Sweet Caroline

Any news at all on this years YOY Alewife? When do they start trawling to look for the most recent hatch?

Hopefully this year’s hatch is good as well to start taking some pressure off last year’s good hatch. Anybody have a preliminary info on that or is it too early?

I plan on fishing in my newly rigged boat, Sweet Caroline. It's a 29 Amberjack at southpoint marina. One of the few fishing boats there. Not looking forward to the ride to and from the lake but excited to fish my first tourney with her. To gain some time at the end of the day will their be any slips at Shumway to park the boat for a couple hours during weigh in?

Does anybody know if they are enforcing no wake on irondequoit bay?

So what they found is normal then for Spring samples?

Gill-T You mentioned that stomach content was low, i.e. some Mysis, spiney water flea. Isn’t that a flag or am I interpreting this wrong? In the past alewives fitness was never much of an issue as I recall? My reservations are as I think of the conversations about what happened in Michigan and especially Huron, the predator population was high keeping alewives in check but at the end of the day there still wasn’t enough productivity in the lower part of the web to keep the alewives population healthy. If we are seeing poor plumpness that is not good. Stocking more salmon could be a short term fix but this will all come to a head eventually if the lake keeps getting cleaner. Also are there similar reports of bait abundance out of other ports? I would expect if bait was going to be high anywhere it would be in the west end. If it was still high as you head north and/or east that is probably a better indication of the overall health. I got to think with still having a large breeding population of bait combined with a warm winter/spring and high water that things are setting up nice to have a good hatch. So if I interpreted the plumpness factor incorrect we should be in good shape. I honestly don’t see the productivity of the lake getting much worse (or better I should say) with the new administration i.e phosphorus load, waste and sewage management, ect My 2 cents

Would muddy waters now kill Chinooks that were hatched in the Fall? Seems most years the rivers and streams will blow out at some point throughout the winter/spring. Is it a factor of them getting stranded when the waters recede? Also, I could be wrong but I thought the muddy near shore waters would help hide the young direct and pen stocked salmon from predators and actually be a benefit for survival?

Glad I docked my boat at South Point on Iron Bay this year. NOT!! Probably take me 45min just to get to the lake now!!

Hi Defiance, I'm also looking to install an autopilot on my 2001 290 Amberjack. Did you end up going with the EV200 with the octopus? I'm in the process of installing and there is some concern that the octopus is too large to fit under the dash. Anybody have experience with installing the EV200 and Octopus on a 290 Amberjack?

Fishhook, Thank you for your honesty and being a standup guy. To keep you in the loop, I offered your friend the opportunity to have a mechanic actually come assess the situation in person instead of diagnosing it over the phone. Instead he went with the worst case scenario quoted by the mechanic over the phone ($2000-$3000) and tried negotiating with me on that. Having worked with this mechanic, I know his policy is to set the proper expectations over the phone on what total damages could potentially be and then when he actually sees the job it is significantly less. Had a mechanic actually looked at the boat I would have been much more willing to work with him on a fair price. Again, I’m not doing this for the money, only to make sure my father is not getting taken advantage of. As I have said, you are correct in that I told my mechanic there could potentially be a leak. I had him look in to it and he could not find the issue and chalked it up to an external source. It was not until I did the sea trial with you that we actually found the source and verified there was indeed a leak. I do appreciate you being “upfront and honest†and pointing out this discrepancy with what I said and what my mechanic recalled. Originally I thought that you were trying to slam me for not selling the boat to your buddy, but I see now that clearly is not the case. Leaking a gallon or so over the course of 8 hours was what was estimated to me directly from your buddy so you may also want to do some fact checking with him on the extent of the leak. I just want to make sure everything I’ve said is proper by your standards. Thanks again for digging in to this matter.