Adm Byrd

Yeah Mike I've been on his boat, he's been on mine, I've been to his house, even in the basement, we've known each other for thirty some odd years and I ain't never been allowed to see that hoard of spoons - probably for the best - I might try to confiscate some. Looks like Mark should be set to fish Suttons for the rest of his life even if Les loses a few more rigs of them in Seneca! And yes they seem to be more effective with SS single hooks. Also much easier to release them to fight again.

I don't know, looks like a typical Breuer laker around derby time

Congratulations everyone, thanks for putting it together Rob. Enjoyed viewing it everyday

Chad enjoy every minute of time you spend with your family - they grow up fast. Merry Christmas to all. I'm looking forward to all the posts coming next year, if I spend much more time on here I will have to start a LOU Anonymous

A couple more pictures

I've hunted my entire life, started with wild pheasants in NYS to date myself and have hunted deer all my life as well, normally we get together as a gang and drive the deer to the watchers, we had the run of lot of acres and got along with the neighbors but like everything in life things change. Farming methods and land ownership changed clearing hedgerows and allowing many people access to the land - our deer numbers have dropped and their escape routes are no longer predictable. At the same time we all got older and don't enjoy plodding through the swamps all day as we used to. I guess we politely call this patience. So sitting has become more of my deer hunting time. I never got into scent lock clothing or scents to draw deer in, try grunting & bleating from time to time but count more on good positioning of my stands. I also don't care one way or the other about managing deer herd for rack size, I feel people should be able to get out and enjoy the woods, harvest a deer and teach the tradition to our youth. Now on with the story: I bow hunted this year but didn't take time enough to practice to be comfortable beyond a gimme shot so I bought a crossbow this year and on the 4th day of the season shot a beautiful 8 point at the edge of my little farm. I was pumped and my wife even said to get it mounted. I've also been enjoying my late (hunter) blooming daughter's stories & excitement of her bow & gun hunting this year, shes 28 and started hunting 3 years ago. She owns a little land with great hunting opportunities 40 miles west of me. Thanksgiving day she and her boyfriend came to hunt with me so I put them on reasonable stands for the wind and took another stand for myself. About an hour and a half later they are texting me that she got cold and was back at the house making breakfast. 10 steps off my ladder and I here a shot a couple hundred yards south of me in the woods - I walk out a little ticked that I should have stayed longer in my spot.After a very nice breakfast we went back out and her boyfriend and I where going to try and push some woods to her. She got in a stand and I said we should push this little corn field out on our way to start her drive. The field is terrible, the tallest corn is 5", most only 3'. He and I walked 200' and up jumps a buck 15 yards from me bigger than my crossbow buck. When I threw the gun up my illuminated crosshairs where REALLY dim, I quickly turned the knob and as I brought gun up again the buck was stopped and I had NO visible crosshair, I cranked it around a couple more clicks and the deer had gone to where we entered the field and stopped - I had a nice bright site and took a shot - then the deer was gone. Boyfriend and I raced back to where I shot and blood everywhere. Deer was headed for my daughter and I yelled to warn her, got boyfriend to circle other side of the brush lot. I slowly worked my way into brush from an angle of bucks path and cut his trail still bleeding, I made it across the creek when I heard boyfriend start shooting so I plowed my way out and caught up with him. He was lit up from the size of the rack and my daughter was running up to me as well because she saw him out in the field from her stand. So I got her to circle north in the swamp and boyfriend south to the end of an abandoned pasture where he jumped another buck but didn't shoot at it as he was already low on shells. Too quickly I started for where he went into the pasture when I heard crashing in the brush so I backed up to where I could see across to the field on the other side just in time to see a doe go north, I knew the buck would follow her and 3 seconds later I got another 2 shots at him. When I made it to that field he was stumbling and laying down, wobble a couple steps and fall again. I caught him and reluctantly shot him again. Boyfriend was good shot and got a couple in him and I broke a hinf leg with one of my last 2 shots. When we got looking at him he had been rifle shot through both sides of a rear hoof about an inch up - I'm sure thats why he was laying in the open and moving slower than normal. I always say I'd rather be lucky than good. As a side note I included a picture of first deers front hoof, he was limping when I shot him. He jumped slightly when I shot him, walked 6 more steps and flipped over dead - I love my crossbow.

So I took last week off to hunt, passed on a young buck last Saturday morning - then the rain came so I went to work on Monday. Tuesday morning I went behind the house and got in a stand at the edge of the swamp in a big willow tree. Stand is a little crooked making it uncomfortable to sit or stand in for long. The wind was light and temp was comfortable so I would sit for a bit then stand which allowed me to see behind me. About 8:00 when I turned around I got the side view of a deers rump with flag up very slowly walking into the trees and brush behind me. I stood a while watching to see if the deer might pop back out. After 15 - 20 minutes I caught movement from the swamp and a doe came in close enough for a shot but I passed. She went into the same brush about 150' closer to me than the first deer. More waiting, kind of zoned out and when I looked up again she was back out and walking straight away from me, as I watch her this guy comes out and I'm sure he's going to follow her leaving me no shot. But he decided to back track the does route and walks by me at 25 yards, when I let fly he jumped once took 10 steps, stopped, kicked at the entrance wound with his front foot once then did a back flip and was dead right there - all right in front of me.Of course I didn't bring knife or anything with me so I took a couple quick pics and walked home got my stuff and managed to get the tractor within a 150' of him without getting muddy - nice. 20" inside spread and most symmetrical racked deer I've ever got - yup he's at Clingermans and I got to find a spot on the wall by February.

Nice going Brian. Liney and I went out of Hughes today, on the water at 6AM, cruised out to 370', checked the temp and started trolling with 3 riggers and 2 dipsy's and cheaters. We didn't mark much but had action all day, mostly small kings and a nice mix of steelies. We spent most of our time between 350 and 650 feet. we eventually worked our way in this afternoon to 130 - 250' and marked more bait and fish but only hooked little guys and had many releases with nobody home. We got our best king (17#) on the dipsy along with one other but most of the action was spoon bite. We had our best luck on purple with green. Beautiful day with cloud cover and a little mist but the stable flies where out in force. Bob We missed you Les

Nice work Mark & Les, they didn't come easy today. Liney and I where hoping to make it a mini derby with the 2 Bob's against the 2 Breuer's but we couldn't seem to get many of those shallow fish to cooperate or fish at any depth for that matter, wonder if the full moon / clear night sky had an influence on the bite today? We started similar to you and had a little bow in a few minutes but it didn't trip the black release - happened to see the rods rise a little on that rigger - that was the norm for the day - we had to keep checking the rig rods for fish. It worked out because the fleas where out in force and the rods needed cleaning often. About 9AM we went east picking up a couple fish on the way across finding several boats working 150' range and we began marking lots of fish with less bait than west side but couldn't find anything they wanted to hit on, eventually returning to Deans which was jammed up when we wanted to leave - note to self don't quit at 1PM on a nice summer Sunday. On our way across we had a hit and when we started clearing rods the cross wind had gotten all the riggers & cheaters tangled so we knew it was time to quit. We ran leadcores at varying depths and baits without a touch, then switched over to wire & dipsys and still no hits but the wire sure did hold a ton of fleas. That brown you got Mark was a beauty. Can't wait till next weekend.

Great day for celebration off Hughes today Yesterday I convinced Les (Sk8man) that he should go to the big pond with me today. He showed up at the house around 5AM and we launched around 6AM. The lake was perfect with a gentle NW breeze - never saw any flies. As per normal for us the bickering started with how much water to start in and who gets which side of the boat, well I picked 150' and he picked port side. With that settled we got things ready and fired up the kicker and pointed it north and hit the auto pilot. We marked a fish at 75' so I started with a rigger at 80' and I picked an ugly NK28 I've never tried before, put a mixed vegetable spinny with a green fly out 200' on a big dipsy on 2 1/2 and added a 10 color leadcore off a Church board, was getting ready to throw a cheater on the rigger when it fired - first fish of the season from Lake O and its a little king. As the morning wore on that ugly spoon got one hell of a workout. I couldn't buy a hit on the flasher fly, I found a second ugly spoon in my box and put that with a silver dodger behind the dipsy and ran it out 250. I will let Les try to recount how many fish and hits we think we got, I spent an hour untangling my leadcore after one of a double of kings decided to swim into it - we must have had a half dozen hits and 3 or 4 fish landed while I had a birds nest on the floor and 15 - 30 yards trailing in the water behind us. We had 3 explosive hits on our dipsy's, Les lost 2 spindoctors, one with one of his homemade flies and one with meat and I lost one of the ugly spoons. I finally hooked and landed a 17# king after a 10 minute battle. We had a bunch of steelies on, one that jumped 3' out of the water 50' behind the boat. We got them on both cheaters and rigs. Our best depth was 200' - 250' and we ran riggers around 100'. The best day I've had on Lake O in a long long time.

Brian, my daughter and I went out of Dean's as well, we arrived around 8AM to a full parking lot, we went a few miles south and set up in middle of the lake, we made over to the east side around the college and caught fish everywhere. We ran 2 downriggers mostly at 85 and 105, both w/ cheaters, 2 wire dipsy / spin doctor / fly combos out 250 - 300 and two 10 color leadcores at varying lengths. We ran between 2.4 and 2.7 gps. Leadcores accounted for 3 hits and only one rainbow. The downriggers kept us busy and we got half a dozen on the dipsys including one that initially fought like a king for 15 seconds, then a throbbing beast that I couldn't stop from running out 120' and then it felt like a tree that we couldn't gain on. We picked up and circled back on it still feeling like a tree and eventually netted a 12 - 13 lb lakes with the treble stuck in the middle of its belly!!!! You must be sore from running those rigs up and down that many times but it sure was fun out there.

Canandaigua Derby Weekend Apparently this was the quiet derby (at least on this forum). We fished both days, took Rainbows and Lakers and one perch on Saturday off leadcores, downriggers and Seth Green rigs, ran a dipsy and various flashers with no action. Biggest for us was a 5.5# rainbow off leadcore. We quit at 4 but should have been done by 2. Morning was very steady with fish picked up on both sides of the lake. We came back this morning and went right to rigs and leadcore eventually adding a big dipsy. We caught some small bows and had a couple good fighters. The dipsy out 250 took a tap and 5 minutes later a smash and we had one of those unusual fantastic fights from a laker, pulled drag and wouldn't come up, finally netted him and our scales said 8.1 - 8.4 depending on the waves. We boxed him and talked about weighing it in. A few minutes later my buddy says to check the one leadcore - its bent more than the other side. When I brought it in far enough to unhook the church board it immediately took off with a strong steady pull, ended up being a 6.5# brown that apparently rolled when it got slack from my removing the board and got the second treble buried below and behind its gill plate, fought like a much larger fish. We then took the laker in to find out it weighed 8# exactly, needed to be heavier than 8.15#. We went back out and picked up a few more small lakers & bows. One of my friends had a really bad day of it on Saturday. Apparently this image taken of the floor of his boat happened twice!

For people who don't catch very many fish these are why I go fishing

Weeds & debris where awful at times but 3/4 of our catch on Sunday came from one leadcore spoon combo and that spoon got crushed this morning by whatever would of been our only good fish.