Tim Bromund

Tom, the 30+ lb king in the pic I submitted in your photo contest was adipose clipped. I figured there was no possible way that was a 2 yo, so I e-mailed the photo to Mike Wilkinson the Region 9 DEC Biologist who oversees our Olcott Pen Project and asked his opinion. He told me that a couple of the Pen Projects on the North Shore, specifically Wellington and Barcovan, have been adipose clipping their pen fish since 2006, so in Mike's opinion, it is likely that my fish was a 3 or 4 yo fish from one of those projects. Those bigger kings from the Oswego KOTL were very likely fish from one of those pen projects as well. regarding the releases, I just hate that style release, and I'm hardly a greenie. I've used blacks on other peoples boats and hated them, I currently have a similar style release that I won in the raffle at the LOTSA Club Tournament installed inline on my probe rigger and can't even begin to tell you how much I regret putting that on that rigger. The first thing I will do before the start of the season will be to remove that and go back to (In my opinion anyways) the vastly superior Scotty Release. I can load the line in the Scotty Faster than the blacks, I can absolutely load the crap out of my rods and NEVER get a false release with the Scotty, yet can clearly see skips etc. I don't care if every so called expert on the lake is using them, I can't stand them. It's really just a personal preference thing IMO. Tim

YES, This year is the year that the bulk of the kings from the 2008 reduced stocking will be maturing. IMO, it still remains to be seen what the survival of that year class looks like, since there have been past events that resulted in reduced stocking but fine fishing that suggest that there may not be a concrete correlation between overall stocking numbers and year class strength, it all boils down to the level of survival of the fish that were stocked. Tim

Nice Pics. Some beautiful football brownies there. Tim

Like you, there were time last year out ogf Olcott where we literally just couldn't troll out of them. One thing I think you can do is use a release that clearly transmits to the rod that there is a skipper on so you aren't dragging them for long periods of time. That is one of the big reasons that I like the Scotty Power grip releases over the blacks style release (besides the fact that I just do not like the blacks and really don't understand their popularity, but that's a separate issue). Like you said they are super aggressive and hit everything in the spread, all you can do is reef em in a quick as possible and just take em to the side of the boat grab the hook with your pliers and twist em off without bringing them in the boat. Tim

Happy Birthday Dave!!

Jim, no offense, but that is quite possible the stupidest advice you've ever given. Tim

you guys DO realize that all of this is really just utterly meaningless marketing fluff from ALL Manufacturers, right??? Tim

yup, still working the bugs out. After I got a new password send to me and was able to log in, when I tried to post, I got a message telling me that the message had to be approved by a moderator before it would post, so they still have some administrative issues/bugs to work out. I also noticed that it seems to have lost the last 2 months of posts, the most recent post showing in any forum was Oct 10. Tim

yeah Vince, from Fathers Day til the 3rd week in July it was out of this world. Those pics from June 26, it was just me and Dad, 4 rods and we couldn't keep em in the water, I lost count of the total number of bites but it was well over 30, 4 sets of double headers (good day to have Autopilot on the boat) 3 kings over 20. The nice thing was it was almost exclusively a rigger bite that day so most of the fish came on clean rods. Tim

Actually if you look closely, you can see the copper line that fish got into wrapped around the line and leader as well. That fish tore off to the port and got into everything, one of the rigger lines, the wire diver AND the copper on the port side. We were real lucky to get that fish in. if I recall correctly, I believe that was the first 30+ King ever landed on Adam's (Diversion) boat. Tim

a freaking ragboat????? Say it ain't so!!! Get yourself into counseling NOW before this diseased notion takes hold Yeesh!!! Tim

Tim

Personally I'd rather see *** as a site sponsor EDIT - Funny - but a too much for this site Tim sorry if that link is inappropriate. Tim

I know Dave Mull at Great Lakes Angler Magazine has used the VK Flashers successfully. Tim

yipppeeeee!!! much better than christmas music

Here you go, in the years since I took these pics and posted this initially, I've seen this link posted on almost every great lakes related fishing website in existence http://www.lotsa.org/Wire%20Line%20Knot.htm Tim

Nah, I always look like that. Seriously, that fish got into everything. She wrapped around the other rigger line, one of the wire divers and it's hard to see in that pic, but when she finally came in she was dragging one of the coppers wrapped around the line. She WAS the first 30+ lb ever on Adam's boat though. Tim

I have the Simrad AP14R on my Thompson and it was absolutely the best investment I could have made. On mine unit, it comes with a fluxgate compass that it uses to lock into and maintain a heading, you don't HAVE to NMEA it to a GPS to maintain a compass heading, but if you do connect the two units you can set it to navigate to a waypoint. Very useful if you have a cluster of marks (GPS waypoints) in an area, after you troll out a ways, you can turn around and tell the GPS to one of the waypoints and hit the nav button on the AP and it will take you right back through your marks. Tim

DEC sheds senior staff Department loses 260 to early retirement incentive, looking at another 209 by year’s end October 23, 2010 - By MIKE LYNCH, Enterprise Outdoors Writer High-profile biologists, supervisors and fish hatchery staff and are among the 260 state Department of Environmental Conservation employees who recently left the agency after accepting a 2010 early retirement incentive program offered by Gov. David Paterson. The list includes biologists such as Al Hicks, who worked to reintroduce the moose in the Adirondacks and who first warned of major die-offs of bats; Peter Nye, who worked for decades to bring bald eagles back to the state; and on a local level, Tom Hall, who recently served as the assistant regional director to Betsy Lowe. "Many of the men and women on that list represent really long-term institutional knowledge," Adirondack Mountain Club Executive Director Neil Woodworth said. "These are 25- to 30-year members of the department." The 260 are part of the 595 employees who have left the DEC since April 2008 through attrition, a severance program and the early retirement incentive program. The 595 represent 16 percent of the 3,775 staff members DEC had in April 2008. Those numbers don't include the 209 positions Paterson told the DEC to cut by the end of this year. Woodworth said the DEC will miss people like Hicks, pathologist Ward Stone, real estate specialist John Keating and David Forness, chief of the Bureau of State Land Management, who all worked in Albany. "Out the door with John Keating goes an incredible amount of knowledge about the state's Adirondack land holdings and Adirondack real estate in general," Woodworth said. "Nobody knew those state forests better than Dave Forness." Adirondack Council spokesman John Sheehan said Stone and Hicks jumped out at him as big losses. "(Hicks) was largely responsible for the state's work in helping the moose return to the Adirondacks (by) relocating animals that get into trouble and doing their best to keep them alive in transport and finding suitable habitat," he said. Sheehan also praised Stone for his work on West Nile virus, avian flu and in detecting pollution in the St. Lawrence River. Stone also came under heavy criticism in the last year, however, after it was learned that he had been living in his Delmar office, but some of his proponents overlooked his alleged misgivings. "He was also one of the first to help us recognize white nose syndrome in the bats," Sheehan said. Hicks also played a lead role in researching white nose syndrome. For Jason Kemper, who is chairman of the Conservation Fund Advisory Board, the biggest losses are in the Division Of Fish, Wildlife and Marine Resources, which had 36 people retire statewide. That includes a turnover of the chief of the Bureau of Wildlife, where Gordon Batcheller has replaced John Major. Kemper is especially concerned about are those who work at the fish hatcheries. The DEC's website lists seven people who have left fish hatcheries statewide, including Ed Grant, manager of the Adirondack Fish Hatchery in Lake Clear, which raises landlocked salmon and stocks them in Adirondack waterways. Kemper said the lack of staff at those hatcheries is jeopardizing operations for raising fish. "We're in a really big pickle right now," Kemper said. "We're starting to take eggs for next spring. Unless we can backfill some of those positions, we're not going to have the fish to stock. The department has to make a decision whether they keep raising those fish or the eggs just sort of don't go." Kemper said he was frustrated by the loss in DEC fisheries staff because there were across-the-board license fee increases last year and because the Conservation Fund, which funds fisheries staff positions, has a surplus in the millions of dollars. He was unable to provide the exact amount, but it's enough to pay for those lost positions. The only reason the money isn't going to that purpose is because of the governor's mandate to cut positions, he said. "We sold a huge license fee increase to sportsmen and -women, and they reluctantly accepted it with the promise that there would not be a reduced level of service," Kemper said. "So now we have a huge surplus in the Conservation Fund and no ability, because the state Department of Budget, to backfill any of those positions." --- Contact Mike Lynch at 891-2600 ext. 28 or [email protected].

Happy B-Day Bob

For those that don't know, Duane went by the screen name Chinook here on LOU. What a terrible shame, Duane was one of the genuinely nicest people I've ever met and he will be greatly missed. Tim

Looks like the EPA actually did something that made sense, lead fishing tackle ban is dead: http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/106698048.html Tim

you can't go wrong with a gold/orange J9 Rapala under most conditions. In a good mudline this has been my favorite stickbait for years, the log perch smithwick rattling rogue this stick does a super goby imitation IMO. Tim

New York State has been the biggest tire fire in the nation for years, so what do decide we should do about it? The downstate brainless trusts solution is to add some more tires to the pile. This pathetic State's problems are utterly unfixable.