lil' troller

must be that cough didn't work out for you Nick. Sorry to hear that. although i'm sure you'll still have your boat out. hit them hard capt.

Nice, where were you guys? We were north of long point and hit all good lakers. on the three footer!! nice laker!

We never keep many fish, one dinner for each of us tops. Those were some spunky lakers too, they were fighting like hell. I had one laker on the rigger that had to take 10-15 minutes to get in. mdrducks, We had to do alot of trial and error to get into them. speed, depth, presentation. Theres fish everywhere on the lake, just keep changing things up untill something works. Rob, I figured the Obsession would be out there soon. did you get your truck taken care of? RJ, I bought spoons off from you last year, and its a good thing because somebody forgot the big tackle box and we ran what we had on the boat lol. The lake was bumpy in the morning, but flat most of the day after 10 am. Great day! I have no complaints. I hope everyone gets out there and has as much fun as we did!

We launched at long point and went north and had a very slow morning. We marked tons of bait and fish in spots, but no takers. Around noon we went out deep with our laker set ups and found them. We had all four rods fire within a couple minutes. Had a tripple, but landed a double and landed another double later in the day. We were working 130-150 feet of water down 100-120. Our 600' copper did most the work with a grease trap and peanut, but or riggers took a few on an R&R spoon and one off the dipsey with mountain dew spinny and a green/black fly (not sure of the name or make). Besides one 6# fish everything was over 7#. One made 10 pounds. We pulled up around 4:30 and put 8 fish total in the boat with just as many lost due to bad hand offs or fighting other fish. Turned out to be a great trip for our first trip of the year and had some great fighting fish on the line. We were running our light action rods with 12# test on the riggers and we had a few fish peeling drag. This was our first trip with our copper rod and it worked great. I'm looking forward to the season ahead. The old man is probably putting ice on his arms right now after all the copper reeling . Great day even though the numbers weren't there, they were all quality fish. Ben

I learned a lot. Its been a great course.

Good day for a short trip. Triples are never a bad thing . Sounds like you got the fever. We'll be hitting them hard here soon. Sounds like you got a lot of good help getting started. Good luck this year, keep it up! Ben

nice fish

Great start to your season

Me and the old man will be taking the course the next three weekends as well. We will be missing out on some good fishing, but in April its game on! Nice LL by the way!

it's unfortunate a simple post turned into this. I enjoy fishing and seeing others catch fish. Its an even greater reward for me if they get into fish like they never have before. I have shortened my learning curve by visiting this site, and to me its what these sites are for. Nothing wrong with asking for a place to start to have a good time. Everyone has something to offer, and it thier choice if they share it or not. If we can run 4 wide planer board to planer board during the seneca derby and still catch fish, what are we worried about? If you are good you will catch fish no matter if you are alone on the lake or not. I understand the concern with tribs, these not a lot of room there. One year i found a hole and about a half hour later had people bouncing thier bait off the rock i was standing on. But in the big finger lakes there is plenty of room and options. I'm here to expand my knowlege, and help other into this great sport. We have some of the greatest fishing in America in our back yard, lets enjoy it and share it. good luck everyone! Ben

I think cabin fever is at an all time high lol. Nothing wrong with blow back as long as you know where you are at, but remember that your transducer reads distance from the transducer not depth. If you are marking your ball @ 100 that means its 100' away from the transducer not down. Find a nice level bottom on your lake and put your downrigger down 100' slowly run shallow untill your ball hits bottom this will give you an idea where you are at. On my little boat (lil troller) i run 8 # balls due to my small downriggers. @ 100' out I hit bottom about 80' depending on what i'm running, but i will mark the ball @100' the entire time. It took me a little bit to figure out why i could mark the ball running through the lake bed lol. The only concern i see with blowback is in heavy cross currents. stagger depths and run short leads and you should be fine. 12# balls shouldn't have much issue in the finger lakes. We run 10# on our trophy and I don't think we have ever tangled our downriggers together. My guess is your running cowbells or something else with a lot of drag to get anykind of blowback with 12#. I'm an eastern fingerlakes guy also, if you need any ideas thow me a PM and i'll be happy to share what i know. Good luck, Ben

Our #1 set up for Cayuga is a chartreuse moutain dew spin doctor and a Big Weenie proctologist fly. plain white, or white crush/glow work well also. As far as spoons go the nk's run well at the same speed the spin doctors produce. Color wise you can't go wrong with green. Purple is good deep or on overcast days. There are tons of spoons that work, but like i said GREEN.

nice LL's there . looks like the lamprey that was on that thing must have been a big one too.

lol, thanks.

There is another lil troller on here, must be his birthday. Mine was back in december.

PM sent.

i meant rustyrat, but r&r spoons do the job some days. i got some r&r spoons at the lou derby a few years ago that were different than the ones he sells now. they did well when i got them and then i guessed he changed his spoons. The new style still did well, i just wish i had more of the other style. I think it has a lot to do with speed. If suttons and alpena diamonds and some r&r spoons are working , your spinnies and nk's aren't. Did real well with r&r at a slow troll, but you know my go to, mountain dew w/ proctologist. Its not always hot, but it always catches fish. I'm looking to modify some mountain dew spinnies for the fingerlakes, i'll fill you in if they work well. Big Weenies oily stool looks like it will be a hot fly for the fingerlakes too. I'm itching to be out there. I'm trying to get my icefishing gear in order but it just doesn't do it anymore lol. I'm addicted to trolling . As soon as the canal out of treeman opens up we'll be back out. T-falls is a little too tight for our liking in the trophy. Another month or two and its game on!

nice looking fish there. They really need to dredge that out or something. That sandbar on the way out makes it a lot tighter than it needs to be. Last year we saw a couple different guys hit it on the way back in. We haven't been out this winter for that reason. I think we will wait untill the canal opens up out of treeman. But i'm definatly ready to be out there again. I love catching those LL's.

I agree. We always put fish in the boat too, but somedays its like someone flips a switch, and everything shuts down. We fish mostly Cayuga, but we hit the seneca derby the last two years. We had a slip on the south end and stayed on the south half for the derby, I think we will be hitting the north end more this year. Thats funny about your landlock the weekend before the derby, we caught this 8lb LL two days before the derby. After the red cross I got to see your laker in the cooler at the awards, that was a hell of a fish. Is it on your wall yet? We wound up with the 5th place LL for the red cross that came out of Cayuga. Anyways back to the topic. I think there is a trend with cold fronts and it seems like there has to be active fish somewhere, or a better presentation for these days. It works the other way to as RR was saying sometimes a front comes through then BAM you can't keep them off the hook. I don't complain about those days though lol. Thanks for the input everyone.

Thats pretty funny. And with 40 years experience, lol. Perco is goint to have to put a warning on thier gunnel rod holers now "Rods only, NO GAS!"

We have been doing very well on the fingerlakes (cayuga, seneca, and owasco), but the cold fronts always have us scratching our heads. I know its tough for everyone, but i'm hoping i can pick some of your brains to get some ideas. A couple of tournaments were real tough this year, and we tried everything. Slowing down our presentation and slower lures seemed to help, but do any of you have a go to set up? during tournaments we are usually fishing suspended lakers. Does the cold front effect different species differently or does the whole lake shut down? Slow and deep seem to work for lakers, but i'm trying to get some more options. Thanks Ben

One thing to keep in mind with a kicker is its charging system. Our 9.9 2stroke doesn't keep up with the battery unless we don't run the downriggers much, or have a headwind and the motor reving more. The newer purpose built kickers shouldn't have this problem. A regular 9.9 or 15hp will push your boat fine. Just make sure your voltage gauge works and set the alarm on your fishfinder for low voltage. Also I think a long shaft motor is better suited for trolling, ours is a short shaft and will come out of the water and then the next wave is half way up the cowl in rough seas.

First off, sorry i used the same name on here, i didn't know there was a lil troller already here. I have a 14' lonestar that i fish from and a 14' mfg that a hasn't seen water since i bought it. My lonestar is about half the weight of the mfg. It came with a 35hp that wouldn't troll down so i sold that and ran twin 2hps for the first year and got a 5hp honda the next year. granted i can't get her on plane, but it will troll all day on 3 gallons of gas. If you are talking about putting a gas kicker on your boat the weight on one side may be an issue, plus you loose precious freeboard with more weight back there. If your thinking electric, they do make an electric trolling motor that mounts to the lower unit of your main engine. It is pricey, but you may be able to find a used one. The other option would be to repower with a 4-stoke small enough to go as slow as you need but still get you on plane. probably 20hp i would guess, or even larger may still troll down. hope this helps. lil' troller (with an apostrophe lol)