goin hungry

Yup - Ira really helped me out too.

The GPS should give you accurate speed, and most guys trust this even more than a boat or trolling speedo. The small round cylinder may be a trolling motor transducer (mounts to front trolling motor on a bass boat, etc), so you may not need it if everything else is working well. Unless the fishfinder has a paddle wheel sensor, then it doesn't have speed, and you'd rely on the GPS for speed over ground (SOG). keep asking questions and taking trips with knowledgeable guys and you'll be good to go. Welcome to LOU and good luck!

nice fish - that is a good spot, but now everyone knows about it!

thanks

What temps are you guys generally looking for? Any tips for finding good water out of that port? We'll be back up to Sodus again this sunday am and if we get skunked again... thanks,

Good report - glad to hear you at least got into some fish. We won't be back up until the 7th and hope that we can erase the scar of the skunk from the last time up to sodus. That NBK is a must-have, and the fish can tell the difference!

Tim - it's probably not the unit, it's the angle that you have the transducer mount set. just keep tipping it back until you can see them, but keep in mind that this will now affect the depth reading, as the beam is now shooting back at an angle rather than straight down (although it will be minimal, especially at shallower depths).

I hate math, so I'm going with Ray on this one. It won't show true depth, but if you adjust your fish finder to read the balls, then you can see where they are in relation to the "bottom" - keep in mind that now the FF is shooting at an angle, so it too will read deeper than actual depth. Now, if the finder shows fish at 80 you can move the balls to that depth. It may not be actual depth, but that's where the fish are, so true depth won't matter. Keep in mind that with most of this stuff it's about finding out what works, and then duplicating it. - i.e., the counter on my downrigger may be wrong, but I know I'm getting fish when it says 80ft, so that's what I'm going to keep setting at until the rods stop firing. Of course, none of this will help if you can't get on the fish in the first place, which is what happened to me last weekend, so what do I know....

We had the same thing happen to us last year in the tourney when Tim picked up and transported our boat to Krenzers - turns out he secretly makes a deal with another team for a cut of their winnings and switches all your leaders to 10lb vanish during transport the night before Sorry to hear about your luck though - it's tough to lose that much $ to the lake gods. We went straight out of the shoot on Sat. and fished the same location, rigs/techniques that everyone else was hooking up on but we got the SKUNK! Everyone we talked to at Sodus said they had a tough day, but then I come back to read reports about how great the fishing is there now! I don't know which one is worse, but I probably would have sacrificed some gear just to get a fish or two in the boat and salvage some pride...

There is no minimum age limit in the law, but the child has to be able to fish (see definition of "angling" in post above or in regs). If you have a 3 month-old out on the boat with you in his car seat and are running four rods, then all four would be imputed to you, as you can only operate two rods, so if you are operating more than 2 (because the child isn't old enough) then you'd find yourself in hot water with an ECO. If your 3 year old can let out line, fight a fish and bring it to the boat, then you're fine.

i heard it was slow at first but it's getting better.

So I get my paycheck on Friday (income tax and FICA), drop my property tax payment check in the mail before jumping in the hybrid that I just bought (sales tax) to save on gas that was over $4/gal a few months ago; swing by the Exxon and fill up (gas tax) go in and get a pack of smokes (cig tax) and a regular soda (obesity tax) then drive down the highway (toll), reach the dock and head out on the boat with my buddies to fish for trout (regular license fee plus trout/salmon stamp). While I'm on the boat I download a few songs to the ipod (download tax) and do some last minute on-line christmas shopping (use tax). While I'm out there I'm overcome with grief about all the taxes and fees that I've had to pay just for a day on the water, so my body just begins shutting down. With my dying breath I pull out the suitcase full of cash that I keep under the wheel (to insulate my savings from a crashing stockmarket and money-hungry stock brokers) and give it to my best bud (gift tax) then give a salute and keel over and die (estate tax). Anyone wanna do the math?

Actually, yes! The proposal also includes a fee for marine vs freshwater fishing.

I see the argument for it - the state spends money on stocking these, so it's a cost to offset that special state spending. PA has done this for some time. I also see Jason's point, and it is only just $10 bucks. The problem I have is that 1) we have no way of ensuring that these moneys will actually go to improve or sustain the fisheries, and 2) we're being nickle and dimed to death by the gov't. because of their own mismanagement of funds and programs (on both sides of the isle). I'm tired of it, but won't move out of the state, so next year I'll be in line with everyone else paying $29 for the ability to fish for trout in NY with a regular soda in my hand....

nice report jason. we hit seneca for perch this weekend but couldn't find any schools. we did see a few lakers cruising around in 30' of water, along with the usual smallies (had the underwater camera), but couldn't get anything to fire in the short time we were out.

last time we went out we only managed a few dinks on the south end.

nice job. sounds like you've got a good program down. hoping to hit seneca sunday AM for perch but if that's slow we may have to through a rigger down...

nice job! were you in the south end? How deep was the water you were trolling in?

Finger lake streams aren't necessarily closed right now for trout - check the reg. book, but with limited exceptions, most are open until Dec. 31 up to the first barrier impassible by fish...

time of day, wind, weather conditions, etc., all have a part to play too. If you haven't already, try keeping a fishing log. Write down date, time, weather, water temp, location, techniques used, results, etc. and then you can refer back to what was working and what wasn't. As for right now, like Jason said, I think if you try shallower you'll be in good shape. If you start shallow early (6 - 8AM) in 30-50 ft of water, then move out as the day goes on, you should have luck. We've had luck in all ranges, but 50-75 ft seems to be pretty productive right now. Also, try fishing points, drop-offs and stream inlets, and they'll probably be there in greater numbers. Welcome to the site - good luck and let us know how you do!

Fished from 7-10:30 on Sun AM out of tremain. Did 13 or so dink salmon/rainbow, and one 8-9lb laker. Worked the whole water column with spoons on riggers, dipseys, leadcore in 70-150ft of water on west side. Everything took a fish, but neutral colors seemed to do the most action again for us. Just couldn't get any bigger salmon, bows or browns in the boat, so I don't know if it's the location, speed or program we're running, but we're gonna keep tweeking it. Weeds made center of lake and dropoff unfishable, so we stayed on west side and didn't have any problems. It's amazing how localized and thick those weeds are!

weeds were terrible. We had to abandon surface program and constantly clean all other lines. I think the longest we left any one line in the water was 15mins. It wasn't as bad on the west side in 70-100 ft of water, but for some reason, any deeper or any shallower, or anywhere south of the dropoff, was basically unfishable. we'll be out there again sunday am on channel 68 - if anyone's around give us a shout (17ft starcraft)

showboat has pretty good food - are you just looking for something else? If you head south on 14 you'll hit Glenora Winery- good food & atmosphere, but pricey. Keep heading south on 14 (around Rock Stream) and the Decoy is on the left. Good food, very casual (we took our kids there and they loved it) and reasonable prices. Not on the water though - just good food and really nice people (local family runs it and makes everything fresh). If you keep going south into watkins you've got your pick. Everything from pizza/italian (Jerlando's) and chinese on the corner of 4th and 14 to upper-scale dining (and prices) at the new hotel, the wildflower cafe, etc... Just jump in the car and head down, park and walk around - you'll be able to find what you're looking for down there.

anywhere from 20-50 ft. back from the ball. We've had most luck on natural colors (tan/brwn w/white back, brown trout pattern, etc.) but also have picked up a lot on brighter stingers (green dolphin, orange/blk, red/blk), so I'd say that just about everything seems to work (on some level) except for flasher/fly, which we just couldn't get going, and stickbaits, but only because we really didn't fish em. Sounds like others are having luck with stickbaits on riggers, so we may give it a shot too.