Chuck Smth

Truth is, I don't get too hung up on being millimeter-perfect on depth. The dang fish are 3 or 4 feet long, so a couple of fish-lengths either way won't matter. Given my choice, a little high seems to be better than a little low. Just be in the ballpark and you'll be fine. It's not a situation where you'll catch fish at 52 feet but not 50 or 54. We catch as many fish on lead and dipsy's as we do riggers and they're up and down all over depending on turns, speed, current, etc. Heck, I've seen fish come up 30' to hit a bait. When you think thermocline you need to remember fish are cold-blooded. They can be at any temp with enough oxygen to sustain them. They just don't like rapid changes that require them to adjust to their surroundings. Kings (in my humble experience) like to stay in the most stable temps which are generally around 49°F in Lake Ontario where the oxygen is plentiful, but will certainly leave it briefly to chase a meal. In other words, I've found down temp and down speed is more important than the actual depth. As far as distance from the transducer, meh. Even for a 50° cone the largest error can only be 10% ( d/cos(50°/2). That's not enough to worry about, especially if your transducer transom depth isn't considered. For a 20° cone it's really insignificant. All IMHO and YMMV, and that's totally cool, Chuck

Coho

Here's a short video of some of the action. Had our first one on before we got all the lines out. Decent day. I think we had a half-dozen fish, back at the dock by lunch.

Hey man, thanks for that. I'm a data kind of guy so I appreciate it. Pretty interesting to see that Goby's are the main thing they eat by numbers in Oneida, but more walleye by weight. I'm not sure the cormorants are the only source of the bad day we had. We saw lots of great suspended hooks in the Goldilocks zone for temp - they just had lockjaw. It happens. With the abundance of bait this year it might take a few trips to get dialed in. I'm looking forward to the challenge. Honestly, we've done mid-twenties numbers on kings in a single day and it was easy. Other days you really had to grind for one. That's fishing. If there was a one single lure and technique solution that always worked tackle shops would be a lot smaller! That's why I like this type of fishing. Every day is a new puzzle to work out. Even the slow days on the water are a gift. There's so much more to this sport than just catching fish. I think we all lose sight of that sometimes. Even on a bad day I always try to remind myself to enjoy the moment and reflect on how lucky I am to be able to do this. Chuck

Bruce, yesterday was a tough one for sure. We went 0 for 1. Fished 60 to 150 off of Lewis Shoal and it wasn't for a lack of effort. Full spread, 10 colors, 5 colors, dipseys, riggers etc., tried downsizing, upsizing, you name it. Inside was particularly frustrating as we were all over fish and bait in perfect colored water. I wonder if they're just so well fed they're getting picky? Fish we caught last week were puking up small alewives. Haven't seen bait clouds like this since the eighties. One thing I did notice was the temperature break inside was pretty severe. It dropped from around 60 on the surface to 45 down 35' . Ah, the joys of sustained south winds - guaranteed to mess up the fishing. It was pretty calm and that didn't help either. Did anybody go search for the thermal bar? This year will take some work for sure. PM me your number if you want to collaborate. See you pulling out past us most mornings. Chuck

Atlantic. Anal fin gives it away.

Thanks John

I would apply heat to soften the glue and remove the original tip. Next, measure the rod tip diameter to the nearest 1/64". Tip guides are sized by two numbers: the size of the eye in mm and the diameter of the hole the rod fits into is in 64ths. Yeah, weird, right? Order a tip guide and while you do that get the good brown hot glue. Heat up the glue, apply to the rod tip and then slide the new top guide into place and align. That's about all there is too it. The only weirdness on a swivel tip is that you may need to remove the wrapping and re-wrap.

Looks like a keeper! Fish ain't bad either.

This is really a question of what you have for a tow vehicle. Need to know the combined GVW, vehicle weight and then towing capacity. Whatever boat you select, add 1500-2000 pounds for trailer, fuel, gear, etc. Chuck

Skamania?

Wireless shutoff and an epirb for solo big water.