momay4000

You have a good idea on retrieving the releases! I will have to give that a try.....and yes we have some good days on the water so we're blasting through releases at times. Thanks for the advice, it's awesome how we can always learn something new every day! Goodluck on the water, Chris

I own almost 40 releases - 10 of which are $10 a pop Scotty's. Between hits and changing lines, I have no choice but to reel the boards in from time to time. - Chris

If you can't pull these boards in while trolling (website says you need to be in neutral to retrieve them) and we're discussing cost of Otter's vs. Amish, isn't a bit cost prohibitive if you have to install electric reels to retrieve them while trolling? Also, for me it would be an extreme PITA to have to reset my spread if I had to retrieve these boards while in neutral. I don't own enough releases, and last week we retrieved our boards 2-3 times to collect releases when the fishing was good. - Chris

+1,000,000 disclaimer - no financial ties to Big Jon

The fish don't care about what the core looks like in the water as you're running a longer leader. I use the Cheapo 27# Cabelas stuff and it works awesome and have never had a failure. You can view my video from two weeks ago and it speaks for itself about our success with the cheaper lead core line. I cannot get much deeper than about 40' down at a typical salmon speed (2.3-3.0 mph sog) with ten colors and the Smart Troll data published last year supports that. I'm not syaing it isn't true, but I cannot believe someone got down 60' with a ten color at this speed. Keep it simple - they all work, Chris

WTG Tomy! Happy Father's Day. Stay in touch, Chris

Awesome post - the stellar fishing continues for sure. Glad you "let the lead out" so to speak!! Thanks for sharing - we won't be back out until next weekend - Chris

Thx for all the kind words folks - I added a video link

WTG Tomy - that's an awesome pic of the steelhead with the Alewive sticking out its' mouth! Glad you guys found the fish! It was great talking with you today. Good luck and be safe, Chris

I fished with my great buddy Anthony today, and we agreed that it was the best day we ever had on the water. We landed 29 out of 34 fish, and had one of those days that you cherish, as it's not likely to ever happen again. I have often read reports of these dream catch days with some skepticism, but as I witnessed today it really can happen. I know we all keep saying this, but we are so blessed to have such a great fishery, and something that I'm very thankful that is preserved by so many on this board. I am grateful for those who work on the pen rearing projects and dedicate their knowledge and time with biologists, the DEC, etc. to make this better year after year. We fished north and east of the Bay, anywhere from 110 to 330 fow and it all started the moment the large ESSROC Stephen Roman passed us to the south the minute we dropped rods. We had doubles, triples, two fish on one rod (deep rigger lure and the cheater) and two instances where a steelhead hit while I was letting the line out with my thumb still on the spool. The name of the game for us today was lead core, lead core and more lead core, although we also had hits on riggers and a wire diver. A slower troll seemed best today (2.1 - 2.2 on my Subtroll) but direction of the troll didn't matter at all. There were countless scumlines and temperature breaks that held fish and every time we made a pass through one, we had action. Anthony's idea to head deeper was the best advice of the day as it held great schools of fish, and a fish in a bigger weight class. I have never seen so much action on lead core, but 80% of our fish came on three, five and seven color cores and most of this was non stop in SSW, Buffalo Bill and NBK patterns. We caught lake trout, steelhead, coho and Chinook on each of these presentations. The following all took fish today: NK 42 sec rigger Andy's salmon slapper free slider Carbon 14 Regular size rigger DW SS Glow frog high rigger (early on) NBK five color core Buffalo Bill Regular DW three color core Steelie Stomper (early on) three color core DW Standard SSW seven color core Wire Diver - 215' out, Livewire Spinny/mirage fly Anthony and I were making a lot of noise out there cheering each other on, but it was a day of non-stop fantastic action with fish torpedoing out of the water hit after hit, and a day I will never forget. Good luck to all - be safe and tight lines, Chris Here's the video from last week: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wizGkxJTtU

The old school rule of thumb was 4-5' down for every color out before we had the benefit of technology to tell exact depth of your lure (i.e. SmartTroll). Someone posted SmartTroll data last year and a 5 color core was only down 14' at 2.5mph trolling speed and a 10 color core was down about 35'. Thus, I'd estimate the seven color is down around 25'. Thanks again for your great reports today! Chris

WTG - always good to get an early report in for the week from the "I-Bay Boys". Thanks for sharing some great details! Chris

Jcar - you are holding up a carp