Adm Byrd

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and hope Santa brought you all that fishing gear you where dreaming of, if not, see you at the show in January!!

I bet you still got that smile, nice buck!

It seems that I have a group of friends who enjoy ball busting, especially when its about / around Les. Well one of those friends who has been absent from our fishing for a while reminded me of another self inflicted epic event in the Life - of - Les, something to do with a swordfish sandwich! I know I'm still in tears and it was several years ago now. Thanks Scott.

First, Les's leadcore started ripping line when we where out past 500 FOW, not in shallow, he just doesn't want to admit that I can find him to the bigger fish. Glad we where alone out there as that fish used a lot of line and covered a lot of water. Second that shoddily made fly that he gave me has been shedding strands like my lab sheds hair in March. I only used it to boost his confidence as I knew my E chip attracter could lure in a respectable salmon on its own. Finally Les gives me a camera the size of a matchbook and many orders about wait for the frame to pop up, hold the button down and wait, it shouldn't be doing that - I grab pics with my phone but they aren't good enough - it's a wonder he hasn't dropped that phone in a minnow bucket yet. The odd couple remark is spot on, we can build a ball busting event out of any trivial happening and ride on it for years - couldn't have a better fishing partner.

Brian, They gave us a fancy bag full of your rigs, lots of colors, looks like they should catch us a bunch of lakers. thank s for being so generous. Bob

Thanks for posting the pics Les. Liney was psyched about fishing this one for the week leading up to it. We went out Saturday morning and started deep as that's where he believes the big ones are. After my first selection of lures went untouched we started experimenting and started to connect with 4 -6# fish, got a nice 4 - 5 # rainbow on the 10 color leadcore that came up and jumped 3 to 4 times 4 different times. We had a slow & steady bite all day. The launch was a fiasco Saturday afternoon. We where whipped but decided to start at the same time Sunday. Sunday was slower than Saturday for us with 2 - 3# fish being the norm. The wind was better than the flat water before it picked up but was a challenge to try and maintain a decent presentation. Liney ran the autopilot and kept us where he wanted. On a couple of our turns we got blown into very tight turns. When I saw a decent mark down deep I let Lineys rig out a little but it stopped, when I looked over my rig rod was bent - dam they must have come together on one of those turns - lots of cussing by me - and we started bring our rigs up together. My top leader's hook had caught his rig line so I got that unhooked but we still where connected, my next leader had wrapped around his mainline and when I was trying to unwrap it Liney wasn't reeling his up to allow me to reach it, when I looked at his rod tip it was REALLY bent over and the rig line was just behind the boat. After I got my leader off his line the fish stayed right with us straight down. After a good long while we got to the last leader and Liney lifting as high as he could I was able to net it at the surface - it went into the net pointed straight down. That fish made very few head shakes and just kept full power trying to go for the bottom - amazing fight. And we won't talk about trying to get off at the launch on Sunday - I think every 3x a year boater was out there. I do want to let you know Les that Liney had brought a banana to eat on Saturday and it was still there Sunday afternoon!!!!!

One of my friends put his grand daughter onto a bird, should have been great weather to work the birds.

Several years ago I was ice fishing Canandaigua in 4' of water with my hut flipped over me when a bunch of 6" perch started moving below me, they where very interested in my bait when suddenly a huge laker (10# range) came from nowhere after those perch, caused a 2" wake in my hole. Not sure who was more startled, the perch or me. Many years ago I caught a laker in 140' of water still fishing. When I cleaned it there was a mouse in its stomach that was reasonably fresh looking.

Great thread Rob, enjoyed reading it, think it may have been a bit tamer than last years. I had a successful season but seeing my daughter harvest her first bow buck made my year. She is 30 and started hunting 4 years ago. The buck came from behind her and she first saw it standing at the base of her ladder, she was so excited she couldn't draw the bow back on her first attempt - the buck never saw her and moved WAY out to 8 yards where she put the arrow in right beside the spine and out the opposite shoulder. She made a perfect placed shot and he only went 30 yards, just out of her sight which made her pretty nervous. I came to help her look for it and her excitement was contagious. She waited in her stand for an hour for her fiance and I to get there and had a second larger buck walk under her while she waited. to top it off she gutted it herself like it was her 20th deer. I also stalked a standing cornfield and snuck up on a sleeping coyote at 20 yards, as I lowered my gun from giving him a dirt nap a second one jumped into the same row at 10 yards running for his buddy, piled that one on top of the first one. As I always say "I'd rather be lucky than good" Merry Christmas to all

Got to Hughes 6:30 this morning, pretty good size rollers, we set up in 350 FOW and trolled NE into the waves with the big motor, was a slow bite and couldn't keep them hooked, they would even jump and sound and then "let go". Eventually the wind settled down and we just wandered between 350 - 600FOW with a hit here and there. The wires where dead for us but had rigger bite at 65 - 90 feet down, had an old NK 28 that I painted the back black parked all day at 65' and it got us a 28# beast that we thought was going to spool our 47H - 45 minutes later we got it in the net. A short time later the 100' rigger took off through our setup and kept on going eventually jumping 3 - 4 hundred yards out, before we could get him coming in the 65' took off again and we landed an 18# king. As I brought the missile fish back to the boat he felt more like an old boot, then started looking odd how he was coming in, a 10# that somehow got hooked in the meat at the base of his tail - was fun when he took off though!!! The big guy went 27.5 on Hughes scales 3 hours after we caught him.Now I need to the paint back on that spoon.

My fishing partner has arthritis and doesn't have the hand dexterity to comfortably turn standard size reel handles. Our Daiwa 47's are getting old and maybe ready for retirement, I have some oversize handles on those but he can run our SG57LC3B"s and the high speed retrieve Okumas that I have leadcore on. I'm sure others on here have the same concerns - what does everyone use? Thanks, Bob

Last week we fished in 200', this week we went out to 450' and found temp down around 90'. We pointed the auto pilot at 23 degrees, didn't pay any attention to speed and set up colors that worked last week. When we finally got a break we where at 712' and had 8 fish so we turned around and went back, ended somewhere around 16 fish - kings and steelies. The dipsies where on fire first, them the riggers and then the cheaters - lost all my larger orange taped spoons. Liney accidentally got a birds nest in a wire rod and yup it took a hit - who said fishing is cheap! towards the end the 100' rigger took a shot and the fish acted different - stayed deep, didn't scream much.....till it headed for the boat, went over and under 2 dipsies on port side, jumped clear of water 20' off side of boat and sounded then came back up through dipsies 2 more times then went for rigger cables, went around 2 of them, laughed at me from 8' under surface then sounded again cutting wire on the cable - This is why Sk8man says: "THEY CALL THEM KINGS FOR A REASON" and why I keep going. Now to see who has best deals on spoons & cable Our speed was around 2.4 and rarely had to turn to get a hit - the fish gods where smiling on us today :->