chowder

I won a Mathews Drenalin a few years back and it's a very fine bow but I gotta agree with Grey, there's nothing magical about these bows! If I hadn't gotten the Mathews for free I might well be shooting my old Alpine which had 26 'notches' on it when my son took it over. The newer, more efficient bows are certainly better, but frankly I can't see spending Mathew size buck$ when so many companies are producing truly awesome bows for so much less.

Congrats Rollie! Great fish!

Great pics! Thanks for the post.

Nice job! -Andy

Happy Birthday Ray! -Andy

Hope all goes well with the recovery & that you will be to 'normal' asap! -Andy

SOT is the way to go and the longer the better. Problem w/ yaks is they pivot & blow easy w/o some extra toys. Boat control is key to really being able to use most of the specific bass targeting techniques. Buy it right once and you will have something you can use and really have fun with. I think you might need to come up w/ a couple more buck$. Check out http://www.kayakbassfishing.com/ and some of the others & have fun! -Andy

Nice job on those big ol' nasty lakers Sean! -Andy

Good deal on the steel action. -Andy P.S. Doesn't look like I'm gonna get out there this weekend now

I always like your reports & hope you can still get out with others and write a few. Get well soon! -Andy

Good going Ed, when's dinner gonna be ready? -Andy

Woodmeister I'll shoot you a pm (life is seriously crazy right now!). Don't get the 1Oz jigs they have at BPS! The hooks are not near sharp enough & the hook gap and balance of the jig are just not right! You want the 1oz gamma ball 4/0 black nickel jig from Schuberts & Laketown. Standard plastic is either a white Zoom super fluke or a white BPS/Gander Mtn 'Fat tail'. I C&R'd a nice brown that came in like an old boot on a Gander Mtn black & silver fat tail that looks just like an alewife, and for a while it was all the fish wanted. I also nailed a couple smallies after lunch off Sheldrake on root beer colored flukes. It's best to have a few different plastics w/ you so you can feel like there's something to do when the bite dies off -Andy

Great pic & post

Yo, QT I do think I saw you go by once but we were otherwise engaged cuz, we didn't notice the lack of water till we were well under way.When we did we cut the motor and tied up at a very posh, high end dock while I attempted to figure out what was going on. We were tied up there for a fair spell as I teased those baked earwig bodies out of the port w/ a sewing needle. It's important to have lots of weird stuff on one's boat for use in situations that, in retrospect, seem totally impossible to be prepared for. Anyway, we were so pumped when we got things back going that we were very close to instinctively cracking open a pair of Saranacs at 7:00 am to celebrate our victory over the cooling issue while still tied to the dock, but then figured that if some of the gentry came down for a morning stroll it wouldn't do for a pair of woodchucks to be tied up to their private dock, swilling beer before breakfast!

I was heading out on a jigging run & saw ya getting ready for your Sunday trip. Your guys must have been pretty happy w/ that Sat. Trip Saw Rollie on my way in & pestered him on the radio for a bit. -Andy

After extracting a series of earwigs from the Merc's cooling exhaust port in my little 165 Alumacraft we cruised up to the point just short of AES where I hammered the lakers in 60-70FOW but had trouble explaining the technique to my buddy Fred. Boat control got tough and began to complicate the jigging so we crossed the lake & I got into them again a bit north of Tee Pee point in 70-80FOW. My buddy Fred who has not done a lot of fishing was having a tough time with the baitcasting rigs so I set him up w/ a spinning rod spooled w/ 12lb polypro w/ a 8lb test FC leader. I wasn't to sure how well the spinning rig was going to work for jigging but a few minutes later Fred was able to get a nice 9lb laker to the boat after a couple of really good runs. After a few more lakers , we decided we were hungry & thirsty so we motored up to Kidders and had a great lunch while watching a big Silverton trying to dock during which the first mate fell into the water between the boat and the wharf. Fred bolted down & helped the woman get out from between the piling and the hull. The owners shook it off after tying up & bought Fred a drink so all was well! Kind of an interesting and different day on Cayuga today. Well, brought home some sweet corn and a few fish for the grill so I better fire that baby up! See ya, -Andy

That's ridiculously reckless boat use on the part of the other boater! Hope they catch up w/ that dude & hope your shorts came clean in the wash. -Andy

Mark, good to see the new rig is at home in the Fingers HM we use the Scotty Power grips for copper & core out on the boards (remember; only clip to the power pro- never the lead or the copper)

The probe works nice w/ the 15lb torpedo I use the 13lbers on my other riggers & things seem to balance out better & less BB than when I had a 13 on the probe.

Have shot both & can't say I see any difference.

Good going! -Andy

Hey Chris, I'm looking forward to checking this stuff out. -Andy

Green horn here, gonna try & get educated for a walleye mission on Erie. Need to learn a whole new language I guess! Anyway, I'm hoping to give things a go Sun 7/30 thru Wens 8/3. Need info on stuff like how far out to go, down speed, depth of baits,etc I got a fair amount of experience using inlines (Church) and big boards, snap weights,slide divers, riggers & core. Got stingers/stix /cranks - (No clue on crawler harness stuff, need major help on this if this is the way to go) I'll be staying in Lockport,NY and trailering down to Dunkirk/Barcelona w/ my Starcraft Islander. I have the Fishing Chip in my Lowrance Global Map 5200 GPS. Any Help is appreciated! Thanks, -Andy

Me and my crew really appreciate the congrats guys but once again let's all give the biggest round of applause to Scott & Barney who so selflessly put so much into all these tournaments that we have so much fun at all year long. Here's a toast to you

I'm gonna copy a reply I made to some one asking what the 'right temp to look for was' that I made last week w/ a couple add ons cuz I think it would be useful for guys looking at getting their first speed & temp unit and there seems to be a lot of interest in this right now. Here's my 2 cents: Speed & temp units are great but let's all remember that we are not fundamentally looking for the 'right temp' or the 'right speed' but rather we are looking to hook up fish. A couple examples will help clarify what I'm saying: On Tues 7/19 we took Kings,cohos, and browns on Ontario in 60-65 degree water. All these fish were 'out of temp' for mid summer except maybe the browns and the Kings were mature adults 27-30lbs. Marked very, very few fish that day so I fished the bait and once the pattern was established we just worked the water where the fish were coming from using down speed to help us fish both East & West trolls w/ current at the same productive speed at the ball and just ignored the temp side of the equation. On Sunday 7/24 we caught big lakers & salmon on Cayuga down in cold water (43-47) down 90'+ over 300-400FOW. On this outing we did use the temp side of the equation as well as down speed once we had the pattern established. I like to get as much info about my fishing grounds as possible (down temp, structure, water clarity etc) but the most important thing to find out is where the 'active' fish are and what kind of presentation and down speed is gonna get em to go. Here's my advice for what it's worth ,which is probably not a lot, but anyway; 1.)Get some down temp & down speed technology & play around with it and learn the basic temp parameters for the fish you are chasing. 2.)When you start fishing just get the probe rigger down, raise & lower your probe rigger while you're looking at the sonar screen and see if you can establish ;a.) do you have fish and or bait on the sonar. b.) do you have temps that fish like if you don't have bait and or fish. 3.) If you have bait & fish prioritize your spread towards that zone & don't focus too hard on the temp (speed is probably gonna be more important) but keep a line or so above and below where you are marking fish too (remember you haven't gotten any yet so you really don't know where the 'active' fish are!) If you don't at least have bait n temp, it might pay to look elsewhere. 4.) If you do at least have bait and temp then troll at an avg speed (2.0-2.5 surface or so) & do a zig zag troll and see if you can get the fish to go. A zig zag tells you a lot cuz outside lines are relatively faster & inside lines are relatively slower.Change speed up and then down, make sure you are giving them a balance of spoons and FFs and if you still can't get em to go then start changing colors,etc. In summary: A speed n' temp(snt) unit can be a fun toy but finding the actual pattern that catches fish is obviously the real goal cuz that makes a fishing trip a bit more fun! The snt is just another tool. Have a good time, -Andy