The only way to start the season

[jt_6]

The shake down run of your first trip is always interesting. We forgot the wash down hose, the pee bucket, the boat hook, several boxes of lures, and it goes on. So for an evening of 74 degrees, no clouds in the sky and the lake like glass on the 18th of april why care about what you forgot.

But it gets better. Little Trev aka the fish magnet gets the first chance. He battles a nice brown for 10 minutes and it breaks off at the boat, he feels bad. Dad and mom try to console but rod 2 goes off. Trev is back into and after about 5 minutes he lands the first brown of the year. 7 lbs sporting a jr thunderstick in the left side of the mouth and a mutzoko in the ride side. Talk about a hungry fish. Do you think it is going to be a great year?

[muskybob]

Great pics jt6, there nothing like taking a kid fishing and watching them bring in the fish. Much better than catchin them yourself.

[FISHINMAN]

JT_6 ditto what Muskybob said. Hopefully you got all the "bad" stuff out of the way for the rest of the year. One suggestion though, buy the kid a new hat one that's either silver and black or one that has the words "Lake Ontario United" on it as a prize for him getting the first fish of the year

P.S man you look like Whitey Herzog :shock:

[chinook]

Tom, thought the same thing about him looking like Whitey. But have to say, that is a great hat the boy is wearing. Go Steelers.- jt-6- congrats on him taking a nice brown. He is now hooked for life. As far as forgetting a few items, think we all do on occasion. Look on the bright side, you remembered the drain plug.

[jt_6]

OK enough of the the Whitey jokes I know where you guys live. It sure was a great lucky start. How hungry are these browns to take a second lure after 10 minute fight. By the way there is only one Football Team and they are from Dallas.

[cwmwnw]

Looks like a great time. Any other details on the catch besides the tackle?

I'm trying to decide if I need planer boards, I've only used riggers and flat lines with limited success.

[jt_6]

We were using planner boards. Fished again on Sunday for a couple hours 11 to 2 and picked up a couple all of the boards. Most of the fish that we saw caught were off the boards. The east wind really changed the temp in Oswego from Friday but a few fish were being caught. I talk to a few guys at the launch and they were basically saying th same thing.

[cwmwnw]

Thanks, now I know what I was hoping I wouldn't need to do...get set up with planer boards. Any suggestions to keep the cost down and which type to avoid would be great.

Thanks again.

[FX]

You can make your own. I believe there was a thread here with planer board plans, but I can't find it so try the LOTSA site plans http://www.lotsa.org/tips.htm There are many ways to make a mast that works for your boat and I've used small boards or plywood in a rectangular shape with >< cut into each end to wrap the planer line around. Sanded down real good, the line wraps on them easily and comes off easily. Feel free to PM me for more detail. Hope this helps.

Shawn

[chinook]

cwmwnw- I think I got that right If you don't want to setup with the catamaran style boards simply use the in lines such as Church or Offshore Many have taken alot of fish using these. T hese can be deadly at times, esp in the shallower waters-

[rustyrat]

cwmwnw,

I have a nice set of Cedar home made boards that you can have. You just need to come get them. We can arrange something for pick up depending on your location.

RR

[Russ]

This is my first year to try catching browns in LO and I've learned a ton from this website and GLA. I also read about all the guys using planer boards but was hesitant to drop the money for the planer mast and stuff. I have a set of the Offshore inline boards but wanted to try the planer boards. I looked around on the web for some plans and around the house for supplies, then rigged up a system that has worked out this past couple of weeks.

I made one starboard planer board using some pine boards to follow the plans from this website:

http://planerboard.blogspot.com/

As for a mast, I'm using a 4' piece of 3" PVC pipe I had laying around and standing it up over the pole for my seat on the front deck of my boat. I put in a couple of eye bolts to run the line through. I'm using weedeater trimmer line sprayed with silicone for the planer line. For clips, I'm using the extra line releases that came with my Offshore Inline boards and i bought a package of shower curtain rings at Wal-Mart (they look just like the releases and rings in the Off-shore package at Gander).

Total cost is about $10 and I've caught my first ever browns plus a walleye of 7.5 lbs - my biggest ever (then I released him of course...) the first time I used the setup. My buddy and I ran two lines off the planer board on one side and two off the inline boards on the other side of the boat. One morning all fish came off the planer board lines, the next day all came off the inline boards.