Fishtails

Now Howie, You should know my name is not Rob....you fished on my boat bro.... My statement on The Pro Am being the best event is just my personal opinion. Like many teams, we fish them all, and that is just how we feel. As a team, we have all agreed that if we could only fish one series, it would be the Pro Ams. You may not agree, and that's cool. It makes for good discussion I suppose. It would be boring if we all agreed All events change rules....if you have payed attention you saw the Scotty (KOTL) changed rules this year. The Pro Am often times changes rules based on feedback the committe recieves. Sometimes it just doesn't work out and should be changed back....as many of us seem to feel is the case here. I know I'm still wet behind the ears and I'm far from being one of the players Tom speaks of, but my team still pays to play and we should have a voice. I'm sure every team feels that way. When the majority speaks out, but isn't being heard....there's a problem. Hey, We can only hope. Like Tom said, it's not looking good, but the fat lady isn't singing just yet. Oh....and don't even get me started again on the time change for the Am's Howie I don't hold out much hope on that one getting changed either....same road block as with the closed cummunication .

Myself, JeffJ and Finalflight are all signed up. Who else??

I would get the entire lake John. A friend had a partial and it limited him with coverage, but the map was the same. What antenna do you have? That unit had a screw in connector for the antenna, but if/ when it goes bad (and it will if it's the original) you will need to get a junction box and hook it up through the seatalk. They no longer make that antenna. The new 125 is better though anyway. If you go through that....pm me. I've gone through it already.

I had that plotter in the past. I now have a Raymarine 520 plus and It uses the same c-map. The ONLY map it will accept is the c-map nt+. Those units have no base map, so you need the c-map. It will set you back around $180 for each map....I know cause I have had to buy 3 maps so far for different regions.

DEFIANCE1, It may be worth mentioning that anyone can enter the open division. It would appear the wording in the rules may not have been updated upon the introduction of the open division in 09, but the open division was in fact put in place (in part) for a case just like yours. It's also in place for those who can only fish one day, or for those who want to enjoy the Pro Am expierence without having to get an observer (no observer needed for open division). My understanding is that If your Captians lic. is current within the past 5 years, you would need to enter in either the Pro division or the Open division. Hope to see you in this years Pro Ams. There is a division for everyone and It really shouldn't be missed......they are a blast!!

New Jersey has the 3 rod rule, and I enjoyed that very much Striper fishing last month. We had two of us, and ran 5 rods. Without the auto pilot, even 5 would have been impossible. We just hooked up too often and 5 was the max we could handle with the conditions. Most of the time conditions and circumstance will limit the amount of rods you could run anyway. Mostly, when I'm searching I like to run more, but when I find them I'll run fewer. Tournament time, I'll run as many as they let me Since this is NY we are talking about, the only way I ever see this going through is if it generates revenue. SO....maybe the answer is a yearly permit to run a 3rd rod?? They do something similar in Jersey to keep a 3rd Striper (legal limit is 2). It's called a bonus permit, and it's good for one extra striped bass. You can purchase the bonus tag on line only. So why not implement a similar program for a 3rd rod? It could even be regulated to protect certain lakes by only making it valid on certain bodies of water and/or for trolling only. This would generate big money because most would fork out the extra coin. Some may run the extra rod without the permit, but those same people are doing that already. Most of us would buy the permit to be legal and be able to run the extra rod when we choose to. I don't like the thought of paying out more money to the state any more than the next guy, but it seems to be the only thing they wanna hear. At least it would be "optional". I just don't see a rule change happening to benefit the fishermen if money isn't involved....at least not in NY.

Well spoken Glen 3 rods all the way !!

Just received this from Yvan, thought I'd pass it along. ******************************************** Hello Gentlemen, Hope Fall Fishing, Hunting, or both seasons have been good to you. We are excited for 2010!! This year looks promising as 2009 brought us bigger payouts and new venues. It also brought us many new faces and teams and wtih the economy the way it was, thats very positive. We beleive 2010 will continue to grow. Before we get into whats new, let's reflect on 2009 a little. I would like to congradulate all the winners, you have represented yourselves and your teams very well. Thank You! Congradulations to our King Of The Lake Overall Champions "Striker" Capt: Eric Marcinkowski for his dedication and victory. On to 2010. As you may know we have always looked at ways to improve the series. We have have been proud of many of our changes and we look forward to some of the minor changes for the upcoming year. These are the changes for 2010. 1: Polygragh: We have altered this rule. We have decided to include tournament supplied observers on day 2 of each event to the top 10 teams from day 1. If at that point there is an action that is in question and the team representative doesn't agree with the disqualification there may be an option to take a polygragh at a later date to clear this situation up. This is an explanation of how the rule is to be handled. Basically if you are in the top 10 after day 1 we will put an observer on your boat for day 2. 2: Overall scoring: We have taken a good hard look at making our overall competition stronger and bigger. We want to market this the best we can. In order to increase the field and to bring winnings up we decided to go with the following. Take your best 3 scores for the year. You can fish all five and you take your best 3. To give incentive to the teams that fish all 5 or even 4 we will be giving those teams and additional 10 points for the 4th and another 10 points for the 5th. Thats an additional 20 points for showing up! Enough of an incentive but not too much to compete against if you fish only 3 events. There was 20 teams that fished 2 and another 20 teams that fished 3 events. We think this will hopefully push some teams to enter the overall The payout will be 1: 50% , 2: 30%, 3: 20% (100%) payback 3:Payouts: Last year the goal was to pay our $220 000 in our five events. We fell short of our goal but gave out more money than any other tournament series on the lake. We paid out $146,000 in prize money over the five events and took in $135,000 in entry fees. That's $11,000 more than we took in!! We are excited about this years payouts. We have brought back (For Free) Saturday and Sunday big box of the day. Last year We found that if you dind't have a good first day it was tough to win any money. This year you can win $2000 for one good day!! As well we based all payouts on 75 teams which has not been done on our end before. We always worked with 100 team payouts and when you don't reach 100 it drops. We are going to use the same 105% again but this payout is more realistic to reach. We had 2 tournaments at roughly 75 teams last year. The winner can still take home $19,000. Here is the Breakdown Based on 75 teams Big Fish Friday 1 - 1000 2 - 625 3 - 375 Sat and Sun Big Box (each day) 1 - 2000 2 - 1000 3 - 500 Overall 1 - 15000 2 - 7000 3 - 3000 4 - 2000 5 - 1000 6 - 1000 7 - 750 8 - 750 9 - 500 10 - 500 DATES St. Catharines - April 23-24-25 Wilson- May 7-8-9 Whitby- June 25-26-27 Oswego- August 20-21-22 St Catharines- Sept 3-4-5 If there are any other amendments or changes we will notify you as soon as we can but the same format as last year applies. If you have any questions please email me and I can clarify. Our website will be updated shortly with the new dates. Thank you Yvan

I want to wish my good buddy Jeff J a happy B-day....now you're as old as me again

45 trips around the sun for me

Hey Anthony, Anyone looking to save some coin should not miss the LOTSA expo the end of February. I'll be in the Big Weenie booth and while I can't elaborate just yet, I can tell ya we'll have some smoking deals only avail. at the expo. The other vendors will have deals also, so save your $$ and don't miss it!! http://www.lotsa.org/index2.htm

Sorry Bob....you know we love ya but that's just plain old funny!!!

IMO, depending on how much you fish, they all work well. We have had the subtroll for the past three seasons and it was fine. Like Brian mentioned, the coated cable can get beat up through the season and when that happens you start loosing readings deeper than 100 ft. That being said....we use our boat hard and often. I had to replace the coated cable every season....but many guys never have to replace it. It just depends I guess? We just installed the new Fish Hawk X4 last month and I look forward to seeing it perform. As of yet, I have not tried it out.

A walleye board would pull it fine if that is what you prefer to use. You may want to switch the clip on the board over to the vise clip though. It makes a huge difference!! Here is the link: http://www.churchtackle.com/Product%20P ... _Clip.html IMO Copper rules if you're fishing for deeper kings and I agree with Chris on the depth. That's not to say a 20 color won't put fish in the boat though and if you like the lead better, the walleye with the vice clip will do ya fine.

I agree 100% with Gambler. It sounds like it's an attempt to start up a new event run by new people that will be "similar" to a past event that failed. We can only hope

Thank you for sharing that Legacy.

Congrats on your nice buck Matt! Not only is Matt a fine hunter.....he's a heck of a salmon fisherman as well!!

Awesome buck Jeff....wtg bud!!!!!

Thanks guys!! I do love the ocean Stan....but me still likes the big O more I admit though that catching fish non stop all day long is a nice change of pace. I only get there a couple times at best in the fall, but it's really funny the way people look at us. They know we're not from around there with all the gadgets we lake trollers have hanging off our boat and in the water. Most guys I saw trolling ran only two rods....a wire rod out each side with either an umbrella rig or bunker spoon. In Jersey you can run 3 rods a man, so Rollie and me had 5 in the water about all the time (thank god for the AP). That kept us very busy People looked at us like we were crazy....it was great!! Here is a funny story.....we tried using down speed but the tide messed with the probe a lot so we mostly just trusted the bend on the wire rods. Gps speed is not trustworthy on a moving tide. We are trolling along and everything looks good and the motor rpm's sound right...but the rigger balls seem to be strait down. The wire umbrella rods have a good bend and the dipsey rod looks right, so I watch a buoy we are passing... but we never pass it. The tide is ripping and we are just stationary . We're trolling, but we're not going anywhere!! I go look at the gps speed....0.2 sog lmao!! Meanwhile...we are trolling a 5 rod spread and it all looks as it should except the riggers are hanging straight.......Within a very short time the wire rod starts thumping....FISH ON ! That takes some real getting used to. What I learned is when the tide is ripping, you best be over a productive spot cause yer not gonna cover much ground till it slows down....

Me and Rollie (final flight) hit the Jersey shore off Sandy Hook a couple weeks ago and had a blast for a day with the stripers and blues. We trolled the entire day and the action was non stop. Shooting vid wasn't easy cause it was just the two of us, but we tried. This is my first try at the video thing.....hope I did ok

DW ss Bloody Death was very good to us, but a DW ss Green Goby (gold cup) was killer once we got our hands on a few later in the season. I think it will be a new production color for DW in 2010.

Thanks for the update Bill ! We are praying hard for your dad bud....stay strong!!

Way to go guys! BW told me you were banging some fish on the proctologist today. That fly never lets ya down.

We wish your father a full and speedy recovery Rick!

Nice job Matt.......