Sk8man

Nice work!

We had the same experience with the current....it was all over the place and very strong.

Hey Mike better get out the eyeglasses that post is from 2012

Can't argue with that John

Geez John now all those guys in the Trollers will know what your secret weapon is

You guys were pretty darned motivated to be out there in that chop. who knows where they will be next....a lot of the fishing thus far this season has been sort of a riddle.

Genetic pigmentation defect? The pigment in the eye closely resembles the same colored stuff on the gill plate.

Bob has a real nice Furuno with matched transducer and if there were fish under us it would have shown. We have seen this before too out there. The fish are dispersed and there wasn't any bait to congregate them out there. I have no idea what they were doing out there other than perhaps "looking" for food. Nearly all turned out to be males and not much in their stomachs aside from a Finger Lakes size sawbelly (4 inch?) in one.

Yes Keith luckily we had just a very small chop and it still took us 42 minutes to get back in at 3/4 throttle Even saw a freighter out in the shipping lane. I was thinking maybe I should have brought an application for Canadian citizenship with me (just in case)

Great results with some top notch fishermen. Congrats! Hope to be in it next year.

I'm sure they will make it right with you John. I know it is frustrating to have something that new screw up but they make quality products and stand behind them and are great to deal with..

Thanks Dave and best of luck to you out there as well.

Thanks Hach. Best of luck to you out there too.

Thanks guys.

Three of us aboard the Admiral Byrd boat left Hughes about 6:20 AM and immediately motored out to 730 ft of water. We figured based on the reports of a lack of action in closer and some inactive fish we'd explore the depths. We fished until about 2 PM or so. We never marked any bait at all and only about 3 or 4 fish on the screen. It is an example of not totally depending on marks or bait sometimes. We had 2 doubles, a king hooked by the tail that jumped about 3 ft or more into the air, 1 steelhead (released), 7 kings kept (biggest in the 20 range), released another 4 fish, lost4 hit n runs and had a large duolock (from the back of a Spin Doc fail with the king taking a huge run that took one of my homemade green and white flies home with him. Everything accounted for fish except the 10 color leadcore. (riggers with spoons, wires with Spin Docs/flies (white flies were best followed by greens). Most fish came from about 100 ft down regardless of presentation (riggers with magnum sized spoons for most part) with the exception of the 300 copper running a magnum spoon at about 60 ft or so. There was a considerable amount of current and although our speed indicated 1.8 the lines told a different story about the speed of the lures as the lines were at about 60 degree angle much of the time. When we ended fishing we were 14.7 miles out in the 700's and most of the time was spent out there. Sometimes it pays to break away from the pack Oh and did I mention about Bob's leadcore?

Should have thrown a saddle on that big boy and took a ride before releasing Brian Looks like you are getting short of spoons too

The lighter Sutton's are used differently than the Pflueger's and represent another tool in the arsenal if used correctly. They are best used with a leader and sometimes a sinker on a drop line from a three-way swivel.. The spoon that way runs just off bottom rather than bouncing constantly on bottom.Sometimes the fish respond better to this method but the main method is still the Pflueger (and imitations) , Barracuda, Great Lakes, Bladerunner and similar spoons run right on bottom and tied directly to the single strand copper. Braided copper works fine for the current usage on copper rigs but it offers quite a bit more resistance in the water than single strand and in my experience anyway the feel of the bottom isn't as sensitive (critical to this type of fishing). Once again though personal preference comes into the equation and there is no right or wrong answer to this An area where this becomes important is when you run out of the "tick tick tick on cobble and enter mud bottom or weeds.....sensitivity becomes very important then.As far as positioning of the hook on the Pfleuger the fixed hook avoids snags better than the loose version in some stretches of bottom so it may depend on the specific bottom characteristics of where you are fishing. Just an FYI but if having trouble finding the Pfleugers the Great Lakes #4 is as close as it gets in looks and performance (both the silver and Blue Mullet).

Great job rigging the boat and really nice pics... someone will be a very "happy camper" with that boat.

As the season wears on east is usually the place to be as the matures are headed there Good luck with the fishing as well as the cooler issue