hawkeye625

Guys are trying to tell me the lamprey was on a fish and the line slid down into its mouth. Sure looks like he ate my spoon. He had 2 of the 3 hooks inside his mouth. That's #10 for us since the beginning of the derby. This was the 1st one hooked in the mouth. I think there might be a lamprey problem going on. Maybe we can get a lamprey division going for the summer loc...

Fished from the bar to olcott throughout the derby week and wilson to bar memorial day weekend. Had 9 fish with lampreys, a dozen or so with marks and actually caught one on a milotto spoon (at least it had 2 of the 3 points of the treble in its mouth). Killed them all. Talked with several other guys that got a couple, but for some reason not the #'s we got. Mostly salmon and 1 laker. Makes a guy think twice before swimming.

TTT

That would be great. Yes it handles well - other than the hard top catching wind - it's awesome. Thanks, Jeff

Recently bought a 1992 sabre with dual tanks and can't figure out how to run the main motor off the outside (kicker) tank. Both tanks have a valve on the top pointing toward the rear of the boat. Tried many combinations with the valves and have had no luck. main motor kicker motor ^ ^ ! ! this is current valve configuration and both motors run fine. If I turn the kicker side valve toward the main motor the main still pulls from the center tank. If I move the main motor valve any other direction it stalls the main out. Any ideas? Thanks in advance. Jeff

Nice thing about the west end...plenty of options if the lake is rough. Glad to hear you made it home without problems....don't forget about that spindle..you have a long ride to the lake and want that trailer perfect. Tom and I were talking about the play in your track...dont think it's anything to be concerned about and he found that it wasn't in your backing plate. Didn't know if he told you or not..we had alot going on that evening. Another bolt or 2 would tighten it right up. Your set up is pretty sweet. I'm sure you guys are gonna put alot of fish in it. Wally.... I'll never stay anywhere else.

Mint condition, 50 hours. Listing for a friend. Please contact through craigs. http://pittsburgh.craigslist.org/boa/3045381694.html

Glad to hear you guys got back up and running...you guys were very lucky that wheel didn't come of on the interstate...that bearing was a mess. Good luck on the way home and make sure to check your bearings regularly..it can be a life saver. See you on the water soon. Jeff

Thanks Glen, I feel the same about the box but haven't figured any way to make it smaller. We'll be on the boat for the next 3 days hopefully figure out some more features. Look forward to hearing what the company has to say - might be a minor adjustment thing. Did not try the data box 2 maybe its smaller or positioned somewhere else on the screen. I did play with the gain adjustment when we weren't marking fish, but found the factory settings worked pretty well. Pretty sure he'll be happy with it very soon. The manual is kinda a pain in the rear...I'll probably have to read it 10 more times to get everything figured out. Some of the alarm features seemed interesting, especially the temperature alarm...gonna have to work on that one. Maybe someone else with some more experience with the unit will chime in. I only have 6 days on the water with mine but like it more each time out. Jeff

for speed and temp go to data screen and turn on data box 1 pick your options and set speed and temp source to own unless your using another source for that info. Go to WPT : Off WPT List Data Box 1 : Off ----- turn to on Data Box 2 : Off Bearing : True Wind Spd/Dir : True Trip Source : Own Temp Source : Own Speed Source : Own Make sure you have the mode set to fishing not cruising. Cruising setting will only show you bottom not fish or arches. Just installed mine for the derby and was not happy for the 1st 2 days, but after reading the manual a FEW times I realized mine was set to cruising and not to mark fish. Now it'll mark fish up to 29 mph with very little clutter on the factory settings. Also set mine up to show the little fish instead of arches. The ones with stripes are bigger... Supposedly tells you the size of the fish also, but that is yet to be proven by me. Didn't mark any bait on it, but in talking to others fishing the same area, no one was marking bait. Hope this helps, but if it doesn't, I'll give you 50% of retail for it and won't subtract for depreciation Good luck. Jeff

lakeview motel is about 1/2 to the bar from wilson on the left. fisherman friendly. clean rooms. 2000 lake road youngstown ny 716-791-8668.

Why not take the scouts out again and have a couple of them watch the car with cameras, binocs, and a cell phone - rotating every so often so they all get the opportunity to fish. Give the guy who nabs the low life on camera the $500.00 or maybe the merit badge. Seems to me the scouts could be a great asset in helping the fishery .... rather than boycotting it. Just my 2 cents.

It's an hour drive for me or I'd go get you a copy, already have the book myself. Can't believe they wouldn't offer to ship it to a store closer to you. With the info from this thread you should be dialed in without the book or at least close. 3 to 1 is quick, easy and will put you into fish.

Don't know if you're still looking but Gander Mountain in Washington PA has 5 copies of the Precision Trolling Big Water Edition for 19.99 on clearance. The book has the dive charts you're looking for. 724-229-9800 is the number of the store. Was there Sunday and saw the books. Maybe they'd ship for a small fee. Jeff

Bubbles off the cables works well, as far as gps speed, well I watched mine all last week during the derby and compared it to my Depth Raider and paddle wheel on FF. The FF read 1.4 to 1.6 pretty consistantly, gps varied from 2.2 to 3.4, and the probe was pretty much between 2.0 and 2.3 in 40 to 50 FOW. My probe has been on the Fritz for the past year and I wanted to make good mental notes for when (if) it goes down again. Picked up the bubbles off the rigger cables tip from this site and it was a pretty good indicator at the 2.0 to 2.3 downspeed. When I got over 2.5 there were lots of bubbles. Also paid close attention to dipsy rods and think you can get a good idea from the bend in them as well. I like to keep the drags on my dipsy rods just tight enough that if I go a little too fast the drag will start to click - usually just over 3mph on gps or 2 to 2.3 down, at least on my boat. If you think you're going too slow you probably are. Pay close attention to your cables and dipsy rods when you get bit and try to repeat it. I'd also agree the probe is you biggest bang for the buck as far as boat gadgets. You might think about posting in the buying section of classifieds, alot of guys are going to the fish hawk and you might find a smokin deal on a used DR or Subtroll.

We came up to the west end for the spring derby and had 6 kings with lamprey's on them. I didn't see that many all last year. We only caught 1 brown and it was clean. Only 2 steelys and they were 2 to 4 lbs. And the lakers we caught were all over the water column but we did take 2 on a flatlined thunderstick. Oh yeah the kings in the air and racing the boat. One made a real mess of our 300 copper and a wire diver, I think he actually fused the wire to the copper. He made 4 or 5 steely type leaps before deciding to run at the boat and cross every line out. Thought we had a derby winning steely but turned out to be a 13-14lb king.

Took alot of different buddies out last year and the ones that helped out are going back this year. "Helping out" can come in different forms, gas money, paying for the hotel, food, maybe a lure or two, help replacing the floor of the boat...etc, etc. I usually tell them up front what the trip normally costs as far as license, gas, hotel derby pass maybe beer...and we divy it up between us. Everyone that owns a boat knows you have a pile of money tied up in rods, tackle, electronics, upkeep....and I don't expect anyone to pay for that stuff, but when a guy doesn't offer to help out..they move down on my call list for the next trip. Don't know if it's true or not, but I had a guy come up to me at the gas dock at Olcott last year when one of my buddies was paying for the gas and asked me if I was a licensed charter captain? 19.5 ft boat really? He told me I needed to be licensed if I took money for gas? So now I let them pay for truck fuel, tolls, hotel and food and I put gas in the boat. Heck, I couldn't afford to fish 2 days if I had to pay for everything.

Last summer we kept the probe in 54 degree water and fished up from there "most" of the time. Averaged 22 legal fish/day. If we were marking bait/fish higher or lower we would adjust accordingly. 2.2 - 2.5 at the ball worked for us. Most days we had a good mixed bag of fish. Jeff

West Marine has the great lakes fish n chip on clearance for $144.88. Got mine yesterday. http://www.westmarine.com Jeff

I don't have any fish on the wall to date but do have a ton of photos. For me, a picture is worth a thousand words and a mount could have been...a hundred spoons, two or three new reels, maybe a new probe, a new fishfinder.......that being said: 40lb king any trout over 20lbs smallie over 7lbs 15lb atlantic ....or any of the above species that take a top slot of any derby, if a fish pays to have itself mounted...who am I to refuse. Also have to agree 100% with Big Dave...some of the "best" trophies have absolutely nothing to do with size. If you think a fish is worth mounting, go for it!

Looking to buy some material for tying flies and wondered what color mylar is used in the no see um fly? Is it mirage? Also wondered if any of you tie leaders with 1/0 owner st41. I've been using 1's and 2's but picked up some 1/0's, but they seem too heavy for good fly action. I used some vmc 1/0 last year but the owners seem alot bigger. I didn't realize size varied by manufacturer.

I bought the 9.8 tohatsu w/electric start off of them in 2010. Hooked up a control king for throttle control and am very happy with the set up. I run a 19.5 sea nymph and can troll from 6 am to dark on 3 to 3.5 gallons. No problems so far.

When we run 4 out of my 19 ft sea nymph the wire goes out the farthest on a 1.5 and closest to the rigger with a braid/mono on a 3.5 in front of it, targeting higher fish with the mono/braid. Amount of line out is determined by depth of fish. We did better last year only running 4 rods...2 cheated riggers and 2 wire #1 dipsys on a 2 set. Most of the season dipsy's ran between 180 and 220 back. Sometimes less rods is better.

Hats off to the committee members for a thankless effort. No matter what you guys come up with as an end result you will have controversy. My question is if you're trying to level the playing field and draw new blood or more boats, why would you raise the entrance fee to a point higher than pro's paid last year. It seems like you are pricing out alot of the little guys. Since you merged the fields together wouldn't it make sense to split the cost of entry? Say maybe to $400-$450? We were trying to put together a team for this year and I had a hard enough time trying to get 3 guys to come up with $265 and money for an observer. To me it's not a matter of playing with the big dogs, just costing so much to do so.

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