hermit

I know of one bait wholesaler that nets off of Taughannock State Park on Cayuga Lake at night, and they sell to bait shops all around the area. So at least some of them are coming from Cayuga, and are tested before being sold to the bait shops as certified. Les I just make sure I have my sabiki rig with me, sometimes I'll catch alewives from shore and then use them right after in the boat. I could leave the sabiki in the vehicle but instead bring it with me so I have something to point to if I'm ever questioned... I think if you have a means of catching them with you it wouldn't be a problem, I hope anyway!

That's great, thanks, glad you're happy!

Okay it took a little while to get a reply from Northport, I had emailed them about the paint. They don't say on the website but the paint is considered fluorescent. On the technical side this means that light with longer wavelengths is transformed into light with shorter, orange wavelengths. So most of the actual orange light is being absorbed by the depth, but some of that lovely green light that reaches the lure is transformed into orange light, which only has to travel the distance between the lure and camera before being seen.

I have the clamp on kind. I do use them with dipseys on the FLs but it makes me nervous. The smaller ones are fine but the regular ones are iffy. When I run those I have ropes between the rod and boat! The bolt ons would probably be better. Another thing is the rod holder isn't very wide and I have one rod that doesn't fit.

Thanks Ed but I'm going to need a full sized one!

Hey that's great! I need to find an oven I can stick out in the garage before I get them going again.

Thanks Ed! Good to see you're out there catching lunch!

Hi all, I'd like to post an update on the state of my store. (There is also a link in my signature below.) I'm back to full stock on all soft plastics including some new stuff! I have two new colors in the regular 3.25" Shaker size- Goby and Chartreuse Ice. I also now have a few colors of larger Shakers, 4.5", and if these prove popular I'll definitely get more colors in. I haven't used these yet but have done extremely well on other brands in that size, so I fully expect these to catch plenty of fish. They have a deeper (taller?) body which resembles an adult alewife better than the smaller ones. Also plenty of jig heads. I know I'm still shooting myself in the foot a bit by not painting them but it's just not feasible at the moment. They will be back at some point! I'm switching from vinyl to powder paints- I really liked the finish on the vinyl but it was just too hard to work with. However the low price for high quality is still hard to beat. Thanks for reading, thanks for all the support over the years, and as always, happy fishing! Alec

With the derby this weekend you may not get many replies but you seem to be doing pretty well... look for browns where the thermocline hits the bottom

Man that is great catch! Good pic too

This is a good example of why the DEC Angler Diaries are important. Each of us can only fish one spot at a time, and with so many variables it's very hard to say what's happening with one data point. But having as many data points as possible will help NYS figure out what is going on. So even if you only fish a handful of times a year, please consider it!

Okay I did a little reading here. Best I can determine in 1/2 hour of research is that high sun and flat calm has the best light penetration. Choppy water scatters the light more, in more directions, including sideways, so it doesn't go down as much, plus the wave action can introduce air bubbles or stir up stuff that makes visibility worse (not too much of an issue over deep water). The argument can be made that in low-angle sun conditions, early and late in the day, choppy water is better lit. That scattering effect from the waves actually directs more light downwards and in calm conditions it's more like a mirror with light glancing off, basically. So it seems like early and late it could be brighter down there when choppy. This was starting to sound familiar as I read up on it again. Les, I'm not sure if you're referring to my post but nobody else said anything about color and eyes. I was referring to biological studies done on the eyes of fish, so we do actually know for certain what they are capable of seeing. Gator I thought of that too and looked into that spoon and it seems to be regular paint on a silver spoon, yellow one side and orange on the other, so it shouldn't be emitting any light on its own. And it flashes brightest when aimed overhead so it looks like all natural light to me. Back to the video, my point is basically that some orange light must be getting through but given the two-tone-only nature of the video, I think it is at least possible the brightness we're seeing is a camera artifact. Why can't we see the bright yellow side of the spoon glowing even brighter in the green conditions? But it's just a theory, or not even that.

Hey you know that's what I thought too, excellent point... when I saw the video I googled "light penetration orange water" or something like that and one of the things I read said that about flat water and I just went with it. I was in a hurry and didn't think much about it. But now that you mention it I always thought like you said. Well I don't have time to look into it now but I'll have to try to look it up later.

Les I forgot a lot of what I learned at the time, but some years ago I read up on this and we actually have a pretty good idea of what fish can see by studying their eyes. Sport fish anyway, ones that were worth studying. Lakers for example are best at seeing green and yellows and their light-sensing abilities peaks around 540 nm, a chartreuse color. I would hope lure manufactures take this stuff into account when designing lures but we've all heard the adage that most lures are designed to catch fishermen, not fish. In regards to the above video, I found that very interesting and have a few thoughts but no solid theories. Several things to note. First, as stated conditions were perfect for light penetration- flat calm at mid-day. It's pretty bright down there. Some orange light is definitely getting through. And orange isn't red- I bet a real red wouldn't show up like this. Orange has slightly shorter wavelengths and does penetrate more. So there is orange reflecting. But only having two bright colors show up like that does make me a little suspicious. I am wondering if part of it is a camera artifact related to white-balancing. Now I am no expert on how digital cameras work but I have seen some strange things come out of them. If the camera sees all green, then finds a patch of another color (green is also opposite orange on the color wheel, another clue) it very well might amp up the gain on that color to try to make sense of it and get a white balance. Just a thought. Probably one of those situations where I know just enough to be dangerous...

I have an 8'6" spinning rod that has seen all sorts of uses including trolling with a linecounter. It works great but isn't strong enough to pull anything more than a deep crank or Jet 20. I don't use inlines on it either. As long as you're smart about what you run and it's enough rod for the fish it should be fine.