things happened. When she was in a bad mood, nothing happened! We headed out at 6:00am and set lines in 100 FOW. Our first hour of fishing was great - until the thunderstorms rolled through. We were on a good Laker & Atlantic bite in 100-120 FOW and once the storms hit the fish just shut off completely for us. We checked the satellite weather and decided that it looked like there was a hole in the storm that we could ride it out through. So for the next two hours we fished in a driving rain storm without a fish to show for it. But as soon as the storms passed, the fishing lit back up again. We ended our day with a very steady diet of Lakers and Atlantics to round out a full box. All things considered, it was a very productive day, especially when Mother Nature was in a good mood! We had big Lakers today with several of them pushing the 10 lb mark. We took fish on our 225' and 250' divers on a #1 setting pulling a Green Pro Chip/Siggs Rigs Billy V Glow Ghost and a White Spinny/Sigg's Rigs White Crinkle fly. Our riggers were the hot ticket again today and our 75' and 85' rods pulling a Dreamweaver Super Slim Midnight Special and a Lazer Glow Spook took quite a few fish for us. We also took fish on our 8 and 10 color cores pulling a variety of spoons. Best down speed was 2.3-2.6mph. We had 60 degree water at 50' and 50 degree water at 60'.

The Salvation Army Derby is returning to Cayuga Lake! The committee has been working hard to line up sponsors and to make this a fun event for all who enter. Registration form is located here: http://www.ithacalions.com/fishingDerby ... mphlet.pdf. The registration forms are going to the printers this week and will be available at most local tackle shops. Hope to see you all there!

Thanks guys - I wish we could get into the Seneca Shootout this weekend too!

That's what it's all about! Nice report. [ Post made via iPhone ]

Me confused? Yeah I'm definitely confused! Here's to hoping yours follows ours then!

Kyle & Kade - we're proud to have our names listed after yours on the cup! We'll see you out on the water!

What a fun day we had in the 6th Annual LOU-ALL! Jay and I were joined by my two sons William & Benjamin for the tournament - their first taste of tournament fishing. We left the dock at daybreak and headed north to our hot spot and got set up for part 1 of our mission - find some big lakers. We started in 50 FOW and picked away at small lakers for the first half hour of the day, but the water was warmer than we had hoped in there so we slowly slid out to deeper water. Once we got out to 120FOW things got crazy for us. There was a solid 90 minute stretch when we just couldn't keep all of our rods in the water. We had a good class size of lake trout under the boat and they were hungry. At one point we had all three Cannons fire within seconds of each other and the boys and I were treated to a triple. William and Benjamin both landed their fish quickly and then I brought our biggest fish of the day - a 10lb laker - over the transom. Jay and I quickly re-set the rods and the fish kept biting on a frenetic pace for the next hour and a half. The boys worked their tails off in the back of the boat fighting fish and helping us re-set rods. William is getting especially good at re-setting our wire diver rods. I'm pretty sure the fish wore the boys out because once things slowed down a little bit they both disappeared downstairs and crashed! When it was all said and done we had boated a mess of lake trout and felt pretty good that we had the weight that we were looking for with the 3 biggest. Now it was time for part 2 of the mission - find some silvers to round out our box. We left our laker hot spot and headed for deeper water and eventually ended up on the west side of the lake in a spot where we have been taking Atlantics for most of the season. We continued to take lake trout over there and hoped that we would just have to weed through them to get our silvers. The first silver came just minutes after William woke up from his nap at about 9am. He saw the rod fire, pulled it from the holder and while the fish was airborne looked at me and said "I got this Dad". Jay and I both held our breath as the fate of our tournament sat squarely on the shoulders of a 9 year old boy and his 7 year old brother who was at the wheel. William did a great job of keeping tension on the fish and within a couple of minutes he had boated a healthy 5lb Atlantic all by himself and Benjamin kept the boat going straight while only running one engine. Talk about a proud Dad! We continued to pick through lake trout and Atlantics that were just too small to keep while the clock ticked. At about 11:00am I pulled the center rigger and threw a GFR Rapala down 35' in some 60 degree water. That sat there for about 30 minutes without a touch and I decided to start bumping it down 5' at a time. No sooner did I put it down 40' than it fired and we landed a 20" Atlantic to round out our box. High fives were exchanged all around the boat and we all breathed a sigh of relief. We pointed the boat towards Myers and trolled back to the barn. We figured we were probably in the running but that last Atlantic had us worried. We were pleasantly surprised when we got to the weigh and and we heard the crowd's reaction as William put each fish on the scale. It turns out that we had the biggest box of the day and William and Benjamin had won the very first tournament that they had ever entered! Most of you know that Jay and I have chased tournaments all over Lake Ontario for the last 10 years or so and we've had our share of success in them at times. But nothing I've ever accomplished on Lake Ontario can even come close to the sense of pride and satisfaction that I felt when my boys ran up to the scales and accepted the LOU-ALL Cayuga Cup for 2012. It truly was a team win and we competed against some very, very good fishermen. The boys did more than their fair share of the dirty work on the boat too. They cleaned fleas off of lines, washed fish blood and slime off the deck, fought fish, weighed fish, picked out lures, ran the autopilot, re-set rods, and so on. When I was tucking them into bed last night I asked each of them what their favorite part of the day was - winning the trophy or the hard work that went into winning the trophy. And each of them answered "the hard work Dad". Today's experience is exactly why we moved our boat closer to home! I'd like to thank Scott Bennett and Barney for their hard work in pulling this tournament together. We had a ball and will definitely be back to defend the cup again next year! It was great to be able to put some faces with the names that we see here on LOU. If you fish the Finger Lakes and haven't entered the LOU-ALL you're really missing a great time and a chance to meet a bunch of great people.

That current was bad enough that it wrapped two of our rigger cables and twice unhooked the snap to the rigger weight!

You'll definitely want to leader that 50# down to something smaller. Yes, the wires were nasty with fleas too.

It was weed city in there yesterday! Glad you were able to fish it with clear water at least!

The only guns that we'll be packing are our "squirt" guns! The "squirts" are really excited to fish this event!

Today we left the dock a little later than normal and headed up towards Milliken. We heard the great reports from up that way from the 4th and based on how well we did there last Sunday we decided to give it another shot. We set up in 100 FOW and before we could get the second rod in the water the first one fires and we land a decent laker. At this point I'm thinking "game on!". We got our basic 6 rod spread set up and quickly landed another laker but then the weeds took over and made trolling very difficult. We fought through the weeds for a little bit but decided that we had to get out of there because we just couldn't keep our gear in the water. On top of the weeds, the fleas were terrible, so it was a double whammy of nastiness. We pointed the boat west and trolled to the other side of the lake in the hopes that it was weed free - it was - and found a pocket of small atlantics and lakers in 150 FOW. We looped around on that a couple of times and picked a few more fish and cleaned a ton of fleas off the lines. Then the wind shifted and blew all the weeds from the east side over to the west side and we began fouling lines again. So we pulled gear and headed back to the east side and found clearer water and had a great last hour of our trip, taking several more fish. It was a tough day of cleaning weeds and fleas off the rods but by the end of the day we had put together a decent box of fish. We had our divers going with a Green E-Chip/Sigg's Rigs Green Hypnotist out 270' and a Wonderbread Spinny/Sigg's Rigs UV Wonderbread out 300', both on #2 settings. We also took a couple of fish on a 600 copper pulling a Chrome Spinny/Sigg's Rigs Green Dolphin combo. Riggers weren't quite as good as they have been for us, but we still managed fish from a DW Superslim Midnight Special fished 90' down and from a DW Superslim Green Gator fished 80' down. Today was the first day that 30lb Big Game didn't keep the fleas off. Looks like it's time to spool up some 50lb. There was a ton of current today - far more than I've seen on Cayuga Lake in a long time. At one point on a long troll south I looked back at our spread and all of the rods were way off to the starboard side. It was so bad that we actually tangled downrigger cables a couple of times. That hasn't happened to us in probably 3 or 4 years now. We'll be back out again this weekend, see you out at the LOU ALL weigh in!

The Billy V junior team is in. I'll be out with my kids for their first taste of tournament fishing. Good luck to all and we'll see you at the weigh in. [ Post made via iPhone ]

Today we left the dock at 5:30am and headed up to AES and set up in 50 FOW. We had 60 degrees on bottom in there so we decided to slide out a little deeper to look for some colder water. Once we hit 90 FOW the screen lit up and the rods started poppin' pretty regularly - at one point we had 6 bites in less than 15 minutes - it was just that kind of morning. There was a decent temp break at about 60' and we had a lot of bait and hooks on the screen from there down to the bottom. Our hot spoon early on was the NK Seasick Waddler fished 70' down on our Cannon DT10's, followed closely by a DW Super Slim Green Alewife parked at 60' and a DW Super Slim Green Gator at 80'. Spoons were definitely our top producers today, but we did manage a few fish off of our divers out 210' and 180' on #2 settings. They were pulling a Green Pro-Chip/Sigg's Rigs Green Hypnotist and a Mountain Dew Spinny/Ghost Pulse fly respectively. We had a lot of fun with the lake trout for the first few hours of the morning in that 90-120 FOW range but when that bite began to slow we added some free sliders to our riggers and we managed to hook several nice LL's (Thanks for the tip Mower!). Best speeds for us today were 2.4-2.6mph. We only fished the stretch from AES up to Don's Marina. Most of our fish were in the 3-5lb class today but we lost a real big brown at the back of the boat. One thing I wanted to mention here is how the high gear ratio of our Daiwa Saltist reels saved the day for us (except for that brown!). Most of the guys in our crew today had a tough time with our light action rods and the way that we asked them to reel in the fish. You know the drill - slow steady pull up, reel down, keep tension on the fish. We saw several different "techniques" for fighting fish today and most of them just didn't work. The high gear ratio of the Saltist's allowed us to keep way more tension on the fish than we would have have had if we were using a slower reel and as a result we landed a few fish that I'm positive we would've lost otherwise. They're not cheap but in my book they're worth every penny and have more than paid for themselves in the 3 years that we've been using them. We have another trip later this week and I'll be sure to post a report then too.

I have 300 yards of 50# Big Game braid on my Tanacom Bull and it holds 700' of copper. I'd guess you'll be OK with that much Power Pro too.

Been running it for two years now and can't say enough good about it. I find it easier to deal with than standard copper line - it kinks less and lays flatter on the reel in my opinion.

Thanks guys - hope the bugs aren't too bad where we'll be hunting - our guide doesn't want us using our thermacell's!

Nice report Nick!

We left Myers at 5:45am and ran over to the Boy Scout camp and set up headed north. We had a slow pick of fish in 50-60 FOW until we got to Kingtown Beach. Once we got there the rods started firing pretty consistently and the fishing was good from there north. We took several big lakers and a few small Atlantics on that troll. When that bite slowed a bit we decided to troll over to the east side and try north of Milliken. We found virtually no fish out over deep water, but once we got up on the shelf north of Milliken we found more willing lakers (and weeds). There was a lot of bait and quite a few decent hooks over there - wish we had been there early. We pointed her south and trolled/cleared rods of weeds all the way down through Lansing Station and wrapped up at Ross Point at about 10:30am with a pretty decent box of lakers, atlantics, and a brown. On the east side the picture was best north of Milliken, and then it got good again down by Ross Point. We worked mostly 50-80 FOW on the troll south but ventured out to as much as 200 FOW at times, but the best screen and action was definitely in 50-60 FOW. The temp is beginning to set up and the fishing should just get better from here on out. Best speeds for us were 2.0-2.3 mph on our IntelliTroll. We had one hot spoon today - a DW Superslim Lazer Glow Spook - it took 6 or 7 fish all by itself today when it was fished just off bottom on our Cannon's. Other spoons that took fish today were: NK Seasick Waddler, DW SS Midnight Special, DW SS Green Gator, and a NK Die Hard. We took fish on those from riggers and a 10 and 8 color core. We only had a couple of diver shots today, but those came on a Dalmatian Spinny pulling a Sigg's Rigs Blue Dolphin, and one of our favorites, the JV Cheerleader - I LOVE that Sigg's Green Hypnotist - it and the Sigg's BVGG are two of my favorites. Unless I'm able to fish one evening this week we won't be out much until later in June. I'm headed to Quebec on Saturday morning to hunt bears for a week then I'll be away for a few days with my family. Good luck if you get out!

Ive had this unit sold twice - make me an offer - I want it out of the garage!

I'll stop over tomorrow to check out the boat. Can't wait to see those holders on your Penny!

Greg, Glad the reports are helping you - that's what they're all about!