Sk8man

milk and egg bath and then a mixture of Panko seasoned bread crumbs and finely crushed Ritz crackers along with a little garlic and dill spice added

Back in the eighties (when I was even crazier than I am now) I used to chase steelies out in the shipping lane in my 13 foot Whaler and the foreign crewmen of the barges and ships would point and give the gesture for craziness to me as they had 23 foot boats for their dingies on board. Anyway, one day while out there way beyond being able to see shore with only a CB radio (totally useless for the situation) I saw the sky all of a sudden become dark and threatening to the west with dark clouds and lightning coming from them off in the distance toward Rochester. I picked up my 2 downrigger lines and and cranked up my 35 horse Johnson (had a 4 horse kicker too but would have been useless) as the wind came up nearly knocking me over in the boat and the waves started building. The waves became so big as I went along trying to reach shore that the only option was going full tilt from one wave crest to another (boat ran about 39 mph top end) and I was airborne most of the time with the prop winding high RPMswhen it came out of the water. When I arrived back at the Sodus Bay lighthouse the waves were going way over the pier and were hitting the lighthouse. There were people standing toward the shore end of it and they were clapping for me and hooting and hollering seeing me in that little boat as the big boats (30 ft or more) were struggling to get back in. I had about 3-6 or more inches of rain water in the boat, was white knuckled from the trip, and soaked but alive at least. On the news later they said that 12 ft. waves accompanied the storm there. It would have made a great ad for Whalers if someone had been video taping the arrival at the pier. That experience is the reason that I would never own another boat than a Whaler (despite an element of superstition in that decision perhaps). True story and the one time I have been truly scared to death out there.

Yep. The Pine Valleys worked well on Seneca, Cayuga, and Keuka (back when it was good fishing there). My buddy HOP on here knows those spoons very well and I believe he used to test them out for the guy that made them. Those look like the old ones too if I'm not mistaken. Send Hop a PM and he can probably give you the full scoop on them. I'm pretty sure he used every one of them at one time or another

you too.

Got to be quick Stix......quite a bargain right there. You're too dangerous on the Fingers even without them Stan

Stunning pics and what a great idea for a thread. Our dog died just after Christmas and I said "never again" because of the pain of having to put him down but after seeing the pics I have re-visited the issue and my wife put in an application yesterday for another rescue dog

Good one Bob......but I know you're just schmoozing me at the end hoping I will weaken and give up the sources of my secret fly materials

Talk about precious pics It is no accident that they are called "man's best friend".

On the Fingers I run them even up to 2.6 or so as attractors for erratic action. They can also be used as spoons by themselves by adding hooks and will work on Lake O or the Fingers used that way.

Yeah Bob never wants to admit that they work but I noticed that one of the ones I previously gave him was nearly worn out from use and looked as though it had been through a bunch of wars

First of all comes the confession: I am a "Chinookaholic" and I have had my addiction since 1975 Admiral Byrd and I sensed the narrow weather window yesterday and figured it was "now or never" and we hadn't fished together for kings this year yet so off we went on the water at 6AM in Bob's boat. We are a lot like the "odd couple" when fishing with me preferring the mid depth water and he the real deep water. We started in about 170 and worked our way north to the 307 ft range and picked up some small kings and a steelie along the way. At the 307 marker Bob nailed an 18 lb king on a rigger so we messed around in there for much of the morning taking small kings and steelhead all thrown back coming mainly off riggers set in the 70-90 range and our speed about 2.6 - 3.0. Bob's temp probe was acting up so we didn't have any actual info from it to work with for most of the time out. We had a few marks but for the most part all up very high in the water column. One we hit 340 my 10 color leadcore on walleye board took a vicious hit and it buried the board deep in the water. The king continued to use the board as a bobber and made long runs which seemed like were going to smoke the gears in the reel. Despite a carefully tightened drag he took out a total 769 ft of line of which I had only 600 ft of backing along with the 10 colors (for a total of 900 ft) as it was one of my Finger Lakes set-ups as I had my other high capacity stuff in my boat and though this would get me by I did get a bit concerned about getting spooled despite the size of the fish.... The reason I am giving this detail is that the that assumption that you don't need a high capacity reel when fishing for kings was tested and found to be lacking even with a 24 pound fish.... By this time Bob had had enough of the "shallow water" fishing in the 300's so we trolled our way out to 690 and marked very little along the way but we did pick up a couple steelies in the 600's and then at 640 my wire took a savage hit with a spin doc and homemade "googly eyed" fly set at 250. Another epic king fight and apparently when reeling in a an earlier smaller king the wire had slipped to the side of the spool and nested with a loop underneath it so when this 20 lb maniac burned wire to that point I couldn't let him go any farther and had to "horse" him to get back wire to continue the fight and luckily it worked. We ended up at nearly 6 PM after almost 12 hours of trolling with the three kings in the box, many smaller 5-8 lbs. thrown back, several steelies ranging form 5 pounds to 10 pounds one coming on the flasher/fly combo while the riggers were the main target with magnum spoons. All in all a beautiful day weather-wise and a whole lot of fun busting balls and enjoying our shared passion (aka "addiction"). Even after 35 years of fishing together Bob and I exhibited just as much child-like excitement as our first king fishing way back when....and that is what this stuff is really all about sharing a passion and having fun out there.... life is short. Note the example of Bob's pic taking ability in the third shot (or maybe he was jealous of the size of the fish?)

In my world the title "sir" has been reserved for "officers" in the military, and for others very worthy of respect and that is very befitting you Jeremy. You do have our respect.

Rubber bands will work well in any of them if the correct breaking strength/size is selected and they work regardless of line type The right small ones can even be reeled up on most reels without problems and taken off afterward.

If you had "a few mature kings" you aren't doing anything wrong. There is a lot of water out there matures may be 'on the move" and probabilities play a role as does the fact that mature fish are starting to change from feeding response to that of aggression and with them at least the feeding urge may be starting to be reduced. Many folks tend to think that because they aren't slamming them at this time of year that they must be doing something wrong when that may not actually be the case. You may have to experiment a bit more starting about now and try to "provoke" strikes and in large part starting about now (or soon) you can pretty much throw water temps out the window they may be in 43 degree water and the next one in 70 degrees. Fish the marks and keep going back over them when you spot them and then change up speed,setups etc. and work at provoking them rather than just looking for them to be on or near bait. Sometimes you have to vary trolling speed more than usual and set lines closer to the rigger weights.