BlueEye

Awesome Pequod!! Glad you were able to put one in the boat dead stickin!

Hahaha..... yeah tread carefully on Mother's day my friends Good luck Saturday Larry. I will be fishing OTISCO with brother and my other buddy out of our little tin boat that day - close eye on weather right now.

Spot on Mike! How many times have you used that technique with your tubes and got boat side strikes?? I've lost count now fishing with you... I think you may be onto something with pures vs. tigers/pike as well. We had 60 degree water down on the cave and were able to hookup on our practice day on a figure-8's no problem. Cooler water temps up north here and skiddish pike/tigers is different story. I can only speak from my own personal experiences but I think you are spot on with that!

Nice report Bob! Glad to hear you guys had some nice weather and were able to put some fish in the boat!

Steve, Tim, Larry - thanks for kind words! Good luck on Saturday Larry - I'm watching weather closely. Doesn't look too promising. Good news for wives & girlfriends, bad news for fisherman

Hey guys, Went out fishing with the pregnant wife and my brother last two days and thought I would share a little technique that has worked good for us for the last couple years – DEAD STICKIN’. The idea is simply an alternative to the figure-8 that is so pounded home to all ESOX anglers. The key variable here is water temp. It’s been my experience in fishing spring time Pike/Tigers that if the water temp are in the low 50’s or cooler, this technique has for us has outperformed the figure-8 by 5:1 ratio in getting boat side strikes. The technique works well with jerkbaits, glidebaits, crankbaits, tubes and other baits that you can stop boat side and get to suspend near the boat but still twitch to get a little movement/action on them. It's easy enough to do - upon retrieval stop the bait 5 to 10 feet from the boat and just twitch it, barely moving the bait forward (almost like the bait is confused to see a boat here and is getting pinned up against it). I give it a 10 second count (sometimes as much as 30 seconds). The resulting strikes can be some of the most memorable images ever ingrained into your mind! Here are a couple of pictures of some of the bigger pike we boated yesterday – ALL OF THEM came on deadstick technique Even the wife got in on the action..... she would cast out, reel in and pull lure out of water. I told her to just let it sit there for a couple seconds as it got near the boat. On her very next cast, right at the boat...... That boat side strike scared her half to death and she had enough "fun" for one evening after that. Didn’ t get any fish on the figure 8 as water temps (45 - 48 degrees) were too cold to warrant them aggressively chasing around boat side meals yet. This doesn’t mean you can’t get them using figure 8 but deadstick technique has boat MANY more fish for us in cooler water temps. Same was true when I was down on Conesus last weekend – We had water temps in the 40’s on south end and I had several boat side strikes deadstickin’. Fishing partner who did figure 8’s each cast ended day with zero hits – I’d bet money if he would have tried deadstickin, some of those follows would have turned into boat side blowups! So next time someone tells you to figure-8, figure-8, figure-8…….. keep in mind WATER TEMPS! Deadstickin’ is a great alternative and one that I know many of my casting buddies would attest too. I’ve seen them catch TOO MANY fish boat side doing this Hope to see some of you this Saturday at the tournament! Cheers, Chad

Larry - thanks again for the invite today to fish with you on Conesus. I had a blast despite the fishing being a bit on the slow side. The lake looks like it is setting up nicely though and I'd expect the fishing to pick up there in the next week or two. Trout & Salmon for me tomorrow on the big pond. Good luck to those who get out!