Big Water

Thanks for the report. Sounds like a great trip. I'll be there next weekend, so I hope the fishing holds up.

That good friend is one hell of a teacher, isn't he?

Fishing Report Your Name / Boat Name: ============== TRIP OVERVIEW ============== Date(s):8/13 and 8/14 Time on Water:6:00am to 8:00pm; 6:00 to 12:00 Weather/Temp:upper 70's to 80 Wind Speed/Direction:mostly south and east Waves: 2' sat 1' sunday Surface Temp: 74 Location: LAT/LONG (GPS Cords): =============== FISHING RESULTS =============== Total Hits: Lost count Total Boated: 8 kept lost count with few drops Species Breakdown: Kings and Steelies Hot Lure: Soin Doc/A-Tom-Mik flies Trolling Speed: Down Speed: 2.4 - 2.8 Boat Depth: 100 to 500 Lure Depth: 40 to 80 ==================== SUMMARY & FURTHER DETAILS ==================== My friend Charlie, Polar Bear and I hit Olcott Saturday all day and Sunday morning. Mostly stayed inside up to 200' Saturday and hit dozens of fish including a 22lb king. The next biggest was probably 12 lb. Lots of steelies and big ones at that. Spin Doctors in Carmel Dolphin, Blue Vision Quest, Intimidator, and White and Green were all good with matching A Flies. Shouldn't have stayed out all day long, but when you drive five hours to get there, you might as well get the most out of it. Sunday morning I met a guy at the dock that said it would be better to go deep early since the outside bite was hot. We took his advice and took off for the 29 line and trolled to the 32 line. Pretty constant bite with quite a few doubles and a triple. Even caught two fish on one rod twice. One on the fly and one on the slider. Biggest was a low 20+ king and some huge steelies. Same setup as yesterday. Got chased off by an incoming storm at noon. Great trip with lots of action and good friends.

I'm with Chowder on this. While this is my first year with the x4, I have a few observations after several trips to the O. The temp probe is interesting, but I can't tell you how many times we've caught fish out of "the zone". Many times we'll take nice fish in 10+ degree cooler water than they're supposed to be. More critical seems to be speed. There are some serious currents in the O and I can see a lure limply dragging along or spinning out of control if you don't know the down speed. It appears there is some value in finding the "edge" of these currents also. Observing the blowback of the downrigger line can get you close, but its not a substitue for the down speed. Its a tool that helps, but it isn't perfect and shouldn't be applied blindly.

After two years at the O, I'm getting a little sense of how these fish move, but can anyone explain a "typical" migration from the spring through fall? The spring bite is shallow (presumably baitfish spawn driven) and preliminarily in the western basin, but are all of the fish actually on the west side or does this water just warm faster and start the bite earlier there? (seems improbable that they're all in the west, but you should have seen some of the screen shots I had this spring outside of Olcott. Never saw so many BIG fish packed from 30-120' in my life. They had to be there by the thousands or tens of thousands) Once they start moving deeper, is it just a random spread throughout the open waters or are they migrating any particular direction. Just trying to get a feel for the logic behind the movements. Thanks, Doug

I installed mine a month ago about 5" from the transducer and have no problems at all. The only thing I'm confused about is that the transducer reads about 3/4 to 1 mph faster than my gps unit. I don't know which is accurate, but I believe it's the gps and the x4 just reads fast. Nonetheless, it does a good job at showing currents in lake O, which are much greater than I would have thought.

I'm trying hard to resist saying two on one side, two on the other. Seriously, we ran 4 this past weekend. Put the outside rods on 3 1/2 and the inside on no more than 2 setting. Also helped that the outside rods were 10' and the inside 8' 6" rods. Take the turns easy to avoid crossing lines. Also ran two riggers at the same time with no problems.

Thanks everyone. I was curious how much spread I was getting. I was also trying to determine when a boat passes close to my side when trolling how much distance I needed to prevent tangling lines. Sometimes it turns into a real circus out there.

Any idea how far a large dipsey set on 3 moves out to the side of the boat for 100, 200, 300 feet of wire on a straight troll? Thanks, Doug

There are no hard and fast rules about what you can or can not do. I'd say try it and see. The stacked F/F would need a tight release to prevent from tripping. Something I'm still wrestling with is the less is more idea. It seems there are times when less hardware in the water means more fish. Something else to consider.

It's pretty obvious that where you find bait balls, you're catching fish. This past weekend at Olcott the fish turned off like a light switch during high sun. However, we hit a massive bait ball and the riggers started popping. Since the bait balls are pretty scattered, I wondered how much benefit there would be to a side scanning sonar????? If these things really shoot out 200-300 feet, you could see when you're passing one and turn to intercept it. Anyone use one? Results? Thanks, Doug

I'll second that. Was at Olcott 7/2 and 7/3 with my wife and Polar Bear and we pounded them. Hope this fishing holds up for a while. I need a little physical rehab before I go for round two!

Is the 50lb so that its stiffer and gives the fly more action?

Not an expert here, but I've never had that happen and I've run flies, spoons and plugs behind them. I hate to say this, but are you running the SDs backwards????

711......Nice to meet you at the dock. What great fishing you have there!! Wish I was closer to that kind of action. We caught so many nice lakers and LLs it was unbelievable. The late evening bite for LLs was amazing. I'd be fishing there every weekend if I wasn't 3 1/2 hours away. Caught 40+ Saturday and 20+ Sunday. See you again before the season is over. Tight Lines!!

Same here

Lets see; Fished the Lake one time Had one hell of a time even finding the launch Going up against the pros on their home water I'll see if PB will bail my ass out. Count me in!

Made my first ever trip to Cayuga with Mark (Polar Bear). I guess when you get to the point of taking the sliders off of the rigger rods because you're tired of resetting the riggers its a good day. Ended up with 40+ fish. Mark caught a nice 8+ lb LL and he dropped a 10 lb laker at the back of the boat because I must have been sleeping during Netting 101! Dropped a few doozies that we never got to see. Flies and spoons did equally well. Wire divers were hot in the morning and the riggers came alive later in the day. Fish were split about half lakers, half LLs with a lot of little 13-15" LLs. Fished 80 to 250 FOW. Here's a couple of the better ones.

Thanks for the report and pic. Good day for starting at 1:00!!

Boy you just made me feel better. Hit Olcott Saturday and half a day Sunday. Started shallow running sticks and spoons on boards and riggers. NOTHING! Went out to 70-80 feet and caught one Coho and a Steelhead. The Coho came on a cheater and the steelhead on a wire dipsey with spoon. Sunday started with a bang as we nailed a decent Coho on a diver with a J11 firetiger in 42' after about 10 minutes. That was it for the day and we headed home about 1:00. I marked what I assumed were lakers in 60-80' and they were there by the hundreds, but I couldn't get a bump regardless of lure or speed. Better days ahead!!!

Heading to Olcott tomorrow through Wednesday. Simple question - Troll to the east or to the west for BT? Thanks, Doug

It's an I/O. Thanks for the tip.

Thanks David, but I think that's an I/O, isn't it? Doug

Looking for a late model Starcraft Islander 22' OB. Preferably 2005 or later and not an I/O. Thanks, Doug

Well said. Government "For the People, by the People" has become government "For the Corporations and by the Corporations". The puppets in Washington do a wonderful job at spreading propoganda making you believe that what they do is in your best interest. Any serious effort to change this is spun as socialism to confuse the masses. Trickle down economics has never worked.