Billy V

Mmmmm.....looks DEEEELISH!!! That sucker is gonna be great! You tie some mighty fine looking flys Eric. I'm telling you, you ought to think about a side business of making the Maniac line of trolling flys!

I was there with YT and my Dad yesterday getting my boat and camp ready. WE were ready and willing to go fishing, but MOTHER NATURE wasn't cooperating. I hope to get out one afternoon late this week, and then again next weekend. As Fishshack said, it's looking very, very fishy out there! BTW LevelGreener, I'm from Ithaca too...give me a shout and maybe we can make a run up to Fair Haven for a day of fun-fishing on my boat sometime this year.

I'm as excited as a kid on Christmas to show this to you guys. I've been working with Matt at Sigg's Rigs on developing some more new flasher/fly combos, and the first one he's introducing is a Die Hard Flasher with a Habanero Fly. The blade is a glow Pro-Chip blank with a prism taped back painted up as a Die Hard, and the fly has green, black, glow and chartreuse in it. I can't wait to get this puppy in the water! Matt has them listed on his site at www.siggsrigs.com.

Haven't heard anything about it. Might be intrested to fish the 14th if you can find details.

Thanks guys. Like I said earlier, it was a fun project and one I'd like to be able to do again. So we'll see! Sure am looking forward to getting out on the water! Bill

Way to go Jax & Yankee. Wish I could've been out there with you guys. Definitely would've been more fun than what I ended up doing.

Thanks Blue Waters. It was a fun project to work on, and one I hope to be able to do again for GLA. Glad you liked it.

Bro, you must be stoked! Planning on pulling the 24' Penny out on Sunday to get it ready for the season.

Jerry, I'm wondering what you see in that crystal ball of yours for Fair Haven the weekends of April 7th & 14th? How's the brown trout fishing going to be then? We gonna have some colored-up water? Thanks for your help!!

I'm running 10# Trilene on my brown rods, and run that line all season for browns. If the water is clear, I'll tie on a section of Seaguar fluorocarbon, but I prefer not to use it unless I have to.

Yes, it was Dennis Hull, and we talked a lot about the FRD. Sales have been good for him. He showed me a few rigging tips that I was missing, and I plan to give them another try out at the Bar this spring. Heck of a nice guy.

The top 4 are Matzuo's. The bottom 6 are Renosky's (I think). All are a prism-style finish. The Matzuo's are green/chart, and sil/brown/black. The Renosky's are chart, sil/black, and a perch/firetiger.

I was surprised at how hard they fought. They pull very, very hard all the way to the boat, and we even had a few jump out of the water like a steelie would. I was very impressed with their fighting ability. Fishing for them is like fishing for bullheads....stick some meat on the hook, chuck it out there and wait for the rod to twitch. As for eating them, I don't know. The guide told me that the fillets had a consistencey of a swordfish, but tasted like a combo of frog legs and halibut...whatever that tastes like. The guys I was fishing with were all over the fillets. They seemed to love them. Fun day of fishing though.

Yeah, this weather is through XM radio, but it's a different subscription than the radio is. It looks amazing...much better than standard radar. Just wondering how it's gonna work in real life out on the water.

I have several stick baits that I'm not using. $25 takes them all. All are in like new condition. Buyer pays shipping or picks up locally. Shoot me an email at [email protected] if interested.

I really don't know. If I had to guess, I'd say 25lbs or so.

Anybody out there running XM Satellite weather on their boat? It looks really, really cool. Looks like you'd have to interface with a Garmin unit at this point to be able to get it?

Thanks Chinook. Man I love those Penn Yan's! This will be my third one.

I was in Oregon over the weekend and had the chance to go Sturgeon fishing. Here's a couple of pics of these pre-historic looking things!

27.06 lbs and will come from Wilson....on a Penn Yan!

McMaster has always sold the wire I've used in 1000' lengths. Are you looking up part number 3458T11? For what it's worth, they've increased their price to $.04/ft, so it's now less expensive to buy it elsewhere. I think Capt. Gary's had it on sale for something like $33/1000' spool. I haven't bought from McMaster in a while.

Chinook, I completely understand the original question. And if you go back and look at my first post, you'll see that I said I put a FF on my boat first, and a probe second, and that I'd still do it in that order...for all the reasons you've specified. My point was simply that in my world, I won't leave the dock without either.

Rich, Thanks for the legwork on this. I'll give him a call to discuss. I really appreciate your help! Clarke, I've already been in touch with Jeff, and he's been a big help. Bill

What good is knowing where the fish and bait are if you have no idea what speed your lure is turning down there? If your surface speed is a solid 2.50mph, but your lure is spinning at 3.75mph due to a current, are you gonna catch many fish? I suspect not. Conversely, what if you're watching your cables and they tell you that you have your speed perfect, but unbeknownst to you there's a micro-current running with you at the same depth your lures are placed? Everything looks great, sounds great, but if you put a probe down you might find your lure running 1.0mph. Will that catch fish? I doubt it. There are oftentimes massive amounts of current below the surface that you'd never know was there if you didn't have your probe down. I used to watch my cables and my GPS and swore I had my speed right. Then I bought a probe and found out just how many times I was wrong. Like I said in my first post, I think you need both. In order to maximize your catch, you need to know where the fish & bait are (And if they're actively feeding or not), what your speed at the lure is, and what the down temp is. When you give up one or more of those pieces of information, you're giving up some of your fishing "senses". If you choose to fish without either a FF or a S&T, you're hurting your chances to maximize your catch.

Tough one. I had my FF go down last summer for a few days and I felt blind, but I worked the S&T and we put fish in the box. But when I lost my probe on my S&T, I felt blind AND crippled! I know you gotta have the FF, but in my mind there is no substitute for knowing EXACTLY what speed and temp you have at the ball. Watching cables only gives you an approximation of speed, not to mention no indication of temp. I've had days when my cables are blown way back and yet my probe only showed 2.0mph down speed. Had I just been watching my cables, I would've slowed down, when what I needed to do (and did sucessfully) was to speed up! I think my answer is that you need to have both. That being said, I bought the FF first, and then added the S&T. And I'd still do it in that order.