Sk8man

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.

I think the weather (and report) scared off a lot of folks that trailer there from a distance John.

Must not have been very appetizing sitting next to Keith at breakfast Brian

Nice work Mike! I'm jealous... wanted to go all day but the storms kept rolling through here...you have a great situation being close enough to get out relatively quickly and get after them when you get the chance. Good going bud.

All good advice Mike. No matter how tempted don't tempt Mother Nature....you'll lose every time.

I would consider it if I can rig up some clamps that allow it to be taken down easily after fishing as I fold down and store the bimini in a boot at the back and there wouldn't be room to fold it down there with the launcher attached. It has me thinking though If it were SS I could use pins through as my bimini framing is stainless but I'm reluctant with aluminum tubing about 1 inch diameter. For someone leaving their top up all the time it could be a neat solution. They are currently unavailable both from the manufacturer and Amazon by the way.

One their website I believe they have both a bimini version for $69 (out of stock) and a full standalone one for $139

I guess I should have mentioned in my comments that the Lake O bottom in most of the places I fish there is pretty flat gradual sloping and for the most part featureless and this is very different than in the Finger Lakes where you have abrupt underwater cliffs, sunken barges, etc. so it is much riskier there too and there are more effective ways to fish for lakers there than riggers. (e.g wire rigs with cowbells and gambler rigs or peanuts) and 40 oz. sinkers dragging along the bottom)

The anxiety issue is far from haunting only teenagers. We are a society adults and children alike fraught with anxiety over everything and the media, TV programs, video games, news, and Internet and social media have amplified the problem by a hundred fold. We have government at both the state and federal levels that is both corrupt and incompetent to actually solve even the most rudimentary problems, and that acts in a hysterical manner when incidents do occur by passing gutless laws that fail to actually deal with the origin of the problems and merely attempt to give the appearance of control because they don't really have any valid answers and are unable to compromise with one another. At some level we as a society truly realize this underneath it all and we know that given a major disaster that involves the whole country we will be screwed and left to our own devices. The fear giving rise to the generalized anxiety is REAL: it is not paranoia (imagined or unreasonable fear) and is not just something teens are dealing with if folks are to get their heads out of the sand. As far as the issue of the boating safety training I think most of us know that it is long overdue but as a matter of course we resent the state telling us to do it and it is as much who is telling us to do it (and the control issues involved) as it is the training itself which we know for many folks it is needed because they either don't know what they are doing out there or maybe just don't care about rules of the road or common courtesy.

Just a suggestion and I know folks do bounce rigger weights off the bottom but I think it is taking an unnecessary chance with your equipment and possibly your boat. When fishing a derby on Seneca some years back while camping at Sampson State Park. I saw a guy in a fiberglass boat get a large part of his gunwale ripped out of his boat and his downrigger go to the bottom in about 80 ft of water right out in front of the marina.. I talked with the guy at his campsite and he told me that he was fishing close to bottom with his riggers and his rigger ball snagged something and he had his rigger drag tightened up all the way so it didn't release and ripped out the rigger from the gunwale. Luckily there was a guy at an adjoining campsite who was a diver and had his stuff with him and he was able to find the rigger for the guy but his boat was really messed up. It was a good lesson to me and I always make sure my rigger drag has just a tiny bit of play in it so that it will slip if necessary. A couple years afterward I heard that there were large anchors with very heavy metal cables down there left from the hydroplane races they used to hold on Seneca which had subsequently been removed.

You can use them Don but they are a different action. Sometimes it pays to try them you have tyo let the fish tell you what they want sometimes so it pays to experiment using spin docs, flashers, or dodgers even changing sizes of them. On the Fingers I also sometimes run Lake Clear Wabblers or Fish Flashers with small spoons or sticks behind them which can work well on rainbows and salmon for an even different action.