chowder

Wondering if there are some economical but solid approaches anybody has taken to get some kind of spotlight & flood light benefits. Looked at what West Marine's got & I can see a lot of options and too much money for most of them. Thinking maybe a hand held spot (battery or 12v plug in?) and maybe an Ag equipment style Halogen for the back deck. Suggestions?

Nice ones! I can see where you were when ya took the pix, how about a little blurb on the presentation?

Rollie, I run the SD lite bite w/ the heavier weight & Mag ring on wire. To get to 80' down on 1.5-2 setting you need to let out approx 240' wire. I'm pretty sure you will find that depth/ foot of line out is a curve not a linear relationship. Especially w/ mono I'm quite sure you are going to have to let out a whole lot more than 2:1 to get down to the lakers w/ that setup. Just my 2 cents. -Andy

I find that sometimes the small 2" Pin minnows are what BTs and Bows want but the hooks just don't stand up to the larger fish, I've had quite a few straighten right out. I'm talking about the 2" Pins. These hooks are very small & light. If anybody has successfully replaced these hooks w/ either a single or a treble that's stronger w/ out impairing the action of these little stix tell me what you used, size, brand, source, etc. Thanks much!

I've fished Cayuga's open water for 12 months in a row. At the end of Sept I park my Islander I/O in the machine shed and start using my 16' outboard. I keep the 16' in one of those Shelter Logic "garage in a box" shelters. It works great, it's even warm in there when the sun is out, so if I need to mess around w/ stuff it's pretty comfortable. If I didn't have my machine shed I'd get a bigger Shelter Logic shelter for the Islander.

I've come to really prefer torpedo shaped weights. Sounds like what you've got should work similar to torpedoes. Not sure what I think about directional weights, got a pair that have become spares (actually I used em on Saturday come to think about it) seems like the deeper you go the more unpredictable they get in terms of planing & spinning especially in turns.

Coup, I'm glad to hear you're getting in some extra hours, sure wouldn't want to hear you crying poverty on the kicker deal all next season Nice job on the perch, there's a few meals! -Andy

Depending on the time of year the active/feeding lakers on Cayuga can actually range a fair amount in terms of both suspended depth and total water column depth. Actually I'd go further to venture that during a lot of the summer anyway it seems to me that there are multiple populations of Lakers that are using different parts of the lake differently which is pretty cool and can lead to a number of different approaches all being successful to varying degrees at the same time.

I think any rod w/ the good Aftco roller guides is going to be $100+ (the guides alone are $40-50).

Rick, I want to thank you for reminding me about some of core's different qualities. I remember a post/conversation we had last spring about 10 colors vs. 200 copper along the same lines. Interestingly, this was made clear trolling for Atlantics yesterday on Cayuga when the salmon hit baits on 10 colors and 6 colors but ignored similar stuff on 150 and 200 copper. -Andy

As a farmer w/ 500 acres in forage crops and as hunter w/ a lot of experience let me explain something to everyone about food plots. 1. Most food plots attract deer for the simple reason that the forage is a "new seeding". Young emerging plants ( a "new seeding") have very low NDF (neutral detergent fiber) and Lignin values. These values are an indication of the digestibility of the forage source and are used by nutritionists to compare forages in order to balance ruminant diets in farm animals. 2.What continues to attract deer to a food plot after the stand is "established" (three years later) has more to do w/ the variety and family of the plants that were sowed in the plot. 3. As a guy who winds up getting dragged into the establishment of these plots on some of the farms we rent, as a service to the landlord, I can tell you that very few of these plots ever make it to mature stands. Most food plots are too small, the soil is too acidic but most of all the deer ( tutkeys are even worse) just destroy the least hardy species in the seed mix. The result is a stand of the plants the deer like the least b/c they were left alone enough to get established. My point is that it can be very difficult to compare seed mixes etc when the first reason that deer come to a food plot is b/c the plants are immature (not because there is something special about the variety planted). Additionally I am suggesting that you be very realistic about the amount of time you are going to put into developing a long term forage resource for deer in an area where they have unrestricted access to the forage, Third be careful about trying to make comparisons between different seed mixes b/c many stands never mature and those that do may have a very different composition than the same seed mix planted under different conditions. This is not to say don't mess w/ food plots ( I don't but I'd rather go fishing) Just try and keep an eye on the big picture. Thought I'd add another observation. Give plenty of forethought to how you are going to use the food plot. Human travel routes to and from stand are the first things mature deer use to educate themselves about hunting pressure, not just scent coming from a hunter "in position".

What a gorgeous day on the water! A little on the slow side as far as the fishing goes but hey it was better than another day of ice fishing. Put 2 nice salmon and 2 good lakers in the cooler, tons of dinks. We found the salmon down 50' over 100-200, lakers were down 90'+ over same.

I'll run 2 cheated riggers, 2 slide divers, & 2 cores/coppers if I can find anybody who isn't too busy for a mid day adventure.

Might try to launch a trolling mission out of T-Falls today, can't get over there till noon & the usual partners in crime appear at this point to be unavailable. Not sure this will happen yet but drop me a pm if interested w/ cell #. -Andy

I couldn't believe how much easier it was to fish out of my 16.5 Alumacraft Side console after I took out all but the drivers seat. There is still the carpeted side bench over the live well for an extra person or two to sit on, heck that's where most people sat anyway.

Jack, another thing you could look into for minimizing problems between a chute copper and other lines is hook up a pike ball float to the copper so you can float that rig back and out of the back of the boat conflict zone if you need to. Also, not sure how you're boat is set up but you can stick a chute copper up in a rocket launcher holder to get it out of the way too. Set the drag a little light and it will be easier to get it out of there w/ a fish on it.

Had one land on the peak of the barn roof in December. I had just pulled into the driveway & my spotting scope was lying on the passenger seat. Spent about 5 minutes watching it before it split- AMAZING BIRD!

Ray, what you need in that canoe now is an auto pilot. I think Hank's got a sweet heart deal w/ Simrad, probably get you into one pdq!

Anybody got an opinion on 2 color core vs. just using snap weights on a flatline to get an offering to spring,fall, and winter browns,landlocks, & bows that are feeding down a little. I put together a pair of 2 color reels two years ago but generally I wind up just putting on snap weights on one or 2 flatl planer lines to get down the 10' or so instead of using the core but maybe the core would be more effective- I'm not sure I see much difference. I'd like to respool these reels & use them as additional flat planer lines, it seems like I'd get a lot more use out of them that way. What would you do?

FYI; there is a way to fillet pickerel & pike and you wind up w/ boneless fillets, perhaps you know the technique already. We did up a big pile of these breaded fillets last nite cajun style w/ "dirty rice" and it's ALL GONE!

I'm a very practical guy, here's how I look at this issue; 1. You gotta find fish when you go fishing 2. You gotta attract the fish you find into striking something in the spread. So maybe it's a bit simplistic but I figure you're odds are gonna improve if you're spread covers not only the parts of the water column that you suspect will be most productive but covers by presenting the baits in a way that will be most productive. Problem is you don't know the presentation that's gonna be most productive when you start. So, I would suggest feeling out the fish w/ a simple balanced spread of lines w/ delivery devices (riggers and dipsy divers) and some lines w/out delivery devices (lead core/copper and under certain conditions(winter& spring) flat lines. I realize this view point is simplistic but hey it sure works for me!

I don't have enough experience w/ this stuff or know enough about how you fish to really give you a good answer on that. I will say that if you fish mostly for kings out of Sodus then maybe a 300 and a 500, and get the 500 marked w/ the shrink tube so you could use it down the chute as a 200 or a 400 if the conditions required it. I know some people attach the copper itself to the release on the boards w/ rubber bands(I don't do this!)) and if this works you could use the marked 500 out to the side as a 200 or 400. Hopefully someone w/ more experience will add their 2 cents on this excellent question.

Vic, I use leadcore to get down to 30-35 feet . After that I go w/ copper b/c it's just so much more effective. If you wish to present baits relatively shallow the core is what you want b/c you will have more line out and thus you get a "stealthier" presentation. For relatively shallow presentations this is a good thing but this turns into a giant hassle when you need 20 colors to get down to 100' (if the core will really even get that far down). I'm sure you use snap weights too, for the benefit of others I thought I'd mention that these little guys can multiply the depth of short cores and flat lines w/ out having so many different combos on the boat.

Let you're fingers do the walking. http://www.atommiktrollingflies.com/category.htm Scroll down to the misc. category, wire is listed in there. Great site, it takes a little time to learn the way around it.

You can get the LJ 6-pak schoolies in nickel, nickel w/ holo. flash, and chartreuse. Hammerhead Charters & Tackle (Jim Piano) offers components & complete Lake Trolls that are well worth considering as well.