Sk8man

Good report and nice laker....looks like a "native" fish with that coloration. have a safe trip back to Jersey

Thanks. Yes I've had VERY good luck with the Great Lakes spoons. Jason has done a terrific job with them.....great action and they seem to tolerate a wide range of speeds.

Thanks folks and good luck Glenn....have to stay after them until they give up

Bigfoot makes a good point....we can't assume that hooks right from the package are all sharp or that they are quality hooks. I have used Mustad Siwash stainless steel salmon hooks from sizes 1/0 to 3/0 forthe various sized spoons ranging from small ones (use 1/0 medium use2/0 or large use 3/0 in general but it depends on the spoon so I sometimes go out of size category to keep weight of spoon fairly constant). As far as sharpening I there are any ways to do it (electric hook sharpeners, manual ones etc.) I have always used a fine fileto do it and I sharpen them on three sides going from the bend in the hook direction to the point tip and get them so that they "catch" on your finger tip. Not very scientific (old school dude) but it works.

Roughly 2.1-2.3 I believe

Signalman and I gave the fish another shot this AM from 6:30 -12N on my boat fishing the north end both sides. Once again lots of marks and bait but we had to work for active fish. We started out with 2 downriggers with sliders 2 leadcores one 5 color and 1 10 color off boards and two wires with spinneys and flies. Early on I thought one of my wires was messed up with a downrigger and when the downrigger was released it had a good bend and then the fish started stripping line so here I was playing "rod hog" with the first fish of the day It put up a good scrap on the downrigger and turned out to be a 30 1/2 inch10 lb laker that took the same blue taped Great lakes 44 that took the laker the other day. He was released to fight another day and seemed none the worse for wear. A while later we caught another laker on the rigger about 3-4 lbs which was released, and then another on the leadcore.5 color off the Walleye board on a green taped Great Lakes 44. We had to make a couple runs and passes up north to get fish to hit but pulled through all kinds of bait and fish along the way on both sides of the lake. We trolled along the high banks area and the grass floating and submerged as well became worse and worse as we trolled south along the east side and it got into everything we had out and lines had to be cleared and reset multiple times so we pulled up and powered north again and reset going from northeast to southwest and Mike was up to bat next and a 4-5 lb rainbow hammered the Sutton 44 with green tape on a slider. We boxed him for my buddy John's smoker. We trolled along for quite some time without anything happening and then went back north and came back through the marked fish and bait on the west side and I switched out a leadcore for a 250 copper down the chute with a taped up Sutton 44 and I no longer turned around from setting the rod in the holder and the drag started screaming on the copper and the fish stayed down so I suspected a laker but when I had it about half the way in it was clearly a rainbow about the same size as the first rainbow and we got a real good look at him when he surfaced and spit the hook. That was about it for the day and we headed in. Only tiny bit of flea action noted but the grass was really bad going south. Beautiful day out there. Good luck to you folks fishing the FLT tournament this weekend and I hope this post helps out in terms of info if the weather doesn't change too drastically. No action on the wires by the way run from 90 ft out to 200 out with green/white combinations>

Hey Jim I have the dual rod holders on mine if you look close in the pic from yesterday. The only advantage to stackers over a slider is that you can make them longer but that also has its disadvantages in terms of tangles and as Lucas pointed out often the release is at the bottom one so the top one may get tangled. I did it for years way back when but now I just use sliders.....much less screwing around and opens options up for running other stuff. I do keep about a dozen pre-rigged sliders rolled up on a small piece of foam noodle though and if I have a tangle with the main line I just cut off the swivels pull the slider line off and throw it away and rig with another off the foam.

Thanks guys...going back at it tomorrow to see if I can figure out the silvers somehow.

Good report. As for the hookup problem.... I switched over nearly all my spoons to SINGLE siwash salmon hooks years ago to decrease that problem and I seldom if ever have hookup difficulties. The other thing is that you have to periodically examine each hook point on your lures for sharpness and sharpen accordingly. It could be the angle the pic was taken of the two lures but the bottom one doesn't look sharp to me. Also the trebles are pretty large which can assist the fish in working two of the hooks against the one that has them hooked with their mouth pressing on them....another reason I favor hardened stainless single hooks as they penetrate easier and deeper in general. Another factor with the leadcore may be the fact that at certain speeds the leadcore may be whipping up and down in the water column in such a way that the fish is having difficulty actually grabbing onto the spoon as it is pulled away from him/her (want to be politically correct ) Rainbows have soft mouthes too so if it happens to be them and they are "lip hooked" they are on briefly then off.

Your "assumption " is the way I'd do it (and is my current setup)

Very nice! I have to admit I'm a bit jealous My in-laws sold their place in Eastham/Orleans last Fall and moved to Clearwater Florida and we had been going there a couple weeks at a time for the past 30 years in style. Guess I''ll have to start saving up now to rent a place ....The Cape is just like home to me and it sure is a blast fishing there. Nice fluke and they are truly great eating and Falmouth is a neat little town too.

First of all congratulations John! Man...you really did up the honeymoon... cool....I'm not sure on the derby details and have never fished that one but I'm sure someone on here will know. Hopefully we'll be able to chat in person at the ramp one of these days soon. Thanks for the "vote of confidence" Best of luck. Les

Yeah Mike John saw the pic Bob did and it scared him straight

It works very well but if the fleas are really bad they will adhere to anything.

I think you three guys got it right in terms of the problem and the solution :lol:

I'll bet we could a little more interesting if we had some of those chicks in the ads

Yeah Mark we had a couple too while out there....hope my gut isn't as bad as that one (sucking in stomach as I say it ) I guess you are right Hop and Kim would probably agree....tough for us old dudes to stay in shape