hermit

Sounds like you did pretty well! Sending PM.

Frisco I should have mentioned but I drive with the lights always on. Will check what you suggested. Thanks

Thanks all I'll start by cleaning all the contacts and checking the light connections. And the fuse. I redid the wiring and lights pretty recently but water does tend to corrode things quickly! I'm more suspicious of the truck. Last truck I had to run a wire from the battery to the frame to get a good ground. This one already had issues too. It's not grounded through the ball I do have a wire for it. Any tips on how to clean the inside of the connecters? I don't have a wire brush that small. Jimski you mean double up on the ground wires? I can do that or use a heavier gauge for the ground wire. It'll have to be attached to the wire coming from the plug though so I can't run a heavier/additional wire straight into the plug. I'll update when I get it figured out.

Great pic and nice catch! I ran into a bow guy this spring- he said he put them in his manure pile to add to the fertilizer. That's using them I guess, though it's my opinion that if hunters don't shoot animals unless they intend to eat them, the same standards should apply to fish. Or if there were a market for carp pelts. But that's my opinion and not that of the state. They are regarded as a nuisance by the DEC, and while reading about baitfish collection the regs specifically state any carp (or lamprey) netted by commercial bait fish collection should be destroyed. I think it would take a great deal of effort to make a big dent in the population and I hope you're just experiencing the randomness of fishing.

On The Hook, yeah a ton of lookers. "What's that? Nope" kind of thing. Got a few right off the bat then later in the morning lucked into a pod of feeding fish, 3 more in 10 minutes. Mostly slow other than that. One area had dead sawbellies floating everywhere. Marty it's been pretty tropical feeling this week! Kind of nice but the garden has taken a bit of a beating with the heavy rain and wind from the storms. Oh well it needed it.

I'll have to check it out in the driveway more thoroughly. The wires around the harness weren't hot but there could be a problem elsewhere, I'll go over it all. The wiring on the trailer is pretty new and I had to mess with the wires on truck end of the harness last year to get a good ground so that's the most likely spot, though why all 4 of the pins were hot doesn't make sense to me. There is an adapter between truck and trailer, maybe that's faulty. Thanks

Got home today and went to unplug the boat- almost got burned! The harness that connects to the truck was super hot, too hot to keep a finger on. As far as I can tell the wires themselves weren't hot, just where the harness (4 flat) connects. All four pins were hot. Is this a sign of a problem? Lights work fine. Thanks for any input.

Pretty good morning jigging. Great weather, was in shorts and sandals for the first time! Lakers were fairly cooperative from 70-90 and in spurts. Had to find the feedling fish, there were a lot of lookers but the bigger ones wanted to play. Real nice size to the fish today, nothing over ~10, only one under ~6 lbs. Worked a section on the east side pretty hard from dawn until 9 or so. Picked up a few at dawn then it slowed up, got a little better again after 8:30. After this started bouncing around checking things out- there were fish all over on both sides of the lake but most of them weren't interested. Ended up 8-12? Something like that. Did straighten out two hooks on nice fish.

Spent some time last night reading the environmental section of the state code for any more info on collecting sawbellies- didn't find anything. So snatching of any sort (except for a few limited instances not near here) is illegal, and neither apparently is the dip net. Using a minnow trap or gill net is the only legal way to collect your own sawbellies. I'll have to rethink my methods but just wanted to get the right info out there, don't want to be suggesting anyone do anything illegal.

lakerchaser, yeah not many guys out with lanterns these days... see a few come derby time but that's about it! Does make me wonder what we'll all be doing in another 25-50 years.

lakerchaser- I have a length of line attached to a stiff saltwater rod I found. I strung it up with 10 tiny little aberdeen hooks using a "knotless knot" (used a lot in carp fishing) on the vertical part of the shank so they stick straight out and a 1/2 oz weight at the bottom. When times are good they'll bite the bare hooks. Last few times I've been snagging them though. I've also used a dip net but stupidly gave it away when I stopped chasing the smelt. What is legal though I'm unsure of- they sell cast nets all over the state but according to the table half way down this page http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/47282.html the only legal place to use a cast net is the Hudson River, and the only legal way to collect your own alewives is with a gill net or minnow trap. I have no idea if the snagging line or dip net is okay- neither are mentioned. Barry- have a great vacation and good luck! Not sure if I'll be back out tomorrow morning or Sunday but we'll catch up sometime when you're here. Yeah sk8man it was a great morning... nice to catch more than 1 laker for a change world of difference from Memorial Day weekend in terms of pleasantness!

What a fantastic morning, light to no wind, warm, and the lake to myself for hours! Didn't see another boat until 7:30. So I got to Taughannock around 4:30 and caught myself a few sawbellies, tough pickings today they may be starting to move out, or else it was me scaring them in the dead calm water. Anyway got two to run on the slip bobber. Nothing doing with this all morning. Launched at 5, fishing by 5:30. Did a bit of exploring some favorite spots, it's starting to pick up but not a bonanza yet. Some bait in shallow (50-90) and a few packs of fish but no carpet. I did have seven lakers on the screen in one spot though! Fished both west and east side north of the park, looked in 50-150 fow and caught fish from 55-100 fow. They were not too aggressive and I dropped a good handful most likely due to being barely hooked. Sizes ranged from ~3 lbs up to ~9 lbs. That 9 was suspended at 40' over 100', I hoped it was a brown or something else at first, but nope, just a fat feeding lake trout! I saw it on the screen and dropped a jig on its head, boom, instant response. Makes up for the other fifty times you do that and nothing happens. Jigged until 9:45. Lakers were most active between 7 and 8:30 with a few before, none after. Picked up and ran back to a good spot near the park to try for some browns or salmon, stuck the bobber back out and cast lures from 10:30-11:30. (Also spent some time checking out some stuff on the way back south.) No hits but I was seeing fish from 20-50 down over 50-80.

Pline Flourocarbon (the 100%) and a double uni works great for me, even with braid, never cut it, break offs happen at terminal tackle if anything. No revelations here just chipping in with everyone else. p.s. and every break off I've looked at has shown evidence of abrasion, the knots have not failed.

+1 on Les' post with a little caveat, while jigging for lakers is generally bottom oriented you will catch most of your fish when reeling in. Targeting suspended fish over deeper water is definitely doable but having a solid bottom around just helps you know where everything is. My FF sucks and I rarely see the thermocline so I'm mostly looking for fish and bait as a primary method of targeting. Knowing where it is can help you exclude shallower water but often fish will be feeding at several depths below it, there will be the group just under the thermocline and then some in deeper water. On Sunday we fished from what I thought was the thermocline down another 30 feet or so without finding active fish, we had some bait and fish but they weren't hitting. For several reasons didn't try fishing deeper though we should have- the lakers were apparently feeding well below it. So if you know where it is, it's a good place to start and going shallower won't help but deeper might. Also don't spend much time actually jigging... or at least vary it up if you aren't catching much. A lot of it boils down to drop and reel. Drop it down, bang it around a few seconds, and reel it in. Play with the retrieve speed as sometimes they want it as fast as you can go. If it's very slow and the fish aren't chasing then it's time to work the bottom five feet pretty hard but you'll get most fish when reeling in. (This can be a bit of personal preference as some guys do really well snap jigging near the bottom but I don't do much of that myself. A lot of it just depends on conditions.)

Nice! Guess we weren't fishing deep enough. My boat might be in the background of a pic... should have taken that flash as a clue. Good to know they were out there somewhere- we looked in 70-105 without much luck.

For me, I used to try to figure out the moon stuff but realized it wasn't really going to effect my fishing habits in that I just go when I can, but I agree it has an effect especially on clear nights. I've heard several stories of huge fish being caught on the full moon at mid-day. I'm guessing they feed at night then the big berthas get hungry again later, perhaps more so than the smaller fish. My personal best brown came just that way. Mid day, full moon, massive low pressure system moving in (remnants of hurricane Katrina) and wham, giant brown. I only wish the guy taking the pics did the fish better justice. I don't like seeing a bright moon high in the sky before dawn, it does seems to slow the early bite, like what Hookedup said. The week before a full moon is like this. Slow early, picking up later. It does seem to affect the lakers too. So many variables though I could be wrong about any of it. (Except the pb brown I remember that quite clearly.)

Saw a huge brown jump 30-40 feet away this morning, had to be 15 lbs+ easily. I seriously wouldn't be surprised if it were 20 lbs. Looked like a freaking whale jumping out of the water! Don't know why a brown would jump but I'm 95% sure that's what it was. Nice going with the LL, we had trouble finding willing lakers jigging near Taughannock and Milliken. Found some fish, not a lot, but they were not biting much for us. (We were out today not Saturday.)

Here's their website: http://www.ithacalions.com/SA/index.html and the registration (pdf): http://www.ithacalions.com/SA/ENTRY_FORM_2013.pdf Should be fun! Maybe even better fishing with the earlier date.

That all sounds like overboard enforcement but down here in the Finger Lakes I wish they'd pick it up a notch. I've been stopped twice in about eight years and one of those times all they asked was "what's in the cooler?" I told them nothing but sawbellies (frozen at the time) and they didn't even ask to see it or for the receipt. Didn't check anything else, no safety gear, nothing. I see guys doing dumb / illegal stuff all the time and absolutely no enforcement. Wouldn't want to be harassed but have a presence please!

Okay good... not losing my mind yet. Congratulations! Guess the website standings aren't up to date though it says as of 5:31 PM. And the 12.14 is a brown. Edit: wow a few hours sleep makes a big difference: I'm an idiot, that's last year's Saturday board. Edit 2: Oops got everything confused yesterday, guess it was a different boat with the 12.52... whew too tired and confusing website made for an interesting evening. Better now.

Checked the board, it says 12.14 laker on top. Don't know why I saw 12.52, could be my mind is playing tricks but I was certain I saw what I saw... oh well just correcting the info.