Sk8man

Yes good to have some of different sizes. The 71's are good when fish are feeding on larger sawbellies or smelt (rare now) but sometimes they mainly want smaller spoons especially the silvers. I've had good luck with the Great Lakes #44's and the #35's especially on the Fingers but they all seem to work well and are well made.

No. The owner Jason is just getting his website together so he is on Facebook right now. I don't do social media so I don't have the exact URL unfortunately.

Wow that is a shame. The first year I pulled it off two rods because of the stretch but after trying different stuff I went back to it because it still did a better job as far as the fleas and I figured I could live with the stretch problem. This 30 lb stuff no matter what brand still feels like rope to me after fishing for so many years with 10-12 lb

:lol: Luckily nothing hit my leadcore last time out as it still had 12 lb leader on it for same reason Mike

Have a look at the Great Lakes Lures on Facebook....they work great and hold up well. Also the smaller Revolution spoon for the Finger Lakes.

Each of these things mentioned has a plus and minus sign attached to it . At this time of the season the water fleas (and especially this year) heavily influence a decision regarding what to run. The fleas rapidly accrue on braided line even 50 lb or more. The types of line that seem to do better with them are 27 lb lead core, copper line, and 30 lb test Bloodrun Sea Flee mono. Some folks swear by 30 lb Big Game mono (and I've used it for years) but with heavy fleas even that gets clogged up. Right now is a real test of anything you put down there in most of these lakes and the only way to deal with most setups is to keep checking and clearing your lines VERY frequently (say at 15 min. intervals). The major problem is when you are reeling in a fish with the fleas on your line (and especially the big highly active ones on Lake O) in that you have to clear the fleas on the way in and they are sometimes like ropes hanging on your line and they take time to clear all the while the fish is fighting and this process also introduces slack in the line allowing the fish to frequently get off. An additional thing to consider right now is that in the Finger Lakes many of the fish are usually going deep about now so your setups need to be able to reach down to get them so if you aren't using downriggers some type of weighting system may be needed on your lines to get down there. During the early months of the season lead cores, short coppers, braid lines on boards, and even toplines work well when there aren't fleas and when the fish are in shallower regions of the lakes but in late summer you need to get down to them and when you do you will encounter the fleas at varying depths and in varying concentrations throughout the water column so this imposes limitations on what particular setups you use as well. Whether you decide to go with leadcore or braid (or copper) boards or no boards without dipseys you'll have to use some sort of weight system to get there. An exception to this on some of the Fingers for instance is targeting bug feeding rainbows near the surface out in deep water (150 ft plus) and fishing with boards with very small spoons near the surface but again you'll have to clear lines frequently. Mike I'd be glad to meet with you again to go over the boards etc. if you wish just PM me.

The way I look at it is just one more possible weak link added to the setup. I abandoned them in the early eighties. I seldom lose fish and in my view they are unnecessary if the drag is set properly and your hooks are kept very sharp (something that is often neglected) but it is another one of those issues that is mainly personal preference and if someone feels they have confidence in them and they are useful to their particular setup then that's fine too.

You may also want to try using Deeper Divers (formerly Walker not sure now) in the 124 mm size I have bumped bottom in 127 ft of water with 275 ft out at 2.1 mph set on zero so you have a pretty nice range to work with especially if going for lakers down deep or even kings down deep on Lake O. As far as the pigtails you need to use a high quality SOLID RING heavy duty swivel on your main line connection for spinneys or flashers as at higher speeds they can ravel up your line if some part of it get twisted.

Now that's what I call a useful report Mark

You need to stay away from any hull features that might create turbulence so your choices may be somewhat limited by that sometimes it amounts to the "lesser of evils" and trying to get the best possible placemment out of the available choices.