suttontroller94

What area are you from I personally troll from a small (14ft boat) on the finger lakes however I'm set up just like most of the bigger boats and would be glad to fill an open seat if you were willing to join, so you can pass the knowledge on to your 6 year old. By all means don't be afraid to still book a charter however most captains won't start using those deeper water tactics you want to learn until May. And we use them year around on the fingerlakes

Where are you located?

Also interested

thanks guys and We got both Lakers in 70ft and I would need an extra boat hand if I had a bigger boat or my buddies didn't fight each other for the 2 seats in my boat

Out of hughes 2-18 & 2- 22 Weather report finally looked good for this passed Saturday so I decided we would make the trip to the big lake with my 14fter. However the night before we found out you need to pay a fee at the town hall to launch there so we decided to try to find another launch. I've launched at hughes before and knew it could be ice free we arrived a little later than planned to find ramp covered in snow and some ice still in bay. I was well prepared and made the call to bust out the shovel and the salt and we cleared the ramp then busted through the ice and finally got set up on the lake by 745. Things started slow in the cold muddy water but we began to pick away at a better class of fish than normal trolling easy. Mostly in the 6lb range one was 7.5 and we only caught 1 cookie cutter. Ended up going 8 for 9 with most fish coming on the boards back 125 with a bay rat "my secret" short shallow.A couple other sticks took fish aswell. Well my itch wasn't completely taken care of so I decided yesterday looked like a great day to take a vacation day. Arrived at hughes early and made it on the lake easy started off trolling east and began a pick of normal cookie cutters with the occasional 5- 6lber mixed in. Made a turn and worked to the nuke plant and on the way a rigger went with a nice big fish and I lost him. Reset the rigger and not 5min later it went again with a 10+lb Brown I managed to get to the boat for a little redemption. By the time we got to nuke plant we had had a good full of Browns and lake was flat so I decided to point it out and find a couple Lakers. We managed 2 in 15min in 70ft and headed back in tight. Most fish came on white jr. Thunderstick back 100ft on boards as Well as a few other sticks but stinger bloodynose back 60 on a 6ft rigger took most of the better fish. Ended the day 25 for 32 with 23 Browns 2lakers

Worth a shot

Trade you a 2010 Yamaha 9.9 4 stroke and a hundred dollar bill

Thanks and good luck hopefully weather stays nice and most the fish we caught were similar size to the 2nd biggest of the 2 my buddy is holding I was very surprised to get into the quality of fish we did. I'll be up every time I get a day off with a light South breeze

Yes sir we were the red 14fter and just the ramp to the outlet after we busted ice out yesterday

Went to hughes and shoveled ramp and broke ice out made for late start but had a good morning

My preferred launch is hughes but I doubt that is ice free

We are heading up from around Watkins and are pretty familiar with that area from steelhead fishing but just weren't sure what launches were ice free currently other than that one

Well that's a bummer anyone know of any other options?