UpGrady

Iceman, To go thru the season with the NFL's toughest schedule in quite a long time and only lose 4 times was a great accomplishment in this day and age for the black and gold (losses to Philly, Tennesee, G-men and Indy were all Playoff teams)... New England was able to run the table last year until their one 'bad' loss at the big dance, but the chances of seeing that again are pretty slim and remember they played 6 games against a very weak division last year. Every team is going to have a bad loss during the season, I'd be interested to know who did not have a bad loss during the regular season and would have been a better team on either side in your opinion. Indy, Tennessee, Baltimore and San Diego all had their shots to make it and failed. On the other side, Philly, Carolina and the G-Men did as well. Arguably, neither team was the "Best" during the regular season (esp. Arizona), but they were the "Best" when it mattered most... the same can be said during March Madness, NHL and the World Series. I happen to be a Phillies fan and they certainly were not the best all season, but they were when it mattered most. Anyway, my 2 cents in defense of my team.

Being a member of the Steeler Nation my vote doesn't count... what does everyone else think?

I work out in Clyde... a bit of a haul for you, but Bricco's HVAC has a large indoor area they use for storage, a bunch of my co-workers utilize it for boats... should run you about $35/mo. 315-923-0002. At the very least, use this as a benchmark for cost. I know of a few places around Webster as well, but no idea of cost and they might be full by now.

Running a pair of Big Jons from 1983... all original parts still except the cable of course... not one problem...

Prop Shop 7559 N Fitzhugh St Sodus Point, NY 14555 Phone: (315) 483-8567 Hold onto your wallet $300 min just to repair minor damage, polish and balance.

After the initial Labor Day weekend dredge I had heard that there were a few shallow spots that a few people had found. I understand that the dredge has been back in again over the past few weeks. Does anyone have more information from this past week?

Anthony, Ending the season on a positive note, nice night and a nice fish, Good job!

Guys like that are the very reason I quit stream fishing alot of years ago, esp. on the weekends. I have no problem with the light tackle, that's the fun, but in a crowd , it's the wrong place for it. We'd all feel the same way about the guy determined to use noodle rods while combat trolling and him getting pissed off that everyone was cutting off his fish... I would have wanted to move into his spot on the river while he was fiddling around for a half hour, but probably would not have because I would have figured that the end result would have been him being an a-hole and ruining my day! I've had the same experience with people trying to fish off launch ramp docks as well... you would think that commonsense would prevail and they would understand that engines need to start, but... I think that Darwin's theories eventually come into play here...

It's all good, glad to see a report and a few fish caught.

I second the Sikkens. Had it on all of the teak on my Grady for 4 years now... only apply one coat per year and it's holding up great.

Sunday- Got a late start with the better half, set lines around 9am in 120 fow off the Bay , made it out to 350 fow before much of anything showed up on the screen, managed a steelhead and another bite out there before pulling lines around noon. Temps were 46 degrees 60 feet down most of the way out. Sloppy North troll just kind of beat us up. Monday- Setup in 40 fow off the river only to find warm water to the bottom, trolled north and had a bite and small bow on the leadcore in 80 fow, then a mature 17lb king in 120 fow on the wire at 200'. Screen was sporadic, temps were in the mid 50's from 60' down to the bottom, continued north and ended up working a bit of a temp break in 210-230 fow. Got a two year old on a fireline diver at 200' on a 3 and a mature 13lb king on 45' rigger. A couple skippers and dumped one at the end of the day on the leadcore. A great day to pretty much end the trolling season with for me! Congrats to everyone that placed in the derby and for everyone else... better luck next year!

I think the answer is to find what works for you.. experiment yourself... your entire presentation and boat dictates the speed you troll at and where you end up setting the spinnies... me... I have never changed them from preset... I have not had a reason to as of yet... but meanwhile, a guy who's out far more frequently may need to change the settings based on what the day dictates with currents and speeds needed to catch fish... if they're not working as is for you, but you're ctaching fish on everything else, you probably need to change the settings to dial them in for your setup.

Biggest three with an emphasis on a minimum weight of individual fish like a derby might have might not so large that you exclude people catching smaller fish which the day might dictate... Maybe 8lbs for trout and 15 lbs for kings and 8lbs for coho...

I was at Bayside at 4pm Saturday weighing a steelhead and I was the first to weigh a fish there for the day... so if it happened it was in the evening... or just the usual rumormill...

Headed out of IBay about 6am, set lines about 6:30 off Russell in 70 fow on a NNW troll, ended up in 170 with a few bites and trolled SW toward Braddocks to see what the armada was doing down there... didn't look like much, we had a few more bites and boated a small king and decent steelhead about 10lbs and decided to drift back toward more familar water. We finally hooked up a good fish on the leadcore in 200 fow, only to have the swivel o-ring open up... reset, spun back and wire diver started smoking at 110' out... after 20 minutes of circling and a few more runs, it flipped us the fin... went back thru the waypoint a few times with nothing and it was time to head in about noon. Probe was running around 48-50 at 55' throughout the entire area, bait was scattered from 30-100 foot down, fish were scattered as well, never saw a good consistent concentration anywhere. Three bites on the 55' rigger with black/purple glow NK28, one was the steelhead we boated, Three 10 color leadcore bites Laser spook NK28 and 3 wire diver bites at 110' on a 2 1/2 Black spinnie with Anitfreeze fly. Good luck to everyone the rest of the week, back out on Saturday.

Fished from about 7-noon today mainly off Russell. Started in about 70 and ended up working mainly 170-230. Free sliders on riggers from 60-90 down were working on some steelhead and main lines at 70' and 90' took their shots as well. One good King came on the 90' rigger, a little under 25lbs, teenager took a wire diver out 240'. Managed to boat a few steelhead which were a good class, biggest was a little under 13 on my scale first thing this AM, but only weighed in at 11.12 at 4pm, so Robyn was a bit disappointed, hoping to get her name on the board for a day or two... Back out in the am... Good luck to everyone!

Visual indicators like a stream of bubbles coming off the cables and bend on the diver rods can get you in the ballpark, but every boat is different with those types of things... As a general statement, if you're pulling heavier blank spoons, you'd like to see some bubbles coming off the cables and nice hard bends on your diver rods to ensure you're moving about 2.5 mph, but that can be misleading with currents.

Good job Mark. I never made it down the lake quite that far all weekend and I guess I should have, opted to fish more familiar waters with no big fish to show for it. Good luck the rest of the week!

Got out about 6:30 and setup on the inside water off the river only to find the temps way down after Saturday's blow, so put it in the ditch and headed north, so I wouldn't overshoot them like Saturday. It got pretty narly out beyond 140 fow, so we stuck around inside with a few bites until it laid down a bit and trekked north to about 300 fow off the Bay and it started to light up for us 100-120' down. Managed to boat a 2 year old and a steelhead with a number of other bites between 10:30 and 11:30 when the guys had to come in.

Did not leave the dock until about 8am, had to be a little bit kind to the better half and carefully checked all of the web pages... looked like a nice day until we cleared 100 fow off the river... setup in about 180 and worked out to 230', a few random marks, temp was 60-75 down, managed 2 small steelhead and a few other bites in the area, but it was getting to be too much for her, so I put it on a SE toward the barn... 115-130 started looking pretty good with bait and fish, I swung back ENE and we pulled another small steelhead, an LT and a 3 year old before she said enough's enough and we headed in around lunchtime. Back out in the AM with the guys... I'll be on 8...

I plan on being out Sat morning (not o' dark thirty) with just the wife for a few hours and then Sunday all morning with the guys. I'll be 8. Good luck!

Ok, the good news is that Marathon Electronics yielded 2 good probes from all that I sent down there and they are on there way up to me as of Friday last week, so I am willing to sell one of them. The bad news is that they are not cheap, just the refurb was $125 per probe plus my initial investments yields a $175 price for one probe. Just to give you confidence in the work Marathon is doing, I had them refurb my current probe 3 years ago, it's still working fine and has been giving consistent readings up to about 140' down this season. I plan on testing both of these probes out on my system prior to selling. Anyone who uses this system knows how well it works, but parts are almost impossible to come by and as I have found out the hard way (hence my basket of 5 unworking probes) in dealing with sellers of these probes and parts on this site and others, they are generally unverifiable until it is too late and you've already purchased the parts. Please contact me with any questions or interest. I should have the probes by mid week, hopefully in time for the weekend, if needed!

Thanks guys... we're kicking ourselves a bit this morning since we stayed at home and decided to head to the tourist thing for my brother's buddy and head to the Falls instead fish with the questionable forecast.... looks like we could've gotten the morning in no problem. Jammer- your welcome.. glad you found a few too.

Left I-Bay around 6:15 this morning with a little leftover roll from the NW, so went straight into it to about 150 off the River and trolled North. 180-210 was hot until about 10am - Riggers at 105 and 130 with 42 second spoon and black/gold purple glow, wires with mag divers and spinnies on a 2 at 250 and 260 did damage as well. Boated 3 big guys 20-22lbs, a few smaller kings and a steelhead, dropped and missed half dozen other fish. It dried up, so we headed north again and 260-310 lit up for us from about noon to 4:30 when we pulled lines ahead of the marine warning. Temp was up a bit more, but riggers at 90 and 120 with the sliders as well and the two wire divers at 250 and 260 continues working. Boated 2 more big guys, 5 steelies and 6 smaller kings as well up to about 8lbs. So, we kind of lost track, but 5 big guys from 18-22lbs, 8 or 9 one to 2 year old kings and 6 steelies was probably the final talley with at least the many other bites and drops. Just a great day on the water, far better than the forecast and my brother was in town from Charleston, SC with on of his buddies who had never been on the Big-O, so he got spoiled! Hopefully tommorrow's forecast will be just as wrong , but we're not counting on..... will be out again if it's decent... but tough to duplicate this day!

I have 5 probes down in Florida for refurb right now, just waiting for the verict, hoping to yield 2 of the 5 and keep one as a spare for myself. I will let you know as soon as I know. I also have 2 spare readouts and a spare transducer if they are needed.