Sk8man

Hey Dave - Looks as though you got into them real good and great to see the surface there isn't bad either (vs. some of the other places) maybe there are some advantages to it freezing up late Nothing like a couple happy ladies and a youngster with you holding up nice fish for pics either Les

Sweet Mike ....but you should have stayed here the weather has been great!

Congrats to both of you! Thanks for the invite pikefreak hopefully next time. We opted to fish Canandaigua today as my son got up late. The morning was slow but the afternoon bite was good and my son caught a slob of a pickerel about 6 lbs after I gave up on my tip ups We also had the pleasure of chatting out on the ice with a fellow LOU guy....great chatting with you Joe.

Best of luck pikefreak you certainly seem to have old esox dialed in maybe run into you at the awards ceremony.

You earned them today . That wind was brutal and the walking was as well (and the 15 inches of ice wasn't much of a treat although my Bosch drill/lazer auger cut through it like butter. All we got were dinks jigging. Still unsure about tomorrow.

Neat pics guys Thanks. Sure looks as though it is a long way off to Spring

Bernie Klimzak (charter captain) used to make the Millers and at one time he lived in Hamburg, NY. I think he has passed on and they are real good trout spoons. The Quick Strikes were made by a guy from the Watkins Glen/Elmira area unfortunately I can't recall his name but I used to meet him at a buddy's tackle shop near Waterloo in late 70's and early 80's and I bought a bunch of them. The ones with the swirl finish (44's and 22's used to perform best but my favorite is the Quick Strike 11 and I still have about 30 or so and run the hammered silver ones for rainbows all summer long and into the Fall. I have "modified" many of mine though They were patterned after the Sutton's in terms of size and number designations but made from different metal and did not have a true silver plate finish. They came in silver, brass, hammered brass hammered silver and silver swirl and brass swirl finish.

Been using for over 30 years and yet to have it happen either with or without the rubber band

My wife hates holding the line (and maybe me barking about the tension) ....maybe I can ask her to make one?....naah too risky for several reasons

The way I look at it the Elite 7HDI is better than my previous Lowrance unit in terms of giving me information and basically the CHIRP just clears up things a bit with a little better target separation and definition (resolution). For years I used paper graphs and flashers so having the color (to discriminate better the bottom hardness etc.), GPS integrated, and the ability to discriminate structure more clearly is light years from before and I've been looking at bait and fish and structure long enough in these different lakes to be able to assess things pretty good so having the newest latest greatest thing isn't an absolute necessity anyway. The most important aspect of these units is learning to use them properly and fully and being able to see your downriggers etc....they are just one tool in the box anyhow. You can have the newest fanciest unit with the largest screen and if you don't adequately understand how to use it and interpret what the data is telling you you're no further ahead than being without one.

The download and install works out fine as I did it on the day that the update came out (Jan 23rd) but I was unaware that it would make the unit CHIRP capable despite the same update being listed for both the Elite HDI and the CHIRP unit. It would be nice if that is truly the case but knowing Lowrance and their marketing strategies I'm skeptical that the CHIRP would be just a software issue.

I should have added that the ducks and geese have made some "play areas" out there too in a couple large swimming pool sized areas so my hunch is that it isn't ready for prime time yet. This severe wind last night and today may have messed things up too despite being out of the west northwest the wave action can see saw the ice underneath making it very unsafe. We need a couple of still cold nights without the high winds with sunny days before it will be "fishable" in my opinion. I'm as anxious as anyone to get out there despite the fact that the major intermittent grass beds are no longer there in numbers.

Ice fishing isn't necessarily a panacea for curing the longing for the REAL fishing to begin but it helps a little

Dre: The entire lake (Canandaigua) is frozen with a few small places where the ice was last to form so it is relatively thin. I ice fished the south end yesterday and there were a couple of guys out in the middle of the lake ice fishing about a little south of Vine Valley. I was also at Seneca today and the north end is freezing up pretty good despite the wind. The ice shelf is out to about the Hobart dock as of this afternoon.

Makes you wonder what the colder water temps will mean for this seasons fishing....doesn't sound real good.

I missed one or two derbies when I was overseas (military) in the mid sixties but I've hit nearly all the derbies since then and it is the high point of fishing each year for me as well as my son (fishing partner).And yes....before anyone says something...if I had been more daring I could have had a T Rex for a pet

A word of caution: The ice on most of these lakes has not been uniformly formed this year and you can have 5 or 6 inches in one spot and 2 in another close to it. We experienced it yesterday on Canandaigua Lake when my son went to put in a hole near where we had about 5 inches and after a couple revolutions of the auger he was through (2 inches and under snow so impossible to detect beforehand) so don't get OVER confident out there..... Another thing to watch out for is broken up and refrozen ice because when you drill a hole the ice may be at an angle so it looks as though you have plenty and a couple feet away it may be 2 inches

Over the years I've used nearly every commercial release out there both in the intended ways and some rather unorthodox ways and I still use my home made ones most of the time because they work and they are cheap to make so I don't have to watch my language in mixed company when I lose one (e.g. Offshores at 8 or 10 bucks each). At one point I was using the alligator clips with shrink tubing but I did quite a lot of cold weather fishing and found that when your fingers were numb they were a little difficult to manipulate. I then switched to plastic clothes pins (camping sections of store) with rubber pads in the jaws (little pieces of inner tube glued with instant glue). You can use either with the line straight in them or with rubber bands and married them to shower curtain rings with hot glue. They also have enough weight to slide down the line on big board setups and will collect at the boards without problem when released and also work well on outriggers. The pic: at the top are two home made rubber band releases for downrigger cables (eg. for stacking rods or "fixed" sliders) made from trot line clips shrink tubing and a duolock snap, next is the Weldon Tackle release, then an Offshore (which can also be used with a shower curtain ring added to the little one on it), then some homemade ones as described above.

WTG Mike I got my entry ticket a few days ago for the Trout derby (#35) .....looking out my window I'm wondering if the snow will still be here then though Les