chowder

Sounds like a good trip. We had a similar day on Wens.

Smacked those 40' hooks today w/ the bloody death spoon behind 200' copper out off the otter boards on both east and west up north. For better or for worse I think they are mostly lakers, got one salmon. Almost everything worked some of the time today & had fun w/ a bunch of doubles and triples w/ some challenging line confusion involving the copper board lines and riggers. It was a fun day! By the way RR, we caught your big laker and moved it to an undisclosed location. Not that it will help us in the LOU ALL cause it's the only species we seem to be able to consisitently put in the boat!

Sean, last week on Owasco I couldn't keep the lakers off a bleeding olive rapala behind 6 colors, am I close?

I didn't work the 200s on Sunday,but I kept the MJ out at up to 210' ft out w/ a Mag on 1.5 over 110 to 140 FOW and that baby did some bottom bouncing! We actually dropped a couple fish on that just after setting it that I forgot about when I posted, so if you count them we had 5 fish on the flashers from 9:00-12:30, not wild fire but maybe not too bad either. I am very frustrated w/ those nice hooks in the 45-30 range, can't seem to get them to go very consistently, just tool thru them. I am guessing they are mostly lakers that are full of alewives, just cuz 2 weeks ago I got so many lakers on the sliders.

RR, I have the distinct impression that the fickle hand of fate plays a bigger part in what's working where for me than I would like to believe. I just don't I know the lake near well enough to work individual areas the way you, and some of the other "sharpies" do, so I tend to work long stretchs before turning and reworking an area. I think that consequently I run into different pods of fish this way and probably stumble into some that eventually respond favorably to my spread, when I do I am quick to duplicate it and so sometimes it actually looks like I know what I'm doing, to my kids anyway!

How many of you are running deep spoons behind wire dipsies? When I have enough rod holders on board I like to run higher slide divers w/ spoons to the outside of my wire divers, but last weekend's slow flasher bite(for where we were anyway) had me wondering if I shouldn't have switched to spoons behind the wire dipsies or mag slide divers. Most of the time I can usually only run 4 rods. On a related subject, if there is anybody out there who would like to get out on a boat, PM me, especially if you can get out during the week and can deal w/ short notice and fishing in the rain. East side Cayuga, and Owasco & Skinny are pretty quick getaways for me( I am not a pro and I don't play one on my boat)

Where should an I/O unit be set when trolling?

Try "Captain Hook's, [http] " Unfortunately the hook held fine though, it was the flouro leader that gave ground to the Malin ss wire.The main line was on the inside and the cheater w/ the fish was on the other side, and then under it again and then...

Nice one RR! I thought I saw you out there, we got no lunkers yesterday. The fish overall are pretty plump!

Got to Long Point at about 8:00, talked to Stinger at the ramp, gosh that's a nice boat! Shot over to Sheldrake and headed south to get out of the pack, most boats trolling I have seen yet this year. Wanted to watch how the AP steered the boat going into some chop, 1st time actually fishing with it. Had a little trouble connecting w/ the fish at first, but Elliot and I got into them and actually ripped em pretty good, mostly a spoon bite off the riggers for us.Parked the balls at 40 and 60-70, NBK stinger and a green/white super slim, over 80-120 FOW at 2.1 down, got zip on the sliders today. One interesting moment; we jogged around John Gaulke(jigging) and after I got around him I turned kinda sharp to get back on my original course and both riggers and one dipsy all fired- TGFTAP! Only took 3 fish on the wires today, 1 on the M.Jackson, 2 on the Mtn Dew. Took a couple decent browns, lost a nice bow and a good spoon to some airborne tactics around the wires.(just realized the bow was the only fish that hit a slider spoon-scorpion size chicken wing/copper)

Looking good! Nice job.

Were the weeds a big issue?

The Cayuga LOU-ALL BBQ has been melded into a byob (beef, hotdogs, fish or whatever). Due to weather concerns and other extenuating circumstances Split and I thought that we should down scale the event. Contributions will be refunded. Please feel free to bring something to grill or eat cold after you weigh in, we will have some grills going in the park and keep the event open and flexible.

The standard size flies have worked much better for me than the coho/ peanut size on Cayuga. Don't put a dipsy rod in a plastic holder, you will need something more rugged, probably be best to consider a track system.

I got a couple thoughts on this dropped fish thing; First, you guys should go fishing with Ray(just be careful when he asks you to bend over the transom to hook the kicker to the outdrive, especially if he has already stripped down!) 2cd, consider using the tournament style rigging for your flies, in this setup there is a treble and a single. 3rd, I think that running the mag dypsies and using the large style Scotty releases make a huge difference in hookups- remember you aren't there to set the hook so there needs to be some pretty good resistance to drive that baby home! 4th and related to number 3 , after the hook set you have to have the drag set so the fish doesn't have enough leverage to rip the hook out. You should have the drags set loose enough so that if you turn or speed up from a change in wind, etc the drags run a little. I know Ray already mentioned this one but I thought I would say it again because it's so important, especially if you use wire or super braid cause there is no stretch. Right now I am getting most of my fish in shallower water and high w/ spoons on the cheaters, there is a ton of available food right now, if you can mark fish w/out bait I would work them, the fish associated w/ bait have not been striking much for me lately.

Hank got the new helm unit in today and it works like the first one should have. Now if I can get my money back as promised I suppose I will be satisfied, though I do feel bad for Hank who got stuck w/ a bunch of labor bills that Simrad probably won't take care of!

The main problem you will have w/ multiple copper lines is between each other. I run 150' and 200' off inlines, but find that 300' and up are better off out on the big boards or down the chute because the longer coppers pull the inlines kind of close in to the boat. If you are going to run a copper down the chute w/ copper out on the boards, set the chute rod last. If you have a copper out to each side, you might want to think hard about sending one down the chute, you can't turn very tight and things can get pretty congested behind the boat w/ a fish on. Gambler has provided me w/ most of my info on running copper, perhaps he will offer his help on this. If you are going to run 1 copper setup down the chute you really don't need to worry a lot about tangling w/ riggers or dipsy lines. Be prepared to stick the chute copper up in the arch or use a longer rod or make a pike float setup to keep the chute rod out of the way of fish being brought in at the stern.

Navico is Lowrance now- look out!

I sure hope none of you guys have to go through what I have gone through with Navico. I bought a brand new AP 12 last fall , had it installed this spring- went thru the same B.S. that many others have gone thru- no this, wrong that,etc. That kind of thing I can see, I don't like it but hey, it's part of life and so are the people on the tech line that know nothing and care nothing. But buckle your seat belt because what comes next is unbelievable! After a considerable amount of difficulty the unit is in my boat and lo and behold there is something seriously wrong w/ the main helm unit, it will not hold course and sometimes won't disengage (tried 2 different compasses, etc) After a number of phone calls from my professional installer we get a guy at Simrad who upon hearing the serial number says send the unit next day air, they will inspect it and send another. Two weeks go by w/ numerous phone calls and finally I am told that if I buy a new unit they will refund me the purchase price of it when they get around to inspecting my original brand new unit to make sure I did not modify it in a way that would violate the warranty ( somebody there admitted that it would probably be a month or more before they would get to it). Talk about black mail! So, it's here, next day air, unit no. 2. I will let you know what happens from here on it, good luck to you all!

Did a bit of walleye hunting around Burtis Point early this morning.I was solo and tried to work in 30'-50' zone w/ 1 shallow rigger and 4, 5 or 6 colors, used small spoons and stix, caught a bunch of lakers, 1 smaller bow, and lot of perch, but no eyes. Fished from 5:30-8:30am. Marked a lot of bait w/ good sized hooks in and around the pods, guess they were not walleyes. If you know what you are doing (which obviously I don't) what are the odds of success w/ eyes on Owasco and what kind of size are we talking?

Deans Cove 2678 Lower Lake Rd. Seneca Falls, NY 13148 315-568-5163

In the situation I described, we were fishing, just didn't have lines out. There were a bunch of rods in the holders, riggers, etc. It was obvious we were doing some pretty serious fishing. If you are riding around in a general purpose watercraft w/ rod or two stowed below I think it would be a different situation, but if you are handling a rod while the wife runs the wheel, I think that she is fishing too! The point I was making is that my wife was not at the wheel, just present in the boat and that was enough given that it was obviously very hard to say who was going grab one of the many rods and who was not. The take home lesson is; Don't push your luck!

We got stopped last year and the DEC told us that everybody in a fishing boat is fishing, all adults included, "how do we know who is and isn't fishing in a trolling boat" was their point. They told us to get one for my wife on the way home and the judge would receive notification by computer, we wrote this on the ticket, got a license on the way home and there was no fine. We had no lines in the water at the time we were stopped, and the other time I was stopped I had no lines in the water either and they did not ask who was fishing, they just asked for licenses. I have had the DEC go by my boat one other time when I had lines out and they did not stop me which I thought was very decent of them. These guys get grief from people all day long and they have have NO sense of humor about any of it - my advice is to make sure all adults on the boat have a license, why have one more thing to worry about, it's supposed to be a fun day out! Sean, you probably know this but technically you can lose your guides license for having a unlicensed angler on your boat.- Don't ask me how I know this!

Wondering what depths to start at very early am. Should I work out into deeper water and wind up at what depths?

Had the youngest and his buddy out for a while Sunday.Cruised from Long Point to Deans, trolled Deans to the middle of the lake where the deep water ends. Not as much action as Friday. Couple smaller bows,some lakers- all on spoons,most fish hit on the sliders(rainbow,red/copper, and alewife) even the lakers out over 180'. One laker hit when we got into the scum and log drift out towards the middle and he had to wait in the net while I rescued the planers and the dipsies- so, he had to go home for the grill (marinate fillets w/ peppercorn ranch dressing, grill briefly and serve w/ fresh garden greens and biscuits- it's a home run!). The kids got distracted so we left early and got ice cream.