Frustration Away- Hail I-Bay!

[bfarrow]

Well after a bad year last year and a VERY slow start to this year, success was finally found by actually NOT following the pack out there today and pounding the water we found fish in over an over and over. As my first mate - a "seasoned" Seneca lake guy likes to say, "don't leave fish to find fish" applied today.

While the crowd in front of the bay seemed to slip out deeper when we arrived around 7:30 we took an early Laker hit on a customized black spoon with a neon green ladder backing sticker attached (a spoon from yester-year that found a new start today) on a leadcore out 6 colors. That rod and spoon took four more hits during the day and lead the way for us. After that first hit at around 100 fow we followed out to 120 as the crowd was going but decided to double back inside. We created a nice circular pattern for the rest of the day as we had the fish trapped in their wagons it seemed. We went round and round between 90 fow and 110 fow right in front of the bay. A blood bath then unfolded! All of our fish were contained in essentially the same area as we plotted each one with a photo on the iPhone navionics map.

We matched the style of spoon on the leadcore and ran anything black and green all down between 30-40 ft. We hit an even split of boated lakers and steelhead for a total of 6 on the boat - with one steelie jumping free (the 4th but since no blood on the boat it doesn't count) right next to the boat. We took three other hits with nobody home. Leadcore was by far the most productive but we took hits on a rigger and dipsy setup as well. Here are four of the fish we got...I know that nobody will believe it but our biggest two went un photographed due to my first mate having a problem running the iPhone camera. With some training we got the last 4.

Thank you all for the tips and I will see you out there. Going 6 for 9 from 7:30 until 12 made up for many of the boring slow boat rides we've been having.

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[LongLine]

WTG BF. 

 

Tom B.

(LongLine)

[Pike Hunter]

Good job out there!

You are as good as you can be when u are not following the pack.

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[ontherise]

Our home port of I-Bay is on of the best on the lake. We have it all, being somewhat in the center. That's my opinion.

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[tinfin]

Nice going, staying away from the pack pays big on some days!