Sk8man

I just spray mine with black Plastidip so I keep the lead away from my hands and minimize scratches to the boat. Maybe another alternative for you if the powder coating doesn't work or unable to do it.

Hey Pete I sent his phone number in a PM

Some real good points. I never fished over 150-175 or so at night as I only had 300 ft of anchor rope. I had (2) 20 lb anchors separated by a couple feet of rope one a river anchor and the other a Dansforth. By having the two separated they wouldn't drag as much or as far unless it was a really stiff wind in which case i would move to better protected water or quit. Interesting about the flashlight routine. I had one too but I also had a little blinking red light that was designed for people using bicycles at night. Very disturbing though hearing someone winding up their motor and seeming nearby in total darkness This still happens a lot on weekends on Honeoye Lake presently during the summer and to make it worse you can hear the beer cans and bottles clinking....while they go flat out without their lights on. Back then during the early eighties my dad put together my first graph recorder (Heath Kit and used rolls of paper) including soldering all the components into the motherboard along with everything else....came in about a thousand parts in the box that had to be put together (luckily he was an electronics technician or i would have been screwed). Prior to that I used the first Vexilar flasher with two 6 volt batteries. We couldn't even have imagined some of today's equipment that is taken for granted.

One of my Coleman's had a reflector that covered one side of it the other one I used foil to block the light and project it outward and not in my eyes. When I later switched to the attractor headlight the beam was directed downward so was not a factor. My setup was basically like yours Penn9 reels on Medium action rods 10 lb mono (probably use fluoro now) 8 lb leaders about 2 ft long 4-6 ft apart. I'll include pics of the materials for reference for folks that haven't experienced this stuff;. The 2 ft leaders with #8 double hooks (tied my own) were attached to the loop end of the spring clips. The spring end was fastened to the clevice or between the middle beads of the bead chain that was spliced into the main 10 lb test line. I used the bead chains with the tiny clevice so that the bait could swim freely around the line without getting tangled. The sinker was located at the end of the main 10 lb test rig line. The line was lowered one bead chain at a time while threading a sawbelly on the leader just in front of the dorsal fin) with a threading needle such that the hook points were facing backward toward the tail just under the skin and avoiding the backbone as the fish would usually swallow the bait head first. Sometimes I would just hook the hook through the upper and lower mouth of the bait, This type of fishing is done suspended as you are drawing fish up from the bottom and from the sides and hopefully away from your anchor line. Ray is right about the tiny (#14) hooks catching both sawbellies and smelt as well on the bare hooks. today we would probably use the smallest sabiki rig available on an ice fishing jigging rod and just trim off one of the 6 hooks

Yeah Mike right out of the dinosaur age......like us

Neat story and great pics Hachimo

Good stuff! Nothing like "old school" It is a shame that many of the folks reading this are probably scratching their heads and wondering what the hell are they talking about? Perhaps not realizing how much fun they have missed.

I have always used the aquarium vinyl hose for my home made flies

Congratulations Kevin! Pays to hang in there too.

X2 I ended up buying another half dozen Blue Leopards too

They decimated all the pumpkins I threw out on the hill in back too ate seeds and all left just the skins

Yeah I was a bit crazier back then . I did however switch to a headlamp connected to my battery which was still crazy as we did not have lithium batteries etc. back then to last long so I had to be real careful but i always had my 4 HP Evinrude kicker to get me back too. I fished exactly the way you described, You were also correct about the "click" I wasn't really a part of it with my little Whaler. but I knew most of the players. They used to bust me about the boat too saying "hey someone's dingy got loose". On Seneca I launched mainly from Sampson but also once in awhile from Dresden. A guy used to have a small launch there and I gave him $5.00 and he let me park there. I would get my sawbellies at Jake's Bait Shop right in Dresden on Rt #14 or if I fished east side Seneca from Fisherman's Friend Bait and Tackle between Waterloo and Geneva. Walt the owner and I used to perch fish together too. I also agree that jigging at night would probably be VERY deadly on the lakers especially at night but I never did much of it until the nineties. I think some of my current back issues are a result of being huddled on the floor of the Whaler with life vests under me trying to get some shut eye lying sideways with my feet hanging over the gunwales as I'm 6 ft tall and not that much room between the bench seats

I know we have been here (night fishing topic) before but Ray brings up a lot of nostalgia . I too used to fish by myself out there at the south end of Canandaigua at night and Seneca and Keuka as well in my little 13 ft Whaler no less. I remember captains John Roides and John Oravec (often in his Greek fisherman's hat) at the south end of Canandaigua. They both had good sized boats that I thought were like the Queen Mary compared to me The marina that John and Miriam Clark owned was a bustling beehive of fishermen in those days and you'd put your money in the money box and launch but most of the time I launched at the public one there in Woodville. I also had one of those nets that I bought at Sutton's. It took awhile to learn how to get the sawbellies and smelt with it though. My technique was to hang only one of my Coleman lanterns from the boom of one of my Riviera downriggers so that the light was brighter on that side of the boat (which I could do because my boat was so small and low to the water) and when the bait came up I would scoop the edge of the school from the other side of the boat where the light wasn't so bright....often worked but you had to be real quick and have the net already in the water and wait until the bait was over it and then lift up. As Ray mentioned it could be very lonely out there especially on the Seneca (mainly off Dresden) and somewhat on Keuka when the lights went out from the cottages along the shoreline. If you didn't have much moonlight you would have little ability to tell where you were out there until morning. It is hard to describe the thrill though when you nod off and then hear the drag playing out in the darkness with something unknown on the other end. Rainbows did indeed wreak havoc and the only clue might be hearing them splash from jumping out there somewhere in the darkness. The south end of Canandaigua was the most social of the places in the AM when folks came in and like Ray I usually trolled for a while before quitting. Probably hard to imagine the scenario for many folks today but it was a hell of a lot of fun at the time.

yeah Xray vision.....just has to stay away from Kryptonite

I think you'll be happy with the Opti too I love mine and 18 years now....still runs like new but I use my kicker for trolling and have since the Opti was new.

Wow! likes like a freakin elk

This thread is another great example of the type of generous information sharing and idea generation that can and does go on at LOU

WTG. The thinness probably reflects the nature of their diet without the fat rich alewives in there. The worms and marshmellow rigs work better for trout there than any of the other Fingers too