Lively1

Ah lakerchaser... this is the one thing I haven't asked about yet.. the actual jigs, plastics, etc. I started out with some jigs that were given to me.. 2 oz and 1.5 oz 'smiley face' heads tied with some greenish crystal flash. I put on some 6" flukes and caught some fish.. this is August 2013 on vacation. This year, now we have a place on the lake I start jigging in June and fish all summer. The big jig & plastic works, OK, not great. So I start trying other things.. casting spoons, jigging spoons, smaller plastics, trailer flies. (and copper line, wire/dipsey too). I did try some 1 oz. jigs with small tubes pulled over them, both white color and green color, and they didn't produce. The only thing that I caught fish on other than the 6" plastics is a 2.5" long trailing fly and a 3" long black/white/silver flash bucktail jig that I bought in Ithaca eons ago when 'Wildman' was still in business. This is maybe a 3/8 or 1/4 oz head and only possible to fish it when there is zero wind, or cast downwind and let it sink, using 4 lb test. I caught fish on it both ways this summer. I think I get a lot of 'trial' bites on my big jigs when they are sinking, but they are quick and tentative, never hook anything. Same with the trailing fly, lots of pecks when its sinking, but can't get a hookset with the trailer on the drop. I have one large jig with the white paint is chipped off from all the bites, but only hooked a few fish on it. And I fish it with a stinger trailer back near the end of the plastic. Seems like the fish hit the big white jighead, not the tail of the plastic. It's tempting to hypothesize that Keuka being a relatively small and shallow lake (compared to Seneca or Cayuga), with pretty steady pressure all summer, the fish are somewhat skittish and respond well to smaller flies/jigs/spoons. But in truth I've caught most of the fish this summer on the 1.5 or 2.0 oz jig and 6" fluke. All I can really say is, when it has been possible to get the smaller jigs down to the fish, the result has been hookups. And this is not the case using the larger jigs and plastics. BTW - in my summary, the parts about feathers working better than plastics, salt but no scent, and using bait to tip the jig, those all came from different Canadian outfitters or lodges.

Hermit - your laker jigging guide is what enabled me to go out and catch some on my own (last year). It was extrememly helpful! This year I have a bigger boat and more chances to fish, so more variables have come into play. And I may have forgotten some of what I read or it didn't sink in right away. I summarized all the tips in this thread (and from a few other websites) and here's what I ended up with: Best/preferred times to fish: 6 – 9 AM, 5 – 8 PM Jigs: 1, 1.5, and 2 oz. jigs with flukes, paddle tails, etc. in white or pale green Feathered (Marabou) jigs work better than plastics Curly tail and Mr. Twister plastics don’t work Trout like salted plastics but not scented Tip jigs with bit of worm, salted minnow, or belly strip from fish caught previously Line: 10-12 lb braid with 10' fluorocarbon leader Tactics: Drop jig to bottom, bounce 2-3 times, then reel up steadily Let the jig settle to the bottom, then reel in rather fast, for 20-40 feet. Open the bail and let the jig settle back to the bottom. I repeat 4 – 5X then reel all the way in. Keep your jig above any rising fish, reel away (up) if they're interested Try not letting the jig go all the way down before starting your retrieve If the line goes slack on the drop, set the hook A steady up/down jigging motion seems to NOT produce most of the time. However, a painfully-slow jigging motion of only a foot or so on/off bottom sometimes works also.

Lot of you said you use flourocarbon leaders.. what brand flouro?

Thanks to all of you, for sharing tips, techniques, theories, and encouragement.

uh.. nevermind..

Yes I do use a fish finder, just upgraded to a newer Garmin and can see the jig and fish clearly all the way to bottom (100-120 feet). Often see fish rise up to it on the way down, or if letting it sit at one depth, fish will come off bottom to inspect it, say from 120 ft to 100 ft) and then slink back down.

On vacation last week I went laker jigging once or twice a day. I noticed sometimes after deciding to move to a new spot, I would get violent grabs while reeling up. I started reeling up like that on purpose and it seemed to produce some additional fish. (Still no more than 1-2 per day though.) I had been trying other things like a repetitive up and down motion at one depth, a long sweep of the rod up followed by reeling the slack in, and free fall followed by reversing direction just before the jig gets to a fish mark. What seems to work best is dropping to the bottom, then a steady retrieve up at medium speed. Some of the grabs were quite high up.. 45-50 feet. Given the small sample size, I'm not sure if this is really anything other than coincidence. What do other jiggers normally do regarding moving the jig, retreiving it, etc. Does one specific retrieve/motion seem to work best?

Another Dispey Misadventure this morning. Decided to try it in a stiff south wind and some decent sized chop with whitecaps.. Did get it out and trolled for a while.. Speed was a more modest 2.2 mph going against the wind and waves. Let out most of the 300' of wire and trolled a Sutton 88 with trailing fly. Still nothing to show for it. After 20-30 minutes reeled it all back in. Here's where the misadventure begins.. When there was just maybe 10-20 feet of wire out, decided to try to manually trip the dipsey just to see if I could do it, if I did happen to hook a fish. Gave the rod a couple of strong hooksets.. Met with tremendous resistance. Made me think for a minute I was hung up on something. Gave it a stronger tug, and suddenly -- no resistance. Not even a little! Turns out I had straigtened the swivel and the dispey is now buried in the mud in 130 FOW. The good news is, the leader had wrapped around the wire several times and I recovered the spoon and fly even though the dispey was deep-sixed. So, need to buy some stronger swivels, and another dispey.. Will get a #1 this time instead of a magnum.

Update - Went out this morning starting at first light. Jigged the first hour, saw some lookers but no biters. Put it in cruise with the I/O drive and GPS said 3.5 mph. Decided to try the dipsey anyway. Got it paid out OK, At this speed, it was way behind the boat and not visible on the fish finder. An improvement over yesterday. Trolled past a bunch of marks on the screen, but no action. After a while decided to try it a bit slower, using the trolling motor. Got that going at a speed of 2.25-2.5 mph. Dispey still well behind the boat and not seen on the screen. Fish were at various depths, so played with varying amounts of wire out, including a run with nearly all 300' out. But the fish were not interested. After 30 mins or so called it a day. The battery charge on the troller was half gone from the 30 minutes of use. Remembered that the other day my neighbor showed me something called the Happy Troller.. Anybody use one?

Guff - I've only caught and kept half a dozen fish this year, but all of those have had empty stomachs. Makes you wonder if they are eating anything.

Thanks for the help.. Here's some additional info. First off, its definitely the dipsey on the fish finder because the track moves up or down on the screen when I let out or take in line. I bought a #3 magnum dipsey based on the need to get down to 100 feet, of course I'm running wire not braid or mono (whatever the chart is based on). Trolling speed and wire angle: I did take the ring off the dipsey, but the wire is still nearly vertical and the dipsey not far behind the boat. My smartphone shows my trolling speed at about 1.5 mph. I read that you needed to go slow for lake trout. But I see guys pulling copper with a little outboard going twice that fast. I'm using an electric trolling motor at the present time, my slowest speed with my I/0 is about 3.5 mph. I could go 2-2.5 with the electric though. Should I speed it up? Side angle: Since I'm only running one rod I thought it would be OK to run it straight back so the weight is set on 0. If it helps to get it away from the boat I can change that. Presentation: I've tried several spoons solo with nothing to show for it. Today I tried a Sutton 88 with a little white streamer tied on the hook and trailing about 2 ft behind. My version of flasher/fly. Still no hits. I did pick up about 50 ft of discarded mono that wrapped around the wire. Finally - a fishing report. I did some jigging today as well as playing with the dipsey. It was overcast, and I was seeing a lot of marks from 5 ft to 50 ft. in some breezy chop. Hard to jig with the wind, so on a whim I tied a 1/2 oz black/white bucktail to my UL rod and cast it down wind. Let it sink and jigged it up. You know the rest.. Wham.. Laker slammed it probably 30 ft down, 20 inch fish but it felt like a monster on my 5 ft rod and 4 lb test line. Next time out I am going to try: - weight setting on 3 to get it out to side of boat - speed of 2-3 mph - smaller spoon, closer to size of the jig that worked today If that doesn't work maybe I need a smaller dipsey.. Will post a pic of my rod/reel in separate post.

I came into an older roller rod and big reel and decided to see if I could run a dispey with it. Put some 30 lb AFW on it, bought a black #3 diver, and viola, it works. I have trolled with it a couple of times now, and it gets down to 100 ft or more if I let it. Shows up really well on the fish finder. Thing is, I've trolled with it for several hours now, through places with lost of marks, and not caught a thing. I'm on Keuka Lake so I've run the depth anywhere there are marks - 45' down to 100;. So now I'm wondering if there is something wrong wtih my equipment, or what I'm doing. I have tried some basic flutter spoons - Sutton 88, FLT Angry Alewife, Michigan Stinger purple/blank, mainly. Leader is 12 lb fluoro,about 8' long. Here are some of the things kicking around in my head: How do you know when a fish hits the spoon? Do they normally just hook themselves? Do they pop the dipsey front clip when they hit? How close to the boat should the dipsey be? How fast do you troll? I've read 1.5 mph but now was to go that slow. How bendy or stiff should the dipsey rod be? The one I have is pretty flexible. I think it's 1st gen. fibreglass.I would describe the tip as "floppy"/ When you see a bunch of marks on the screen at say, 100 feet, do you try to run the dipsey at their eye level? or slightly above maybe? Any other advice would be appreciated.. I throw up a photo of the rig when I can. Thanks!