Jolly II

Shawn, glad to see you got splashed this weekend, and getting in on some of this year's great fishing.

Today at lunch I met 3 hatchery trucks loaded with 25,000 Brown Trout from the Salmon River Hatchery. This is the 2nd batch of 25,000 browns that have been stocked in Monroe County. The first batch was stocked last week at the secondary stocking point which is the Irondequoint Bay outlet due to last week's lake and wave conditions. I-bay is the secondary site because there is the potential of more predation from comorans, and also alot of them get cut by people perch fishing there. Todays fish were stocked at the primary spot, which is a privately owned access point, about a mile east of Hedges. Water conditions were great. The hatchery guys took the temp of the lake, and it was 50 degrees, same as on there truck. Nice healthy batch of fish, and they weighed 4-5 fish per pound, with some fish being over 10 inches. And not a single cormoran in site!!! I took some pictures to share. I'm sure there are some Rochester and Bear Creek guys that may recognize this spot.

Miss Demeanor, I thought those others sounded familiar too, but I really only knew Cas. I loved fishing From Frank's Rampage, very nice boat. He had a 30 foot Sportcraft when I started working for him. Apparently it was one of the boats that got destroyed when the roof on the storage building collasped. Those were the days. Good times!

Rick, I was just going through a similar thought process this week. I'm thinking of turning a full core into a 200' copper, and then making 2 half cores out of the original full core. My thought process is that with a 200' copper I might be able to increase bite to catch ratio, just making it easier to keep good tension on a fish with less junk line. It also might make the fighting experience for an angler a bit more enjoyable with a 3-10lb class fish.

Raaven, You're absolutely right about expierimenting when the fishing is good, a guy can learn a lot faster that way. And, you're also right, when the fishing is tough, it's my A plus stuff that goes out, and it's a grind from then on.

I remember the Ghost, Capt. Casper Pizzo. He kept his boat down at the river when I was a kid working for Frank Sanza, about 6 slips over. Mr. Pizzo is how I remember him, he was also my teacher for my shop classes at R. L. Thomas High School. He would hook me up with NK spoons, and I would run them during the week after school and give him reports on which ones caught fish. Those were the hay days.

Raaven, Misdemeanor is right on with his explanation. On my boat I have my "go to" spoon/spoons, which are pretty much the same year after year, always suttle changes every season. I run NKs, Dreamweavers, and Michigan Stingers, and as Matt said somtimes the fish just like spoons from one manufacturer. If your "go to" spoons or spread is all NKs, and that's what is working for you, don't change things drastically. Deffinately try other makes of spoons, but make small changes. For instance, run your usual "go to" set-up, but designate 1 rod that is going to be the experimental rod, and this will be the rod that you will use to run spoons that you've never run before. Changing your entire program introduces to many unknowns in the equation. To me.. figuring out my "go to program" is a methodical, thought out process, and it's always changing from trip to trip, and somtimes hour to hour. And always try running the same color patterns of different spoons, as stated ealier, somtimes they just want one type. Good Luck.

No problems for us at all Bob. I knew you guys had limited manuverability with the waves, we were doing just fine fishing the ditch at that point anyway, and trying to get out deeper between boats. The funny part was I had just hung the phone up calling you. LOL

The Forever Young passed us yesterday as you guys were riding back in. I was on my troll north to deeper water, you guys passed right in front of us. Looked like a fun boat ride, LOL. Gave me sweet memories of fishing out of my old Starcraft. It was really rocking out there during our last hour of fishing. It wasn't easy running stuff yesterday in that weather, so don't feel bad. As you know I broke off a planerboard, the heavy duty swivel broke. Then to add insult to injury, we lost a huge laker behind the boat when we went out to 50 FOW. No Kings for us, but we took our lion's share of the browns earlier that morning in close. We'll be back out on Saturday for some derby fishing. Let me know if you'll be out of Sandy again. Chris

Jeff, If you're still looking for an observer I've got nothing going on that day. If you can't find anyone shoot me a message.

I learned the hard way a bunch of years ago with another member on here. The lake had flipped over in August during the LOC, and we rigged up an 8 color core... that's was it, an 8 color core. So, against better judgement, we put it out, and didn't the freak'n thing fire, with only 3 colors left on the reel. After cranking on the drag, almost breaking the rod, and an emergency turn to starboard, the fish made it to the net, a 15lb King. That rod promptly got put away. Had that fish been bigger, there was no way we could've landed it. Would've been fun to have on Video though. Perhaps Dale might chime in on this story.

Chas, Zebra and Quagga muscles are far from an asset to the Great Lakes. As far as all the invasives ever brought to the Great Lakes, they have probably been the most destrcutive invader to fisheries, local water authorities, and riparian owners. From a fisheries stand point... they filter out plankton, they very base of the food chain. Without the plankton the lake cannot support as many prefish, like alewives, smelt, emerald shiners, etc., all the fish that the preditor fish, that make up our awesome fishery, feed on. Despite that, Lake Ontario has slowly made a come back to the hay days of the fishery that we saw in the late 80's and early 90's Ask any of the long time fisherman and charter captains on here what they've done. Not to mention they completely ruined a multi-billion dollar commercial whitefish industry on Lake Michigan. Simply put. They are really bad news!

I use 7 strand wire for my dipsies, 1000' of wire on each reel. In past years I used the steel colored wire, and this year I respooled with camo colored wire. I've seen the 19 strand, and it's a much larger diameter than the 7 strand, and will have an affect on the dive capability of the dipsy. That's why I stuck with 7 strand, small diameter will dive deeper than the larger. As for tieing knots with 7 strand, search the forum and you'll find the information. The knot you tie with 7 strand wire is one of the easiest fishing knots you'll ever tie.

That's much better. Even fishing for browns you could hook into a good king, and 40 yards is about 3 kicks with a tail. Then so long Lead Core!

We were out of Sandy Creek on Friday and I took notice to an exceptional number of Cormorants flying around. I know they have been around for a quite a few years, seeing 1 or 2 smaller flocks of about half dozen to 10 birds. However, we saw about 5 flocks on Friday with about 20-30 birds in each. The shore Stocked fish are gonna take a hit this spring.

Holy Buckets Lou!! Nice brown, that fish makes the all the others look like bait. Great Job Buddy! We'll see ya next weekend.

From one DIY guy to another.... Awesome!

For spring browns I tie on a 20 foot piece of moss green 10lb P-line to the mainline. I tie on a small snap for stick baits, or a small snap swivel for spoons. The above program changes slightly once we start fishing offshore for Kings, and then changes slightly again once the fleas show up.

Great report Lou!! Your boys look like smaller versions of you, LOL I missed out this weekend, and looks like Tuesday's rescheduled trip is going to be rescheduled again do to weather. I hopefully will be out this weekend to get in on some of the fun.

Make sure all the wires are hooked up, and securely plugged into the back of the head unit. And make sure you don't have a blown fuse. One last thing, the unit will not turn on until it's in the water. You can even put it into a bucket of water to get it to turn on. If you can't get it to work before you come up it's not a deal breaker. I won't run my probe until until I move out deeper to fish for salmon. If you are going to come and fish browns you won't be fishing deep enough to need the probe in the water. Besides, you stand a chance at getting the probe hung, and loosing it, in shallow water fishing for browns.

I just bought a pair for the boat today to try out. They look nice, with plenty of back bone, I'll keep you posted. If I like them, I'll be buying 6 more.

Lund SSS, that's an awesome idea. I love JB weld. I've got a ranger net on the boat, great net, very durable, and a good price. I bought mine last year in a pinch at Dick's, after the top half of my old POS Frabill net came off, and sank to the bottom. The Ranger nets are great too, I just haven't bought one of those yet.

That's awesome stuff! We'll be out for the first time this weekend, taking my 5 year old nephew along. He helped out a couple of weeks with some boat engine maintenance, and is all fired up about going in the boat fishing. I can't wait!!

Another vote for here for seatech marine. I took mine last year at this time. Well taught, and if you study with the materials they give you, you won't have any problems with the exam. Chris

Capt. Spike You can find cohos in with the browns this time of year, but you probably won't find any significant numbers of them in that close with the browns. You'll probably find more cohos, if they are around, in greater numbers out a little deeper. Like 25-50 FOW, and even then they won't be deep. You will still only be fishing the top 10 feet. Several years ago fishing out of Irondequoit Bay for browns in Mid-Late April, we made a very outside turn trying to battle boat traffic. We got out over 30 FOW, and quickly doubled up on cohos. We spent the rest of that morning catching cohos, mostly with sticks off the boards, but a few off riggers. The funny thing about it was we would knee in the back of the boat to fight fish, and net them on the side of the boat where there was no traffic. No one ever noticed what we were doing. The fish we kept had smelt in their stomachs, and I'm sure that's why they were there, and why we did better with stick baits. If the brown trout fishing in close sucks, it's always worth a try to find something else. Good Luck!