The summerset plant is no longer generating energy, but it sure has been pumping out Kings!! My GPS tracks near the area look as if Justice Barr got out his redaction marker.
Glad you found it. Good thing coyotes don’t eat antler. I lost a doe this fall that I 10 ringed with a perfect shot. The neighbor found her 500 yards away. Arrow must have found a gap between vital organs and did not cut enough. You do this long enough it will happen
It’s tricky and will take multiple tries until it lays right. The modified Albright works great on my wire slide divers but the weighted steel line is stiff causing the folded end to have too much memory to hold the connection long term IMO.
Another large tree reeled in and multiple three year old kings taken on rig. The knots really got tested on a tail-hooked 14 lber that took 20 minutes to reel in and a rampaging 20 lber. Confidence in the knot is growing.
If you have three aboard, two junk lines on planer boards, two divers and two riggers. Depending on time of year and depth of fish, the junk lines can be anything from flatlines to split shot rigs to keel weights to leadcore to copper. The divers could be anything from mini disks, to size 0 divers to standard divers to mag divers (including slide divers). Two riggers could be any combination of spoons, flashers and flies or flashers and meat. As others have mentioned, depends on time of year, water temp, species targeting, time of day, weather etc etc. Endless combinations to keep us from getting bored. NOT bobber and worm fishing.
First dance with a scrappy 14 lb king proved successful. Then we hooked a large willow branch which was putting tremendous pressure on the knots ......and the knots held. So far so good.
Not good. Keep in mind total numbers collected is a bottom trawl survey. If conditions exist that favor alewives suspending, they won’t be collected. The acoustic survey may shed more light. However, it stands to reason more predators= less prey. The three year old year class of kings is exceptional.
The large class of kings everyone will be catching are three years old this year. Yes, they will start egg formation now. Empty stomachs this time of year is not abnormal on a late spring. Most of the alewives are still on the bottom in 400'+ feet of water. Alewives did not start on the bottom, they slowly move there over the course of the winter because warmer water and Mysis zooplankton are found there. Younger class of kings are not suited for 400' of water. More likely they are feeding on the suspended bait 150'-250' over the winter. As more and more bait heads to the bottom, there is a time period when kings are running out of food and go looking- ending up along the shore in time for the spring inshore migration of alewives to begin. Adult alewives are coming into the Niagara, Genny and Oswego river flows along the bottom, hit the bank, find warmer water, then begin to populate the upper warming layers of the water column that is developing inside of 100'. This is the normal pattern. What is not normal is the size of this year class of kings and the effect on bait levels. The early-in from last year and this year is they are having a negative effect on alewife populations based on trawler surveys. Do not hesitate to keep your kings for the barbecue this year. Next year.......that is another story- lots of cormorants have me worried about king numbers.