hermit

I can't speak for anyone else but it's been tougher out there recently with a lot of the "looker" action you describe. Sounds like fun though and thanks the update.

If you want to make bucktails with any jig there are online fly shops and other online tackle suppliers like Janns Netcraft, or Bass Pro in Auburn in the fly shop section. If fishing lakers I'd really recommend using the soft plastics though, the lakers prefer them and you'll most likely catch more fish.

A few years back I was able to get brand new OEM parts for my '85 Suzuki from a dealer. 80's isn't too old, shouldn't be that hard to find what you need.

Good fishing guys, Marty now it's time to do a little jigging. Kind of funny how you me and Ed all put up reports within a few minutes of each other earlier.

A*M, I seem to remember a post recently about picking up several salmon and I thought "wow lucky guy" as it doesn't happen too often at least not for me. Must have been your post, congratulations. Did land one earlier this year but it was much smaller than this one. Today's fish hit a green back / off white belly, so maybe they like the green. Always fished white or silver for them from shore at Taughannock though with good results. new@this, The Fastrac on 13N has 91 E0. Don't know if you'd notice a difference between the two as compared to E0 / E10. As for the slip bobber that's the best way I know of to target salmon/browns while drifting. You could try jigging to suspended fish but that's much harder, (sounds like A*M got a few that way), it works but isn't reliable. Casting with a spoon like a Kastmaster or Little Cleo can be productive if you're in an area with fish, that's a more traditional horizontal retrieve and seems to work better vs. the vertical. I use those when fishing from shore in winter / early spring. Just count down to 10 or 20 or something before reeling it in.

Steady action today. Took someone out and we did okay, lost count due to not paying attention but maybe 9 or 10 between the two of us. Dropped a couple too, including a 4-5 lb salmon I hooked down around 50 and knew right away it wasn't a laker, it just fought differently, a lot faster movements. Got it up to the boat and it hopped around a bit before getting off as I was too slow with the net. Also wasn't used to having someone else around so I forgot to ask for help, we could have just scooped it up at first. Oh well, I would have released it anyway so it was nearly as good- at least I saw it up top! Nice and shiny silver. Great fight too, got the blood moving. I'd have to say the last 4 or so salmon I've kept have been poor eating, mushy mealy flesh, not good. That's why I say I'd have released that one if we got it in the boat. Anyone else experiencing this? The lakers have been much tastier. Fried laker has made for some outstanding dinners this summer. What else, well it got a bit breezy from 7:30-9:30 or so which made boat control tough but overall it was a steady pick, no time better than another. Found a lot of fish and they'd come take a look but aggressive fish just weren't in the cards, guess the evening bite is still the better time? I was hoping it would have switched back but nope, still busy enough to keep us entertained. Got J his first couple of lakers so the biggest mission of the day was accomplished, and he actually landed the first one too. Very cool. Fish were in 80-90, stayed in there more or less. Fished 6-11. A beautiful morning and my '85 Suzuki is loving the E0 from Fastrac.

What if one takes yer bait and runs off? How do you know what it is till it gets reeled up? Sorry for the late reply trouthunter9, didn't see it until this got re-upped. Don't get me wrong I'd love to catch one too but wouldn't ever try to do it on purpose. The reason I made that comment was fisherman21's comment above: To me a goal is something one actively works toward, so I took that to mean he was trying to catch one on purpose.

tcon that's what it's there for so no worries, a while back I got tired of writing the same responses over and over so wrote it up and made the site so it'd be in one place. Just my take on things though. semperfi, if you're jigging you don't need bait, soft plastics made for bass work great, swimbaits and flukes. Also try this, results of a search for keuka and jigging. Guff, ManOverboard, clarkie, and laketrout6 are Keuka regulars, also gonefishing71 has been in on the discussion about the rig that works well there.

This is a subject I'm very curious about. Water does conduct electricity, so if you're running several hundred feet of copper or 100 feet of downrigger cable, wouldn't the charge bleed off before getting anywhere near the lure? Especially with low voltages. I know freshwater isn't as conductive as salt, but the water in these lakes is anything but pure and it's got to be conductive enough to remove current relatively quickly. I'm more likely to believe in the e-chip as it's close to or on the lure than anything about a charge on the boat or DR. I understand the reasoning, and I've read a lot of stories where people swear by it but I just don't see how it can make a difference given the distances and small charges. How does the commercial fishing work? Are they running current near the hooks or from the boat a distance away?

The FF shows the distance to the object, not the depth. If the object is directly under the boat they are the same. If the object is off to one side, for example your DR ball, then it shows the distance to the ball as measured by the diagonal. The greater the blowback distance the further off this distance will be. It's a right triangle, with the blowback the short side, the reading on the FF the hypotenuse, and the actual depth the long side of the right angle (middle length of the three sides). So yes, blowback makes a difference- the greater the blowback the less accurate your readings will be and your ball is in reality going to be shallower than the FF is reading. Of course the fish may not be directly under the boat either and those readings may not be perfectly accurate either... best to err on the shallower side with the DR as fish are more apt to be looking up than down.

Hey how about actually contributing to the board instead of spraying links to your youtube videos all over the place? Last go round I asked you a question and you never bother to stop back in and check your posts.

Really? They're still allowed to use lead additives? That's not too cool if so, organic lead compounds like that are the worst. Anyway after an Ithaca station finally got E0 and I switched over my '85 2 stroke is running twice as nice as it did on the E10 junk. Ahhh the sound of a smooth idle, it's much happier now. Hope they keep it around. And I'm also interested in a separator, seems like every time I dump my tank I find a little water in the bottom. Hasn't caused problems yet but I'm sure it would if I ran the tank down near empty.

Hey Mosh, very cool I was wondering how you guys did- crazy weather on Friday, couldn't have been easy. Sounds like a fun couple of days.

I think part of the problem is a lot of jiggers don't have radios. I don't. So then we can't read minds. Maybe I'll get one sometime now when I can. The irregularities of the structure don't help either. If someone is trying to hold a 100' line for example, they could be weaving in and out quite a bit. If I see a boat coming I have no idea what they are going to do or no idea what depth they are fishing. Rarely is someone pointed directly at me for any length of time. And if you guys are starting to turn a 1/4 mile away it's hard to know if it's b/c of the depth or the jigging boat. I personally don't care if someone trolls past a few feet away, it's nice to have a quick chat as they go past, this happens every time I see a few boats and it's a good thing. I can only speak for myself but a lot of my previous post was explaining that some of us do think about you guys and try to accomodate what you're doing, I was trying to say I do get out of the way so that's one example of someone doing what you ask. Same as it's hard to see if you're trolling straight at me, if I'm moving in a direction at 1 mph you might not see that either. If something is bugging you out there say it out there otherwise nobody learns anything. Vogel what was your response to that guy when he said hello? Did you tell him he cut you off? If not he probably didn't learn. I see your points for sure and troll myself early in the year, true there are fewer jiggers but they're there, and guys drifting bait or pulling copper with big S turns or whatever. There's going to be idiots of one stripe or another. Pleasure boat guys seem to be the worst. It's always a bit of a dance and as you say there is more planning ahead with a big spread. Don't want to beat a dead horse but it's better to discuss it here than everyone getting teed off at one another.

I definitely agree. As a (I hope) conscientious fisherman I do my best to stay out of the way. I think of it as "don't do anything you would find rude if you were in the other boat." If I ever do anything to piss someone off please let me know, it's not on purpose and I'll definitely take it into account the next time. I see your points for sure but also think about this- if I'm fishing an area and the fish move or aren't biting, I need to go elsewhere. If there's a line of five boats coming I don't want to wait 1/2 hour or more for them to clear out before trying a new spot. Last week that was happening and I tried to cross the lake to get out of the way only to find the same situation of a lot of trollers on the other side. Other than fishing dead water my only option was to sneak in there and try to fish a little shallower. In general I try to fish the shallowest lakers I can find so often the trollers are going past in water 30-40 feet deeper and there is no overlap at all. Other times we want to be in the same depth. When I kind of set up in front of Billy V during the Lighthouse I thought I left him more room than I did (maybe outside boat was sliding in, maybe I mis-judged it, effect was the same) he didn't have anywhere to go- but if I fished the spot I wanted I would have been directly in front of him. So I compromised, going shallower than I wanted to until he passed by. Still didn't work out for the best. So even as someone who tries hard I still make mistakes- and there are plenty of bumdasses out there who don't even try, or seem to do it on purpose (the bass boat jiggers.) Another example I was fishing just off Taughannock about 40-50 feet from the creek mouth casting in and some guys go between me and shore, right over my line and the fish I'm fishing to. Thanks for nothing fellas. Anyway, I'm glad the topic came up... maybe some guys will read the thread and re-think their strategies. It's always best to think about things from both sides.

You said it. Why not help? The only time I got burned was five years ago or so, I was naming a very specific spot probably 200 x 50 feet. As I was fishing during the week I almost never saw anyone there... a few weeks later come derby time there had to be 20 boats in that one spot! So now I limit it to "AES" or whatever, just giving the general area, and they're popular spots anyway, no secrets. But as far as technique goes, what to use, how to fish it, depth, etc, I'll tell anybody anything they want to know. It's hard enough as it is. Back in the day everyone had zipper lips... but they also snagged creek fish with Michigan crickets, used big nets to exterminate the native Atlantics, cleared creeksides which warmed the creeks and stopped natural reproduction, dammed everything in sight, etc etc.... this is all to say, the old ways aren't always the best ways. I learned a lot from guys here in the beginning and am more than happy to give back. Might not have ever bought a boat and had some of the most memorable times of my life. So thanks to all for contributing!

Wow tough fishing. That early wind can really be ripping, the more it cools at night the stronger the wind gets. Feels like fall is coming now, we had 43 degrees on the porch the other morning.

Sounds like a great evening, and a nice vacation! Too bad it was slow in the mornings for you guys though. About the weather, all I know is it isn't always predictable. I'm hearing Cayuga was tough in the mornings this weekend but they were lighting them up on Seneca. Pretty much the same weather. Earlier this year Seneca was tough on jigging while we were doing great here. Same weather. The front was Friday, which could explain Saturday AM being tough, but why was it good on Seneca then? And by Sunday, 2 days later, it's often rebounding, but not this time, but Seneca was hot still. I've had great cloudy days and tough cloudy days. Days with crystal clear skies where you catch a fish every five minutes, then the next day with the same weather conditions you can't buy a bite. I almost exclusively fish mornings but in general it seems to be the most predictable bite, obviously not this weekend, but in general. When that happens it dies as the sun rises. Sometimes sun is good, sometimes bad, it all depends- on something I guess. And the evening can be great too. I agree about the morning/evening one if one is dead the other will be good thing. But sometimes the middle of the morning (No Clue hangover bite) or the middle of the afternoon (Sunny Sampson bite)... hmm almost any time can be hot depending on conditions. What are the specifics of how it works? I'd love to know. Wind I think plays a large role. Sun. Bait. Bait can be good, but too much can be bad. Brightness of the moon. Stable weather conditions seem to be best. It's easy to ascribe the day's bite to the weather conditions but as they say- correlation does not equal causation. The weather is just the most obvious factor and easiest to try to relate to the bite. Anyway, wish I knew how it all came together but then maybe it wouldn't be fun anymore!

Wow holy crap congratulations!

Great story Pete! And good fishing to boot.

Sounds great, I have got to get up to Ontario for some of those lakers! Some day.

Thanks for all the recs everyone, very much appreciated. Hope the business is successful enough to keep going and growing too. Thanks to those who have ordered some as well. Marty those look great, you have a better hand with the powder paint than I do, that's for sure. I think I'm going to go with vinyl paint but I need to set up a hood, the fumes from that stuff are mighty strong. Going to go with white and green glow chartreuse, bringing black in soon. Yeah I usually fish them plain but sometimes variety makes me feel better about not catching any on a tough day. But please- I'm no guru of anything except maybe a keyboard, lots of guys get it done out there. (Insert eye roll smiley here)

Great fish!

I think it's usually a genetic defect. Maybe a few got opened up as small fish but pretty sure it's genetic.

rolmops, thanks for the numbers on the efficiency of the ethanol. I disagree however that it is way more expensive to use. You're probably right for 87 octane but I usually go with 89 or higher, often 91 or the station closest to my house has 93. In that case it can be worth it. It changes all the time of course but I did a few calculations, for $3.90 vs. $4.10 it's about 95%. 4.00 vs 4.10 is 97.5%. So depending on the prices you're saving or not (using your 96.6% figure) but the difference is very slight either way. Used 4.10 b/c I think that's what I just paid for E0 the other day, could be wrong though. I've done a few cross country trips and the effect was very noticeable for the long haul, didn't crunch any numbers and prices were quite different on the way, but it was obvious when we were running E10 vs straight gas, had to stop much more often depending on the state.