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Everything posted by bulletbob
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Chris... I seldom use a trolling motor and I catch fish jigging... Just stay fairly close to bait with "marks" around it.. Even if you don't see "marks" around the bait, its likely there are fish close by or on bottom... I always do better when I stay vertical, but windless days are rare on any of the Fingers... As stated, casting into the wind helps a lot, and these days I catch more fish "racing" the lure up anyway... Its only a theory, but I feel the fish are getting wise to the typical yo yo action many jig fishermen use.. Once a laker has been hooked a few times that way, they probably wise up.. Just a theory,but I have found I catch less fish using a standard jigging motion than I do on a fast retrieve from the bottom.. For that one reason alone, I seem to do ok when not being "vertical"...You will too... Keep at it, and one day soon you will be jigging in an area with active "chasing" fish, and you will forget about trolling......... maybe......... bob
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Sold / Closed 1990 15hp Evinrude
bulletbob replied to Sean Youngblood's topic in Classifieds - Buy, Sell, Trade or Rent
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Sold / Closed 1990 15hp Evinrude
bulletbob replied to Sean Youngblood's topic in Classifieds - Buy, Sell, Trade or Rent
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Best time is when the sawbellies are in close to shore spawning... I think May- early July is best when fishing from the shore at the park.. It all depeneds on when the sawbellies are close in to the shore... You will know when you see a lot of guys fishing from shore and actually catching fish somewhat regularly.. Thats when I would fish if I still did a lot of shore fishing..bob
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First light. Thats when most of the browns and salmon are caught ... I would not expect much after about 9 am.. You certainly might get lucky on any given day, but a LOT of regulars fish all day every day for a week there without a hit.. Then one day you'l get 5 keeper size salmonids in a morning... Its a very picky place to fish.. You need to be able to put a real lot of time in, and hope for the best.. I simply don't have that much patience anymore.. Caught some nice fish there over the years, but there simply aren't enough around to keep me interested.. If you are patient, and have a lot of time, you can catch fish there all winter... Remember, the vast majority of the salmonids in cayuga are around bait, and most of the bait is REAL deep this time of year, not near the shorelines... bob
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I have a Merc 9.8 on my 14 foot boat, but its underpowered.. I am looking for a motor [any brand]of at LEAST 15 HP, but can use the max rated 25 as well, or anything in between.. Heres my problem,.. This is NOT a tiller boat.. It has a side console and uses a short shaft remote steer motor.. I am looking for a short shaft WITH controls.. I can adapt a Merc tiller motor to the controls that are on the boat at this time, but will consider any motor with controls.. I will also consider a long shaft motor with controls if thats all I can get, and built my transom up about 5 inches. Year NOT important, as long as its a good runner.... Please respond via email.. bob [email protected]
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Alec.. Its all about confidence.. I have caught lots of lakers on tied jigs.. Hair and marabou.. However, these days I don't have a lot of confidence in them , and don't use them much.. Did a catch a laker on a hair jig a few weeks ago, and had it bitten off a few minutes later, so fish still like them... You may remember a few years back, I wrote a bunch of times how I couldn't hook up on plastics, and kept using jigging slabs, diamond jigs, and I am sure you remember my painted wheel weight lures!. caught a lot of lakers on them.. Now they sit in the tackle box, unused with rusting hooks... These days I have more confidence in plastics, but that could change.. One terrible trip using plastics, or one or two days when they are whacking a Hopkins or a slab spoon, makes me re think... Until the next time.. Lots of guys fish shallow fresh water using small spoons like daredevils, little cleos etc.. I can' BUY a hit on them and never use them.. never could catch a damn thing on a spoon in fresh water as long as I have been alive, so I simply avoid them.. Some day I will try one, and maybe have a big day.... and,, well,,, you know...... bob
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Lively.. I started jigging for lakers the year I moved here from NJ-1991.. Back then no one was jigging for lake trout..I jigged for EVERYTHING in the salt water I fished in NJ, and researched lakers when I moved to NY state.. They were caught all over their range with jigs but it simply wasn't a popular technique here in central NY..' In those days, I caught them the same way I caught Walleyes, Bass, and the various salt water species.. Hopping the jig more or less on the bottom, with sweeps and falls.. Variations in retrieve , yes, but mostly near bottom.. Maybe 5 or 6 years ago, I noticed my hookup ratio was suffering badly.. I could not figure out why.. Then one day on Seneca, I was reeling up and got whacked.. Kept doing it, and I started catching fish.. Talking to other jiggers it was apparent that something had changed... I have a theory, and thats all it is.. just an opinion.. I feel that with the huge popularity of jigging these days, the lakers will no longer respond to standard jigging procedure as they did at one time.. I think they just see too many jigs, and know that "real" food doesn't bounce up and down off the bottom.. Real food DOES however try to break away FAST when approched by a predator,, The method we now use for lakers in the Finger Lakes was know in salt water for decades as "speed squidding", or simply speed jigging,,, The only salt water fish that responded to a jig raced up from the bottom years ago was bluefish.. I did it for years when bluefishhing.. However, I went several years before putting 2 and 2 together, and realizing that the lakers I had caught with standard bottom bouncing, were now only reponding to a fast moving jig raced up vertically.. To put it simply, they just wised up... bob
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problem with that is conditions.. Many days my 14 footer would be great, and I would prefer to fish from that.. Its light and easy to handle myself.. However, If it was a windy day I might want to put the riggers on my 15 foot glass boat which is a stable, dry tri hull, thats very wide and open.. I would rather not have a dedicated "trolling boat"... I don't relish the idea of a boat bristling with rods and 8 lines out.. I don't want to get that involved with deep trolling.. Just want something else to try when jigging isn't working.. Also I would like a shot at a silver fish once in a while, instead of lakers every trip... bob
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Interested.. please email me .. [email protected]
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First off, let me say I am not a troller.. Don't much care for it.. I like it a bit better when the fish are near the surface, and can be caught flat lining in the spring or fall.. I usually just run 2 rods out the back with REALLY long lines, and over the years have caught some really nice trout and salmon.. I do not keep the boat moving when flat lining.. Fish on, I kill the motor, and fight the fish as if I were casting, from a drifting boat.. I do realize however that I am really limited once the fish go deeper in May/June.. I am thinking of putting on 2 small cheap portable riggers to get the lures into the zone.. If the silver fish are deeper than say 70 feet, I won't bother, but I know that browns and salmon are often ony 25 to 50 feet down, depending on conditions... I plan on doing the same thing I do when I flatline... Simply cutting the motor, and fighting the fish on fairly light tackle from a drifting boat, after the release pops.. I need portable because they will have to be able to go on any of 3 boats I have... They would be used to get me in the zone, when other options aren't feasable.. Which are the "best" portables.. i don't need fancy, just functionality.. I would need what?.. 2 riggers, 2 weights[6 lbs??] and 2 releases, correct??.. any thing else??.. I don't want sliders, cheaters, stackers, whatever.. just 2 lures dragged behind the boat at the depth I am reading suspended fish at.. Over the years I have noticed that if I see 1 fish at 35 feet, typically I see a lot more marks around the same depth not too far away.. Thats would be my initial approach.. Start trolling where I see marks.. Very simplistic, I understand, but I just want to better my chances without becoming a "real" dedicated troller.. I just want other options than jigging lake trout.. Any advice on what to get would be appreciated... bob
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alec.. I never had much luck, "hiding" from the wind behind Sheldrake.. It always finds you there.. The point at taughannock is better, but sometimes the fish aren't around there.. The wind at cayuga sucks, and seneca is worse.. Thats why so many guys are buying those super expensive "smart" trolling motors. Less headaches with the wind... bob
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I know Nicks.. His prices were absolutely insane on anything used.. he wanted double normall retail price on used boats, and triple what you would pay used from an owner.. ther was never anyone in that place.. Had to be a reason... Hopefully the auctions will be realistic.. thanks for the information.. bob
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Once they started hitting size or color didn't seem to matter.. First one was caught on a dopey looking, stained old white twister tail, they whacked that hard a few times.. Others were caught or hooked on a Chartreuse fluke, also, Shad Fluke[i think this one was bit off as well],.. also landed one on a 1/2 oz chartreuse/white hair jig.. bob
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You know, its funny.. I am a firm believer in being on the water while its still dark in the am.. Right around "false dawn".. However Cayuga isn't always that way.. Some days I don't get a touch in the morning, and then get them at noon.. Other times, evening is better, like its been lately by some accounts... I usually like Seneca in the early am, but at times I do better there when the sun is higher in the sky, late morning.. The only lake that never fishes well for me except in the morning is Keuka.. I might be doing something wrong, but at Keuka, I start at first light and usually don't get a hit after 11.00 am.. Its always best for me between 6 am and about 9 am.. Maybe I should try it some late afternoon... bob
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I read a report from a member here stating he was doing better jigging in the evening than he was in the morning... I have had times in the past when I have seen that myself.. I left candor around 2:30, and by the time I launched at T park and got to the area north of the plant it was about 4.. .. For the first couple hours it was a skunk.. No hits, no follows, and a sickening blank screen, in all depths.. I was not far from another boat with 3 guys jigging, and as they were pulling drift socks in and getting ready to leave, I idled up asking how they had done... They weren't real specific, but said they had caught some.. Then I was told that they were there all week, and that the fish were really turning on before sunset.. So It was around 6, and I decided to tough it out and check out his report.. made a move a bit further north from where I was, not more than a few minutes drive, and started my drift again in around 70 FOW where most of the few marks I had seen were located.. At about 6:30 I began seeing that blank bottom start to come to life.. The fish were there all the time most likely, just laying inactive on the bottom.. All of a sudden, I could see swipes at my jig as it fell.. You know the score,,Big red lines crisscrossing the bottom of the graph nere the jig,, Started hooking up regularly.. I brought 4 to the boat by about 7:45, all nice clean fish, no marks.. I kept the first one to eat, released the others... Had several solid hookups that got off halfway up, numerous hits, and had a jig cut off by teeth it seems... It was a hoot watching that color screen.. there were a TON of lakers down there milling around the jig, but not grabbing.. At one point, I reeled a laker up and he was followed up by a big swirling ball of other lakers, probably 10 or more.. Never saw that many follow a hooked fish.. One or two yes, but never a big school like that.. Anyway, the fish went from dormant to very active in an instant, and then shut down completely as it got darker around 8.. As always, you need to be there when they want to eat... I had decided I was terrible fisherman that could no longer fish a jig properly. Until the fish wanted to eat of course, after which time I was reveling in my remarkable skills with a jig!. Met some guys at the ramp that had been south trolling with riggers.. They had a few very small fish, nothing legal, and a couple of other guys that were fishing the shorelines with bass tackle, and they had caught nothing at all. It sucked going out alone , but I usually have trouble getting people to go.. Most of my fishing friends don't like to jig or don't have the stamina it takes to work the jigs, and stand up a lot, or thet simply won't fish from a boat.. whatever... btw, it was windy early on,, and when the wind dropped off is when the screen became more active, so its possible that my presentation became more vertical, and thats why I started getting hit a lot.. Not sure, but when they started, they hit quickly, and when they shut off it was OVER... It was good to get out again, even if it was solo... bob
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To put it very bluntly, most of them are dead.. I posted about this subject perhaps 6 years ago, and was hammered as a know nothing doom and gloomer. Cayuga experienced a massive die off in mid spring in 2008 I believe it was, and I was a witness, several times and places around the lake as a matter of fact.. Much of the lake was absolutely COVERED in dead fish.. Thousands upon thousands of SMB, Rock Bass, Pike, Suckers, Bullheads, Sunfish, lesser numbers of,various "herring like" species. Also a few carp, pickerel , even one Walleye etc... Did not see many LMB for whatever reason. The feeder creeks were also covered with floaters.. They had to bring in a bucket loader to Taughannock Park to take the huge piles of rotting fish off the swimming beach.. I remember it very well.. I brought a friend one day to walk the shoreline and witness what I had seen.. We were in shock.. I called the DEC, and they said it was "thermal conditions, and "spawning stress".. I smelled BS, and told them so..The bottom was also littered with thousands of dead crayfish. No trout seemed to be affected, mostly warm water stuff and bottom dwellers..There WAS a story in the Syracuse paper about it, but they basically said the "DEC was investigating".. Any follow up I did revealed nothing but a lot of stone walling..used to catch SMB by the dozen just standing on shore on the south end of Cayuga.. Stupid fishing really. We would catch big 12 inch rockies, massive bluegills and pumpkinseeds and perch up to 14 inches just using worms and bobbers/... I mean buckets full if you wanted them.. Those fish are simply no longer there.. I have stopped fishing the south end shoreline, because there is just nothing left to catch.. I have a good friend that lives on the lake near the Lake Source Coolng plant.. He witnessed what I did, and has told me stories about how for decades he would fish off his dock and be able to catch big pike and bass at will.. All the big panfish anyone could imagine.. Now its sterile. He no longer sees dozens of spawning bass, rockies , and sunnies off his dock,, There is nothing to see except bare sterile lake bottom.. I have gone from catching a dozen or so SMB every time I went to the lake to catching 1 or 2 a year.. None at all this year in about 6 attempts... I now mostly just jig for lakers.. Something hit that lake VERY hard several years ago, and it still has not recovered for some species.. The DEC knew it then, and does now, but they won't talk.. Personally I think it was VHS, but they said no.. They say it was a "thermal event and spawning stress"... I dunno.. I called BS then and still do today.. All i can say is this.. Try very hard some day to catch a few nice rock bass out of Cayuga to fry up. They were there by the millions, you simply couldn't get away from them.. Past 6 years I haven't even caught ONE of keeping size.. Something happened, I wish I knew what.. Yes you can call me a gloom and doomer, but I have good reason.. So did the friend I brought as a witness, and my other friend that lives on the lake... I would imagine the dozer operator too,.. If he fishes the lake... I hope the SMB recover, but have my doubts...bob
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Guys regularly catch over a dozen lakers in a few hours on Keuka with a bass sized rod, and a 1 oz jig... On a really good day you might catch 20 or 30.. No muss no fuss,no bait... Pulling copper is fine, and it works, there is no doubt.. However, its time has come.. Simply no need for it, unless you just like to do it I supppose.. Same as meat rigs.. They work, and are cheap, but for most are just a big pain in the ass to be honest. I suppose if you really WANT to drive a car with straight axle, king pins, ,3 on the tree, points,, no ac. no power brakes or steering, single master cylinder, bias tires, bench seats with no belts, etc, you certainly can, but the modern cars are better in every respect, except for nostalgia... As far as lakers are concerned, why bother with hundreds of feet of copper wound on a massive Victrola, when a one handed light as a feather bass rod will catch as many or more fish, with a lot less hasssle...bob
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Chris.. I dunno man, bright crystal clear skies, awash in brilliant sunlight.. Not the best day for walleyes!.. I was catching some decent walleyes and BIG smallmouths in the river on days with a bit of cloud cover.. I go on a bright clear afternoon, and don't get a touch... Try again when its not so bright.... bob
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I never was much into fishing the tribs during the spawn.. I like to let the fish to reproduce in peace.. Just wondering why more guys aren't trying these days. Trollers still catch bows on the lake, so there must be some left to spawn.. It makes me sad actually.. Used to be quite a sight.. Cars from Pa, NJ, and guys all over rt 13, some dragging big tails on the way back to the car.. Haven't seen that in a long time... bob
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I am very close to Fall Creek from the falls to the inlet each and every day during work, as well as cayuga Inlet from the lake up to Newfield.. Since 4/1 I have seen a grand total of maybe 3 guys fishing.. I know the runs are not what they used to be and the big crowds are gone, but this is by far the lowest participation I have witnessed in 22 years here.. Conditions weren't bad until tuesday 4/8... Just wondering whats going on??.. Is the Cayuga trib rainbow fishery really that bad here now that no one at all fishes for them ?.. I saw a grand total of 1 guy below the falls at fall creek across from the high school , and 1 guy at the black iron bridge.. That is since the 1st.... Anyone try Cayuga tribs yet this year? Lost cause??... bob
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There was a time when I kept any keeper walleye, years back.. I just don't need to any more.. kids are gone, wife doesn't eat fish... 1 maybe 2 smaller fish is plenty... The river isn't accesabile in a lot of spots, and doesn't get overfished for much of its length, and there are plenty of fish/ so I am not trying to be noble.. its just that, the fish aren't everywhere, and the big ones are the breeders, and are more valuable alive than dead... Next time I go I'll keep a small one to fry up.. Thats plenty for me... bob