chowder

Oh Yar, I'm in on the spring fish festival. Had a good day up there today. Your ride is ready & waiting and so are the browns! -Andy

Vic, I really need to put in a big laker haul for the smoker, finishing the 2cd batch now- that's why I went to the N.end. I'm heading up to Hanks in the am to get in some brown action which I gotta believe is gonna be a better bet up there than the FLX. Give me a shout if you want to go up this week, my Islander will be in a slip.

Good going on that Nice brown! -Andy

Lots of inactive lakers still locked up over bait down 150-250+. I got out late (crack o' noon) Active fish fish were in 90-120 FOW. Yesterday was overcast & bloody death/crazy b*tch were very, very hot w/ non stop action in a few small pockets @ 2.2. There is a lot of empty water up there too. Ran into a couple cookie cutters on short cores too but no real pattern to those hookups. Water was 37-38 out in 100FOW. -Andy

I wound up alone up there so I buzzed down in front of the Rat's and trolled around till my port rigger snagged one of his fish cages, undoing the hasp that secured the top cover. Boxed out pretty quick on the other lines as I circled around the cage still tethered by rigger cable. In all seriousness the laker action on the wires was pretty fast & furious north of LP but I only ran into 2 browns up there on core seemingly by accident. Temp was still 37-38. Good to hear the boats going in! -Andy P.S. when did they pass a law limiting a guy to 3 rods

Thank you Hank.

You want a heavy enough jig head that encourages you to make lots of drops -only bounce 2-3 times without losing contact w/ the jig and then retrieve and repeat- don't bounce,bounce,bounce,etc,etc- you want to trigger an instinctive, reaction strike.

I'm contemplating a mellow outing w/ the 16' out of Long Point (Cayuga) tomorrow. I can't get over there till mid morning but I'm looking forward to having my lunch on the water. Shoot me a pm if interested. -Andy

You don't want the fish to get much of a good look at the jig any way so those may well work fine as long as the hook is very sharp. If you want the jig heads that a lot of people use check out http://terrystackle.com/cart/index.php? ... 20a&page=7 You want the Gamma Ball jig 4/0 BN 1oz. I get my 1.5oz heads from a guy up on Oneida but I don't use em unless I'm in 90FOW. Always use the lightest jig head you can b/c you will feel the strike (often a faint 'tick') much better. Also lot's of plastics will work, your Zoom supers are good & so is an inexpensive plastic from Gander that is a light siver w/ black, it has a nice alewife profile. I've also had some success using modified Gold Star glow squid bodies from Yama****a. Overall I think technique and location are the most important aspects of deep water jigging. -Andy

Looky here King, I started this post because juvenile LLs are being targeted largely by inexperienced, non trollers, who see a 15" fish and it looks big to them. The people you are pointing your finger at are the last guys that need to be looked at! If you have a problem with charter captains in particular and or trolling in general, I would respectfully suggest that this is probably not the best forum for your interests. -Andy

Pretty good advice right there. Another way to think about this is that when a spoon bite is 'on' the relatively short lead between a regular diver & the spoon can spook less aggressive flasher shy fish. If I run spoons w/ divers it's behind long leads on a Slide Diver http://www.slidediver.com/cart/home.php

Thanks Scott! I'll plan on launching there this week instead of going around to Treman.

The shallow flat line on boards approach is fine when it's working but the better fish will move out & down quickly under pressure. You will really find it to be worth your while to rig up some combos that will get you down 20-50' and don't be afraid to run these rigs out in much deeper water 50-200+. As I've said in other posts, right now the water is very close to the same temp from top to bottom and the browns & LLs are often widely scattered after the sun gets very high in the sky. The skippers will hold in tight all day but the good ones didn't get bigger by getting caught by every Tom ,Dick, & Harry thrashing the shallows. P.S. Try these guys for the Maxima http://www.alltackle.com/maxima_line.htm I got a service spool from them last year.

One thing about even the Off Shore reg size inlines is that they do put a fair amount of strain on your line. Ideally I think the Off Shore boards are better suited to a little heavier line & rod than I use for my flat lines which is the Eagle Claw light 7'6" w/ 8lb test. I did lose a heavier fish on Ontario once when my line broke between the strain of the fish and the board going under but never on the FLX. I do like the Off Shore regular size b/c it will pull short cores too. I think the mini board was introduced w/ light spinning type tackle in mind, not sure if they will pull a short core or not but it seems like they probably would - maybe somebody will chime in on this.

In my experience the Off Shore boards http://www.offshoretackle.com/ are best for flat lines and the Church walleye boards http://www.churchtackle.com/ are best for cores.

The only point I'm trying to make is that the LLs can be very vulnerable during Jan, Feb & March, and even into April. Because the adults of this species are a fairly small proportion of the total trout /salmon population of the lake and because a lot of state resources go into attempting to maintain & grow this population, I think we owe it to the fishery to approach this species in particular with as much respect as we can muster. Let's all just remember that our posts have a profound effect on all other anglers and on less experienced anglers in particular. -Andy

Gonna preach to the choir about targeting the juvenile LLs on the FLX again cuz there are a bunch of new guys getting into trolling this spring; So remember guys this is the best fighting fish in our lakes- let's let as many of them grow to be adults as possible. How about keeping one, two or 3 legal fish per boat? ON CAYUGA THEY MUST BE 18" OR BETTER and it should be 20") Also remember that releasing a skipper is no guarantee it will survive. I eat as much fish as anybody but the browns & lakers eat good this time of year too. We all need to keep in mind that the juvenile fish are aggressive & naive and they will continue to keep hitting surface presentations especially in shallow water even with lots of boat traffic but that doesn't mean we need to keep hammering them. Unfortunately catching & killing some of the immature LLs is unavoidable but seriously most of the time the bigger LLs are out & below the skippers after a few boats have worked the shallows. You might not get 30 fish in 3 hours but the ones you will get will be much bigger & better and the fishery will get better too!

Yesterday, Wednesday 3/30, was tough fishing for 'negative' fish w/ a north wind (never good in my book). We got way too many juvenile LLs on flat lines & short cores. Our deeper presentations were pretty quiet save for a few browns and one laker. Our 1 double of the day came just minutes too late as Frisco had just motored away from us after checking in to see what we were up to. Best action was east side from T -Falls to Myers out in 150-250 FOW. A lot of the bait is still locked up out deep & water temps have actually dropped to 36.5-37.5. Ice water was flowing out of T-falls. Dinghy10, in March the whole water column is one temp and the fish are often pretty scattered. I'd be happy to take you out and show you how I cope with this situation (maybe the fish will even be in an 'active' mood). You absolutely need to broaden the depth range you are fishing. If you don't have riggers you may want to consider a slide diver set up and or a lead core rig or 2. Snap weights on your flat lines are another alternative. No matter which one of these tools seem to be suited to you, you will want to get a pair of inline boards to take some of your lines out 100' to the sides of your boat. They are simple to use and the learning curve is short. -Andy

Hey Richard how come you kept your shirt on? Good work guys, real nice fish n' I'll bet it never felt better to get off the water! Chris & I are gonna hit Cayuga tomorrow, sure hope it's not like those pics! -Andy

My flat line reels are spooled w/ Maxima 8lb Ultragreen & I use a 12' Seaguar 8lb Invizx leader. I secure the leader to the main line w/ a very small sampo swivel and then tie a small flat black snap to the end of the FC leader. Remember that if you are catching mostly small landlocks (under 20") you might want to try some deeper presentations using riggers and or lead core.

I'm officially jealous as hell & will finally force you to take me out after waldo on Oneida this fall! -Andy

As a Livestock farmer,boat owner, consumer, and tax payer I have nothing good to say about ethanol because; 1. it takes more fuel to produce ethanol from corn than the amount of fuel that you get back from this process (anybody with 1/2 a brain should be able to figure out there is a major problem with that picture) 2. the ethanol plants are paid a substantial subsidy to produce ethanol which in turn greatly inflates the price of corn, (at this point 33% of the U.S. corn crop is going into ethanol!) which makes livestock feed more expensive and in turn livestock products more expensive (bought any hamburger lately?) and makes food for poorer, developing countries much more expensive. So, we the people are paying our hard earned dollars to create inflation which further decreases the real value of our hard earned dollars and is helping to increase malnutrition in the 3rd world. 3. ethanol is NFG for marine engines - since fishing is one of the most important things in life, this aspect of the ethanol bamboozle is obviously reason enough to kill the pork barrel legislation that's propping up this gigantic scam that benefits agribusiness, large grain farmers, commodity traders, John Deere, Case -IH, and anybody else who can figure out a way to get a slice of the action! Ok, I feel better now...

Jeez Rob I'm sure it definitely cut's down on the importance of shot placement but it must be a little rough on the hide! Also; Mark, you & I are actually saying the same thing, the only difference is that I was addressing a more general audience, figuring that if the original poster was already a highly experienced large caliber marksman he wouldn't need the help of a bunch of guys on a fishing forum to pick out a firearm. No offense intended. Peace Bro -Andy

Not to be a party pooper but it's going to be a whole lot easier for the average shooter to work up to longer range shots with the 22-250 compared to a 308. Let's face it the 308 makes a decent jump when you touch it off which is going to make proper follow thru and everything about proper form more challenging. In fact the more I think about this whole issue the more I think that the most thorough approach to this whole thing would be to start off with a Savage model 93 22WMR heavy and put a $150 scope on it. This rifle is cheap,very easy on the shooter,cheap to shoot, and is a true, highly accurate 100 yd rifle (unlike a regular 22). So ya shoot this thing for a while, may be even whack a yote that stands out there at 110 yds, but most of all you develop some good shooting form and get rid of any bad habits you've picked up. After your wallet has recovered from this adventure and you are pretty confident in your shooting you got a choice (unless you have a lot of jack, in which case you can do what you want!) If you really want to do the predator thing and you all ready have a 'deer' rifle then you get a decent 22-250 w/ some good glass and start working with that cuz it's hands down the flattest shooter w/ minimal recoil. If on the other hand you don't have decent 'deer' rifle and you might not do a whole lot of predator hunting you might want to go with say a 243 or a 308 and hunt both predators/varmints and deer with it. You won't save much if anything on high quality ammo using the single purpose 22-250 over the higher caliber, wider purpose rifle like the 243 or 308 anyway, and with the single higher caliber rifle you only have to put the $ into one serious rifle/scope combo (remember- spend on the scope what you spend on the rifle, so we're not talking peanuts here!) Any way that's my 2 cents & I'll shut up now.

Went & googled it -looks like a great scope! Couldn't quite tell whether the turrets were adjustable/tac type or covered but I see it has side focus so I assumed they are. I mounted the scope on my 308 with a Picatinny rail and HD rings which added to the wallet impact but I figured it was probably worth it. Good luck w/ that nice combo! -Andy