CaptSpike

It is actually simple trig. If you know the angle and the cable length you can trig out the actual depth of the ball. I believe that was your question. In the case of the rigger line that would be your hypot. The length you want to know is the adjacent leg of the triangle. So since the Cosine of the angle is = the adjacent over the hyp. The adjacent leg (the distance you want to know) is = to the cosine of the angle times the length of cable you have out. You can pick up a little reference guide with sine, cosine and tangent numbers for various degrees. take the number mutiply by the cable out will give you actual depth. Spike

Probably a Cannon probe, they tell you the depth at the ball. Spike

You will def. need to go faster downstream to get the lures working right. Spike

Great report Rod. You are too humble as well. I have fished with you and you are good not just Lucky! Keep up the good work. Mark

I have been fishing the lake with Heartland med action rods. i just set two rods up with Ugly stick light action (8'3"). My thought are to have a little more fun with the lighter rods. I am also second guessing if they are to light. Thoughts? Spike

You definitely have a tricky situation there. At zero SOG your lures are acted on by the downstream current as if they were being run at that speed (same as current on the lake). So when you go 2mph SOG you maye be up to 4mph action on the lures. going with the urrent you will need to speed up the boat faster than the current to apply any action to your lures. When I trolled the river for stripers I would always get more hits going with the current than I would going against it, likely due to better lure speed control. I know back trolling works on some species but the river I fished was too crowded to think about trying that. Anyway to your question the SOG of the GPS is much different than the paddle wheel. they are both measuring boat speed but by two very different methods. One is actually speed over ground where the other is speed over water. The water speed is what determines your lure action. Spike

I had the old Cannon where the wet towel trick worked. last yr I bought the new Cannon and it had the same issue so wet towel it was. billyV has the same probe with zero issues. Cannon is saying it is likely a bad ground. I rewired to the display and tested it once on a local lake (only use the probe once a yr when I go to ontario) and it worked fine down to 95'. So hopefully I have the problem solved. Also check your boat ground. With the boat in the water check from the neg. terminal on the battery to a known ground on the boat (part of the boat you know is making contact with the water, a grounding plate on a glass boat is a hgood example) there should be less than .7volts reading. Any higher you have a bad ground and need to make a better ground to the water. It explains how to check your boats ground in the manual. From the manual: 5. Verify boat ground. The system will work best if the ground (battery–) connected to the monitor display is also in contact with the water. If this ground connection is not in place you may not see data or the data may be inconsistent. Display power on – updates are intermittent: 1. Verify boat ground. The system will work the best if the ground (battery–) connected to the monitor display is also in contact with the water. If this ground connection is not in place you may not see data or the data may be inconsistent. No data below 100 feet: 1. Verify boat ground. The system will work best if the ground (battery–) connected to the monitor display is also in contact with the water. If this ground connection is not in place you may not see data or the data may be inconsistent. How do I know if my boat is grounded properly – test method? 1. When on the water, use a volt meter and measure from battery ground (battery–) to any metal that is electrically connected to the water. This reading should be less than 0.7V. Using an ohm meter to check continuity may give you inaccurate results. Good luck, Spike Edit: I assume you only used it shallow early in the season and it worked. If you have used it deep and it worked then it is likely the batteries or maybe your ground is failing. I have had a few boats where over time the battery connection degrade thru the season. try cleaning them up as well. I use Super Lube on them now to prevent that from happening.

I have a cannon probe and have always used the scotty release that uses a longline clamp to hold the release to the DR cable. Problem is this release does kink the cable over the period of a weeks use. I haven't lost any gear to the kink but always suspect there is potential. The set up basically goes like this. Weight, snap swivel terminated to DR line. The probe attaches to the line above the snap swivel. If I use a blacks release on the end of the DR cable it puts the release below the probe (not good). Any other suggestions? I'm not to familiar with all the various releases available as I had always used Cannon, Scotty clamp (light grade, which do not effect cable) and now Chamberlain for local fishing. Chamberlain is my favorite locally but I don't know if they would hold a FF, besides the position for these would be the same as the blacks, below the probe. I have used a Roemer stacker and will likely try one of them to help my situation. I also rigged up a chamberlain to the Roemer body for stacking. It works pretty good. Again I am not sure a chamberlain will hold a FF combo. Maybe I just answered my own question, use a Roemer above the probe. Anyway if anyone has any other suggestion let me know. I have read something about blacks release between stop beads but have no idea what a stop bead is. Thanks for any help. Spike

Tanner25 you should get the rods ready before you go. Spool up with the correct size mono. As for the wire for dipsy rods you may be out of luck locally. Hopefully you can get that out there the night before so you can spool up. Cabelas has a selection of lures and flashers and flies for the big lake. Not as good as a shop out there but they do have some. There was also a guy on either fishwinni.com or craigs list selling all his NY tackle. He had a ton of stuff. not sure if it is still available but worth checking. I also don't remember if it was a lot deal or if he would separate. I believe he would separate. Just remember the 7 P's......Proper prior planning prevents piss poor performance. Good luck and make sure to let us know how you make out. If you have any problems out there just ask around at the ramps. The fishermen out there are like no other, willing to help everyone. I guess that is what makes this site so good. Spike Found the link: http://nh.craigslist.org/spo/3052580312.html Good luck.

X2 I have magdas for the riggers (upgrading this yr) and use accudepths and sealines for the wire rods. Spike

I was stopped on the river once and told I couldn't keep fishing because I had my limit. I knew better but it wasn't worth arguing with a warden over so I left the area. I'm not 100% sure all the wardens know the regulations (in any state!). At home here we have them telling people they can not fish once they have their limit they must stop targeting that species. As Jekyll said how do they know what you are targeting. So they wait until you catch a fish that you already limited out on and once you net the fish to let it go they get you for possession over your limit. Not sure it would hold up in court but the theory is to release the fish you have to posses the fish. I never heard such a thing until a couple yrs ago when some people early on in the season got tagged for the above actions. I always thought possession was what you left the lake with. The official wording reads like this: Take or Taking: Includes pursuing, shooting, hunting, killing, capturing, trapping, snaring, and netting wildlife, and all lesser acts, such as disturbing, harrying, worrying, wounding, or placing, setting, drawing, or using any net or other device commonly used to take wildlife, whether they result in taking or not. Includes every attempt to take and every act of assistance to every other person in taking or attempting to take wildlife, provided that whenever taking is allowed by law, reference is had to taking by lawful means and in lawful manner. Yeah that pretty much opens it up to writing a ticket at any time. I have my limit of fish and I need to drive back to the boat ramp. I motor over fish and they are worried, Ticket! I don't eat the fish anyway so to prevent being ticketed for the above reason we release fish and leave before we limit out. At least it appears in the NY reg's to be written clearly. Spike

In my search for knowledge I came across a statement that said bead color was a very important aspect to fly choice, but it didn't say how. Does anyone have any insight on what might have been meant here? Glow beads with glow flies? I ordered a bunch of flies where you could pick the bead color. I chose red on most of them and hope I shouldn't have been following some other guideline I didn't know about??? What is everyone else thoughts on this? Thanks, Spike

That is a story everyone can take something from. Glad it worked out well. Spike

I just set mine up with double keels this yr. From what I read I have mine set at 9.5 and 11.5, though you may need to adjust depending on what your pulling. So far those numbers have been good for me (haven't pulled copper yet). I can't imagine two full keels on the boards. I have one full and one half keel on each board. Also make sure you drill new holes for the lines, 1" below the existing holes. Spike

Inexpensive until you calculate shipping to the US. $16 . How can three packs of swivels cost almost as much to ship as it was to buy them???? Spike

Not to Hijack but I travel 6 hrs from the East side of NH. Worth every minute of it. Nice Job on the fish Rod. Do you miss the flybridge? I know you searched hard to find that boat with that feature. Read about the upcoming move. I wish you luck with that. If your out to the east end in the middle of August let me know. I'd like to say hello. Spike

Try calling Cannon and see if they'll send you a replacement for free. I had one come off on a Bert's holder and they sent me one NC. Worth a shot. Spike

I have followed this board for a few yrs now and noticed typically the Salmon bite on the east end isn't good until later in the yr (mid July getting better). It seems as though this yr the bite started earlier as witnessed on our spring brown trip. Looks like there was a lul and is now picking up again. In the past I have read about better brown fishing with occasional salmon until mid July. Does this yr seem different than "normal" yrs? I'm assuming as long as the bait stays the fish will too. I wonder if the spawning run will be earlier this yr (since everything else seems to be a couple weeks ahead of schedule). I know there is always the chance that everything will "reset" to the normal time frame by providing a couple extra weeks of a particular pattern, but can you imagine if it kicks off a couple weeks early and the reset came during the late August run. Then the fish took a couple extra weeks of staging. Either way it will be interesting to see how the rest of the yr pans out. Hopefully the fish stay on the east end and everyone continues to have success. Spike

X2 on the recommendation. Our local Towboat owner is top notch. The price is well worth the $100 a yr. Spike

Link to pictures of my box as requested in a PM. I figured why not share. Mirror material is the major cost here (around $22 I think) but is enough to do a bunch of boxes, so hopefully you can offset the cost by getting a bunch of guys to go in on the material and each build their own box. Pictures:http://mermaidchartersfishing.com/gallery_fresh/main.php?g2_itemId=1066&g2_page=2 Spike

OK............ Somone had to say this, might as well be me......Adam2000 will be happy. Spike

Just my opinion but 50yds is a pretty good distance. If it were 50ft then you may have a problem.Chances are he didn't see you until it was too late to swing wider? Also dropping off plane would have created a larger wake??? You didn't say the size of your boat nor the size of his. But I think 50 yds should have been OK. In NH we have a 150' headway speed rule beyond that not a problem. Boats have passed each other way closer than that without an issue. Guess it all depends on the size of each boat and the size of the wake. When I ran my lobster boat she threw a mean wake. I was always concerned with what my wake would do to vessels I passed and would slow down if I felt it would help them out. Everyone is responsible for their wake, not everyone knows that. Spike

I made my own as well. I used an old fishing light that I had laying around. It looks exactly like this one: http://www.etrailer.com/Lights/Optronics/FL-802R.html. I bought a small plastic box at Wally world and lined it with "mirror finish" adhesive window cover (similar to smoke colored window tint but this was a mirror finish). That was about $22 for the smallest roll, in which I have enough of the cover to do many more boxes, but I only needed one. I glued some open cell foam into the bottom and cut X's in it so I could put the nose of the spinny in the X so it stood straight up exposing both sides to the light. I put a line across the top and hang spoons and or flies from that. Works great! I can take pictures if anyone is interested. Spike

Got blown off the big lake so we hit Cayuga, we got there around 11 am and it was spitting flakes. We launched at Dean's and headed south along the west shore. After a while it started to blow pretty good so we turned around and head back up the lake. We caught some decent lakers and only one landlock. Lakers came on spoons as did the landlock. We fished 2 color core rigs off the boards (until we had a mess heading into the wind) then ran two color cores off the side of the boat. Riggers were anywhere from 10-20' deep. We got off the water around 6:30 and the total numbers were down from what we thought we might see. only abot 6 or 7 lakers and the one small LL. We didn't mark any bait balls and fish marks were sporadic as well. Best marks came between 25-55' of water (at different times and areas). I guess we were either fishing under the LL and browns or they just were not there???? Our flat lines we put split shot on so I was thinking they would be up in the water??? At least we got out fishing and that is what counted. Spike