chowder

Just an awesome story with the great feel of the epic event that actually went down for real for you guys! Hang in there & good luck!

Hank possesses a combination of tremendous knowledge with a no nonsense 'get it done right with no B.S.' approach. On top of being a top notch marine mechanic, Hank is one of those rare people you meet in life that really cares about others. -Andy

Eskimo Joe , the legend continues!

Many of the active fish and their prey at this time of year are up in the top of the water column and they will not really show up on the sonar. Drop an way point when you hit fish and go back and work it! Many times these spring fish are scattered by traffic but they are also scattered due to a lack of any temp stratification, so don't get too hung up on a particular presentation depth, be flexible and work the water column from the surface down to at least 30' down. The fish will 'tell you' what they are up to and don't be surprised when after a little while they tell you something different.

Sounds like a good trip!

His smile says it all, great job!

Got things taken care of & got back out on the south end solo this afternoon - lots of small/med & a handful of 15-18"s. Had a real dandy on heading back to Myers, thank god it came unbuttoned b4 I got to see it b/c it might have come back to haunt me in my dreams, it was a real good fish!. Really nice day hanging out on the water & good to visit w/ all of you folks on the radio. -Andy

Well, the Islander shakedown was shaky. Couldn't get the starter on the i/o to engage so we just trolled around w/ the kicker. I do love my new Auroralite planer boards! Managed a real nice mixed bag of pretty decent lakers,browns, and salmon. Best setup was the braid slide diver w/ watermelon spoon, next best was 5 colors off the board w/ a glow frog. Had to stop running cheaters off the riggers b/c they were just clogged w/ 12"-15" salmon. Got a lot of small browns and salmon on stix off boards and small spoons down 15-20' off the riggers. Here's my son Elliot w/ a decent brown.

I'm shaking down my newly refitted Islander today, might need somebody tomorrow for a south end browns run if we make it back to shore today. Shoot me a pm if interested in a low pressure, mid morning sortie. -Andy

John, here's a good rule of thumb; if your flasher/fly dipsies are taking fish consistently on a given day and your flasher/fly riggers riggers are not then run short leads to see what gives. Generally speaking, if your flasher fly dipsies are not taking hits, it's probably a good idea to try a spoon program off the riggers w/ long leads.

Awesome!

Great pictures! Nice fish!

I've used a pair of the Cuda's a couple times when my dipsy & riggers were dead & the coppers were doing a few fish. I got a few fish that way. Like everything else there is a learning curve to these things and I'm not very far up the curve yet. The red off shore releases should not come off if you are careful to place the line behind the pin just like using a snap weight. Has anybody tried painting these things black? I realize that they are easier to see as they are but wonder if adding a bit more stealth would help?

Anytime you want to go, even when it's crumby out we just drop the curtain and turn on the heater -Andy

We trolled form Sheldrake to Deans and Aurora to N.Point, but it was a stealth spoon bite on Fri in the N.end. We took 6 on the Diehard super slim on 500' copper, 4 on a alewife Silver streak on 400' copper, and I think like 3 on a dark green/crush glow spinny/ proctologist fly on the mag wire dipsy. They didn't even want my spoons off the riggers, even w/ long leads. Fish were real scattered. Only way I got em to hit the flasher/flies off the dipsies was to let them flutter down by dumping the throttle over a good arch, and I was running them deep like Sean said. Don't feel bad there are days when they just don't seem to want to go. When I pulled out most everybody we talked to had a skunk on board. -Andy

PM sent

Getting married to my wife was one of the few smart things I've done in life, congratulations Mike!

Got another little Cayuga mission in today, fish seemed a bit more scattered for me, got a steady pick going on DW spoons on 400' & 500' copper w/ few on the dipsy. Check out the alewives in this lakers stomach, amazing it had room to whack a spoon!

Sorry about your loss. All I can say is; Palomar all the way baby, even if you have to pull a long leader thru it to get it done, especially with 8lb, which is what I run for BTs too. P.S. Don't forget to wet the line b4 pulling tight, the heat created by the friction is a killer on light line.

I just added a Yamaha T8 high thrust tiller model with power trim from Ship yard Marine (very competitive pricing) and would highly recommend it.Very easy starting. In the end I really think you will be way ahead to stay away from older, used 2 strokes and cheap adjustable kicker brackets. Spend your precious time fishing not fighting fumes and somebodies old headaches. I actually did the math on this for what it's worth!

Ray said it!

Well I gotta say "Captain Rat" sounds like a pretty cool name! Congrats to all you guys!

Outstanding! -Andy

I asked this last year and the consensus was 4.) The spacing you give (18-30") is for 8" spinnies, you can run much longer leads on 10" spinnies and I've been running longer leaders on the 8" and seen good results some days!

Yes Pete, I get it. I'm sorta sour on loop knots though (lost a slammer to a break right at the neck of the loop knot last fall ) -Andy