Finders Keepers

We received a huge shipment from Plano this week - gonna take all day tomorrow to move, inventory, and organize it all!! Heading down to Chautauqua Lake area on Monday to get everything set-up for the first IPA event in January. 1,000 fliers are now spread across the state and we'll soon be working on the next 1,000. Look for a 1/2 page ad to be in the next couple issues of ODU Magazine and banners to be put up at all three locations over the next couple months. Don't forget, pre-register before December 1st to be entered into the promo drawings!! www.NYSiceproam.com

Correction: We witnessed no violations. (play on words)

These are high stakes tournaments and as a captain I don't want anything "extra" to do like monitoring the observer's cell phone. The observer in many cases is a member of another team and therefore if they have the ability to receive information via cell phone, be it an emergency or not, I don't want to have to decifer that during an event. No cell phones period eliminated that, plus the boat radio is always on and the crew can be contacted by the tournament committee if there is an emergency for anyone aboard. If anyone has an issue with not being able to reach a member/observer via cell phone, give them the tournament control number. Problem solved. We too witnessed no communication infractions during the east end events. I would suggest one change for Sodus however: we really liked the way Oswego was run without a designated time to be in the pierheads. Just use a designated time for weigh-in. Just our opinion. Team Finders Keepers.

HT came through with a HUGE sponsorship that we received today! Details to come after we inventory all the gear!! A visit to Tupper Lake this week is resulting in many local sponsorships, lots of networking, and lots of positive talk about this coming year's event! Stay tuned as we continue to build this year's events!!

This year's tournament series is really shaping up to be an epic line-up of ice fishing events!! Now that word is out amungst the masses of ice anglers, we are expecting much larger numbers of participants this year, and that will be further fueled with the addition of new sponsors like IceGator, Joe's Jerky, Thorne Bros, and Soroc Products! Plano and Frabill will once again be headlining the series and providing a substantial amount of product for the prize structures, making this year's series once again the largest in the NE USA! Pre-registration is now open and any angler who pre-registers before Dec. 1st will be added to the Thorne Bros Fishing team offering discounts on clothing, gear, etc. for this season, PLUS they'll be entered into our blind drawings for IPA apparel items and other sponsored products!

We got out yesterday off Sodus before the front came through and did a couple 12 lb coho's in 65-100 fow. Had two kings on and something small on the 50 ft rigger that shook free too. Coho's came on Savage Gear stickbait, and carmel dolphin spin doc with mirage fly, both on the wires out 190 on a 3 setting. King hits came on carmel dolphion set up and RRRed echip with a hypnotist fly. The south winds had brought the temp up, we had 50 degrees down 40 ft (44 degress down 55). Best down speed was 2.4-2.5. We marked quite a few fish from top to bottom - they'll be moving in the bays soon!!

Planning for the 2014 NYS Ice Pro-Am Events is now in full swing!! Check in to the Series' website for all the latest information and updates: www.NYSiceproam.com Changes and updates for this year's events: *The Open Division will consist of two 1-Day tournaments at each event. *We now have two seperate sets of rules and regs, one for each division, with some updates. *Seminars on the Friday before each event. *Triple Crown Award for the overall Series Winning Pro-Am Team. *Earlier start times for the Pro-Am teams. We are contacting new potential sponsors and re-securring last year's sponsors to make this year's events even bigger!! Stay tuned as we announce our sponsors for 2014, as well as upcoming promotional opportunities!! Pre-registration is now OPEN on the website - get in now so you don't miss the upcoming promotions!!

Those are a couple banner days!

Got out with Jim Mehegan (1fish2fish) today out of Sodus. We started a ways west towards Hughes/P-ville area and boated many kings, but nothing larger than about 12 lbs, so we headed out deeper to our honey hole from the salmon Slam event to see what was in that area. As soon as we got there the port side deep diver pulling a purple/white spin doc with blue Atommik Fly gets wailed on and Jim's on the rod. It hit the surface thrashing and then took a nice leap into the air. We initially thought it was a mid-teens king, but when it came up behind the boat the spotted tail and white jaw became evident and we knew we had a LOC Steely on! Soon thereafter we slid the net under a beautiful steelhead. We then pulled lines and headed to Davenport's where it weighed in at 14.4 lbs - tied to the current 1st and 2nd place steelhead. One ounce shy of first, but we'll take it!

Good luck everyone - let the kingfest begin!!

For those who fished the event this past weekend, please stop by the Frabill and Plano facebook pages and thank them for the very generous allotment of gear they sponsored the event with. With a great response, they will likely sponsor the event again next year! Also, I forgot to mention and thank Theresa for all the work she puts in behind the scenes, as well as all the volunteers that went into putting this event on - THANK YOU!!

It was a great time as always - thanks Nick for organizing this awesome, rewarding event and congrats to Dipsy Ranger!! Here are a couple pics of the waterspout that greated us as we headed onto the water!

We did well in the 300-400 fow range today going 8 for 15 (2 steelies, 6 kings to 24 lbs) - they tasted great off the grill tonight and the rest is stacked in the fridge! Spoons on the riggers, spinny's and echips with flies and meat all took shots on the wires out 190-440. Green was the color of choice: froggy spinny/packer fly, green echip/green teaser, UV gator and seasick waddler mag spoons, and wonderbread spinny/glow hammer fly. So is the event tomorrow going to be encouraged open communication like the Sat main event?? Or just a bunch of smack talkin' until the hogs hit the scales??

Add 2 for dinner for us! Can't wait - should be a fun and rewarding weekend!!

Good luck Nick! We probably won't be out until next Monday. Let's see your's or Theresa's name back on the LOC board!!

The UV 2 face echip is a silver board which has a UV tape on the top side with green dots and UV tape with black dots on the bottom.