Sk8man

Here I am sitting at the airport in Jackson Hole with mountains all around me and thinking I might be missing some action on Seneca 😰 My wife thinks Im nuts😄

Good going kempie. I hope to get out there after I return from Wyoming and Yellowstone in another week. Hoping the fleas won't be totally undoable by then Thanks for the report.

There are several methods but I used to anchor in anywhere from 75 to 150 ft of water often near drop-offs at the south end of the lake just before dark and use a light version Seth Green rig (usually two of them) (3 leader instead of 5 for simplicity) with a 20 lb test mainline and bead chains placed every 20 ft with 10 ft. long 10 -12 lb test leaders (mono back then now I'd use fluoro) and a 16 oz. sinker and LIVE sawbellies that I would catch by hanging two Coleman lanterns suspended from the 4 ft booms of my Riviera downriggers turned sideways in the boat on each side. I staggered the two rigs so they were at different depths. This would bring bait up to the surface (sawbellies) after the bugs that would be attracted to the light and I'd use a smelt net to catch my bait. Often I'd set out a spinning rod with a bobber and cast it out away from the other line (s) and just let the bait swim around below the surface often big rainbows would hit that rig. the bait on the Seth Green would swim around at different depths and get hit and you take the leaders off one at a time to get to the one with the fish. Sometimes when gathering the bait large fish could be seen coming out of the depths after it.... very eerie appearance with big lakers or browns looking like "Jaws" Night fishing is a VERY different experience from other fishing...it can be very disorienting especially when people go to bed in cottages along the shorelines and turn their lights out and you have few if any landmarks to go by ....not so bad on Canandaigua as it is a small body but on Seneca it was a different ballgame and Keuka because of the "Y" nature of it. There is no other like the experience of starting to nod off in the early morning hours in nearly total darkness and waking up to the sound of your drag screaming out with a huge rainbow or brown on the other end and you can't see where the line is going and you hoped it wouldn't get into the anchor rope (sometimes extended 300 ft ). . Nowadays you have LED lighting etc in boats but back then you had to watch running down your battery out there so no lights other than navigation lights or flashlights. There was a whole contingent of fishermen out there back then (largely out of what was Clark's Marina then. There may be a few guys on here that remember those times and were also out there . I know the Rainbow Kid was one of them as we have talked about it. Many of those fishermen (guys like John Roides and John Oravec) ended up as charter guys on Lake O when the salmon were introduced and that fishing started to take off.

The heavy boat traffic after 10 AM eeeven many week days doesn't help matters either and everyone comes in at the same time in the evening so the launch is a zoo too....sure loses some of its appeal at this time of the year. it is one of the most densely used recreational lakes around. Probably one of the reasons night fishing was so successful in the past.

Probably with kids the best bet is with bobbers as described above so they can easily see the activity on it. The gills are usually in close as noted by longspurs but I was there last week fishing for walleyes and saw some folks catching gills one right after another about a mile north of the launch in 26 ft of water with bottom rigs so you may have to look around a bit too. Worms can also work with a variety of panfish there either fished a foot or so off bottom with a sinker at the bottom or using the bobber rigs. Sometimes casting in toward docks along the way can work too either drifting to find them or anchoring up and trying to attract them in casting around the boat. If using worms use small pieces if nightcrawlers are used . They are especially fond of the little red (manure worms) worms. You may encounter a couple of pest species as well such as rock bass, largemouth bass and dink perch along the way too such as largemouth bass but kids usually are happy to catch about anything anyway. There are huge gills and Crappies in there if you can locate them. Good luck. It can help to use light lines and with kids I'd be going with 6 lb test or so 4-8 size hooks. If using sinkers about 1/4-5/8th oz.

Did one of the pictured perch make that statement?

I have used gimal mounts on my Whaler for 14 years and have never had one single issue or problem with them. I used the Cannon gimbal mounts and they are very solid. I use four of them frequently and if there was some weakness it would have shown up long ago. You just have to make sure the inserts in your gunwales are solidly made and deep enough. My 4 electric plugins are located right nearby so I can switch out downriggers if a potential problem arises with either a connection or downrigger etc. ....never a problem either. I also use outrigger holders out of 2 of them with 4 rods for wire rigs and Seth Greens.They are VERY flexible in terms of usage. The pic below is from a while ago but in the downrigger holder is a Seth green rig with a 40 oz. sinker and 5 leaders so they can take a lot of strain too (as well as the standard Cannon rod holders A nice feature of this setup is that I can take the riggers on and off immediately and store them securely and when my boat is also used recreationally in the hot summer months. The only holes driilled in my boat were for the motor bracket, transducer and depth finder...otherwise you'd never know it is a fishing boat

Nice going and encouraging report Long live the king!

Special secret king rods...the secret is out now

I think you'll really fully appreciate that 6:1 gear ratio with a 500 ft copper

Joe you might want to check out the reel capacity information provided by skipper 19 on here to make your determination and avoid problems. Here is one of the recent discussions. (There were more previously ) http://www.lakeontariounited.com/fishing-hunting/topic/58882-new-reels-for-copper-but-need-some-input/

I've never used drift socks but the ones used by friends were always in twos of the same type and one on each side of the boat to balance things out