Iceman

Chin; You are correct, just hang the new probe in place of the old one & you are good to go. Got mine @ Fish307 for $249 + shipping. Lake Ontario users say the unit now functions in a very stable manner, especially in rough water or high currents. These are the places where I had trouble maintaining a stable temp & speed with the old probe. I am very much looking forward to using it if we get a couple of warm days before winter sets in fully, if not then, definately in the Spring. John

Just received my new X-4 provbe & wanted to share the differencees from the old probe. Two times the signal strength, with less interference. 100 hour battery life from 4 AA batteries. The unit is almost 3" shorter, & about the same diameter. The electronic portion is completely sealed in clear plastic, & it can't get wet anymore. The probe turns on automatically when submersed in water & shuts off when removed from water, no more unplugging the batteries. A Flashing Red Light Emmiting Diode indicated the unit is on.

We always fished in a small 14' boat from the Dexter launch out to the river mouth (Lake Ontario) in the Spring. There is some river access there. There is or was a small bait shop right at the launch, that seemed to rent boats, but that was some time ago. I have not fished from the shore at this time of the year or ever from this location. There are some lunker eye's in there in the Spring, our best was a 10 pounder!!! Good luck, & please let us know how you did.

Nice going Tom!!!!!! Thank you!!!

My wife filled up the car today in Orlando & 87 Octane was $1.99/gal. We are such suckers in NY. It was $2.29 at the corner kwikfill in East Syracues yesterday.

$2.32 @ the corner Kwik Fill today in East Syracuse, NY

Musky; Hope you get better quickly, & that the implant does the job!!!!

Johnnywalleye; Thanks for the thumbs up! They are there for the taking now. The fish fry last Sunday was delicious, fresh onion rings, & hand cut Youkon gold french fries too!!!!! Am looking to get out there again this weekend, if the rain holds off enough. Only need a few hours now to boat a limit.

kremer; I do believe you are correct, must have gotten my photobucket pic's scrambled. Not many people sharing their Oneida Lake trip reports lately, lots of lurkers though! Wish more people would post. I will see if i can make an edit on the photo. Thanks for the heads up!! Were you out fishing this weekend? If so, where & how did you make out? John

Well, quit a crisp morning 22 degrees @ the launch & the lake was steaming (surface temp around 49 degrees). Motored for about four miles @ 40 mph until I could feel the cold creeping in. Was just East of the waypoints from yesterday in about 44' of water with an East wind building to 8 mph or so. Took a three man limit of eyes in about 2.5 hours. Everything blue worked today . Took fish on all presentations - boards, dipsey's & riggers set at 35' down, dipsey's out 80' on a 3 setting w/30 lb mono & 14 lb flouro leaders, boards back 150' & out 100', three sinkers & a deep diver. Fish were bigger today, I brought a 23.5" eye to the net to finish the three man limit (just shy of . 4 lbs, see photo below).

Picked up a 3 man limit today. The fish were aggressive, with several stickbaits nearly swallowed. Great rips on the dipsey's, nice releases on the riggers, even the little guys! Love my chamberlin releases!!!! Fish were about five to ten feet off the bottom in 40 feet of water. The perch was 12.5" Going again tomorrow. John

IMHO The longer the rod the harder it is to put pressure on the fish, & the harder it is to use. I have gone to 8' Shimano TDR rods $30 each for riggers & boards & there are several choices for action. I also use Shimano Talora roller rods for my wire & they are 8' too. Used to have 10' Heartlands, but now they are just gathering dust in the garage. In my book, shorter is better. The longer the rod the more leverage the fish has on you.

RK; Took a quick look at the numbers & I come out with 7.7978033 hours per person. Must be the new math??????????? LOL have to break out my old books??????

Doublehaul; Maybe it will just take some time for the lake to cool as said before. Eventually, you will get them from the shore. I have had some outings where you get one every other cast. I am planning on going after them again early this Sunday by boat, if it isn't too wet. We are supposed to have a SW wind 15 to 20 Mph, so it could be a good trolling day. Good Luck & Tight Lines!!!!!!!!

Temperature is important as SF said above, but another improtant thing is that the waves need to be hitting the shore you are casting/wading off of. I have not had much success wading & casting for Eyes unless the waves are pushing the bait into the shore.

This sounds great (King of the Lake Tourneys), I will be seriously looking forward to the release mentioned above. Enough with the arcane policies and the closed minded individuals we have been talking about above!!!! Iceman

So musky, its kind of like what others have said, the rules are controlled by a group that does not take kindly to suggestions from others. Seems like you have all the control & can end a discussion when you want to. Nice democratic approach. I have seen this before from you!

Musky; What is not fair about my statement??? It is a fact that the charter captains (well at least the good ones) are on the fish daily & know how, when & where to fish. From my recollection the top Pro teams had much larger coolers than the Am's for the most part. Don't understand your comment???? Sounds like you are just trying to toot your own horn???? What is your point???? RR Probably less than 300 pro anglers, & less than 200 for the Am's, for an approximate total of 500 competitors. Much smaller amount of competition than the LOC, just as I thought!

Still waiting for an answer, how many people are in the Pro Am's??????????????? Tim B. We have disagreed in the past, so I am not surprised we do this time. As I said above, I have fished the same days as the Pro Am's from Oswego & Fairhaven, & have had coolers that would have been in the money. I can make yor argument against you by saying that the charter captains are on the fish daily leading up to the Pro Am's & have a great deal of information about what & where & how to get a big cooler. Therefore they are much mopre likely to be on the fish right away, & dominate at the weigh in's.

RR; Everyone has their opinion, & I stated mine. I have fished the same days of the ProAm' several times, both days from several ports & my cooler would have brought money. So I say to you, you are wrong!!! The observer thing is a severe deterant to the competition. How many people are actually in the ProAm's???

I will be looking into the two state side Scotty tourney's this year. The observer rule is unacceptable to me. I will not have a stranger on my boat! Just the fact that there are so few people fishing the Pro -Am's make them unprestigeous from my perspective. There are normally over 5,000 participants in the LOC derbies, making them much harder to win, & in my eyes much more rewarding/prestigeous. The Pro Am's seem to be filled with people who think their fishing skills are better than most other folks (snobbery???). Bring on the Spring LOC as well!!!! Second & 11th place salmon division last year for my boat. Third in the salmon division the year before (Spring LOC). I feel that I could compete in the Pro-Am, but won't, because of the observer rule!

Same method as yesterday, quit earlier though. Six eyes, some perch & a Sheepie. Check out the shad the pike spit up (left sid eof the photo on the dark square), this is what they are dining on, saw large clouds of them on the sonar. The eyes will continue to be tough until they eat their way through this biomass of Gizzard Shad.

What a great day on Oneida, although it was 37 degrees when we started @ 6:30 AM. Caught 8 again, threw back one short one, and one nice one came unbuttoned at the net. One short of a 3 man limit. Some more perch too, threw back about 6 small perch also. All presentations took fish today, riggers, dipseys, & boards. 38 to 44 feet of water @ 2.3 mph. All on stickbaits, Jr. Tsticks, shad raps. The fish were a little bigger today (2-17", the rest were 19 to 20").

Fishman08 With respect to ICE saying that lie detectors don't work!!!! With all due respect. You are believing anything the government says???? Why??? They probably just want some new toys, gadgets. Further, the border patrol is one of the least trained set of official thugs working for the government, plus their clientele is of a different nature!!!! I can just imagine trying to communicate with Mexicans, Middle Easterners, Russians, etc during a lie detector test LOL!!! With the observer requirement, the tourney will always be limited to the few who are OK with it. It is doomed to shrink in size & go away. Lie detectors are still a staple of all sane law enforcement activities.

The observer requirement is not anything I can support. Do the lie detector thing & you will keep the crooks out!!!! Culling is also a very needed option with all the short fish running around!!!