Seneca again 7-10-15

[Sk8man]

Signalman and I gave the fish another shot this AM from 6:30 -12N on my boat  fishing the north end both sides. Once again lots of marks and bait but we had to work for active fish.  We started out with 2 downriggers with sliders 2 leadcores one 5 color and 1 10 color off boards and two wires with spinneys and flies. Early on I thought one of my wires was messed up with a downrigger and when the downrigger was released it had a good bend and then the fish started stripping line so here I was playing "rod hog" with the first fish of the day   It put up a good scrap on the downrigger and turned out to be a 30 1/2 inch10 lb laker that took the same blue taped Great lakes 44 that took the laker the other day. He was released to fight another day and seemed none the worse for wear.  A while later we caught another laker on the rigger about 3-4 lbs which was released, and then another on the leadcore.5 color off the Walleye board on a green taped Great Lakes 44. We had to make a couple runs and passes up north to get fish to hit but pulled through all kinds of bait and fish along the way on both sides of the lake. We trolled along the high banks area and the grass floating and submerged as well became worse and worse as we trolled south along the east side and it got into everything we had out and lines had to be cleared and reset multiple times so we pulled up and powered north again and reset going from northeast to southwest and Mike was up to bat next and a 4-5 lb rainbow hammered the Sutton 44 with green tape on a slider. We boxed him for my buddy John's smoker. We trolled along for quite some time without anything happening and then went back north and came back through the marked fish and bait on the west side and I switched out a leadcore for a 250 copper down the chute with a taped up Sutton 44 and I no longer turned around from setting the rod in the holder and the drag started screaming on the copper and the fish stayed down so I suspected a laker but when I had it about half the way in it was clearly a rainbow about the same size as the first rainbow and we got a real good look at him when he surfaced and spit the hook. That was about it for the day and we headed in.  Only tiny bit of flea action noted but the grass was really bad going south. Beautiful day out there. Good luck to you folks fishing the FLT tournament this weekend and I hope this post helps out in terms of info if the weather doesn't change too drastically. No action on the wires by the way run from 90 ft out to 200 out with green/white combinations>

Edited July 10, 2015 by Sk8man

[Big Spoon]

Thanks for the report Les!  What speed were you running those suttons at?

[Sk8man]

Roughly 2.1-2.3 I believe

[Bobber]

Beautiful 'bow!!!

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[BrookTrout]

beauties! great report

[Iron Duke]

Nice report !! Great job guy's

Mike

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[Frogger]

Nice fish you guys. Great report.

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[glenm]

Great report, I'll be giving it a try in the morning!

[Sk8man]

Thanks folks and good luck Glenn....have to stay after them until they give up

[vicarious]

Great report Les and beautiful fish!  Looks like I may have to make an investment in some Great Lakes spoons....

[Sk8man]

Thanks. Yes I've had VERY good luck with the Great Lakes spoons. Jason has done a terrific job with them.....great action and they seem to tolerate a wide range of speeds.

[Bo Hunter]

Thanks for the report Les. I'll put a lot of your info in the water tomorrow morning.

[jimalbert]

Way to go Les, beautiful fish. I'm hoping when I'm up there next week I have the same type of success. Did you notice a defined thermocline yet? I didn't see it last time up

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[Sk8man]

It's there even if you don't mark it well on your screen. Generally was running roughly from 20 -45 ft down.One of the complicating factors marking it on the depth finder is that  in many places there is all sorts of submerged debris and weeds. Best way is to use a temperature device and look for the area (range) of the water column where there is the greatest number of degree change in temperature.  A Fish hawk TD can do a decent job of it if you don't have an X4 or X4D. I attach mine to a downrigger while the motor isn't running in 120 ft of water and send it down 100 ft and let it stay for a few seconds and then retrieve it. I take the readings and record them down on a recording sheet on a clip board with a grease pencil and take the temps down to 100 ft usually on the Fingers (although I didn't do it yesterday). I run my lines for silver fish above and within the thermocline and if I'm fishing also for lakers I set some at lower part of it or below it (e.g. with downriggers or Seth Greens) while "prospecting".

Edited July 12, 2015 by Sk8man

[glenm]

Great info Les. I didn't have my best day Saturday. There was a ton of bait and fair numbers of fish around 50' of water. That combined with my recent success with the dodger flies combo.... I couldn't resist. I picked up a few fish, but all on the small side. Moved to the south and deeper water without moving a thing. I did pick up a lot of weed and although not real heavy yet, the fleas are definitely more prevalent. Came back north and hit a 31" Laker right in front of Belhurst. Tried jigging for a couple hours which produced all kinds of follows, but no takers, which has been what I've found all year. Big difference from last year.

[Sk8man]

Nice work Glenn . That laker sounds about like the one I got did he say "oh no not again" while you were bringing him in?   

[glenm]

He wouldn't talk Les, but there wasn't a whole lot of fight in him! He also tossed three fairly fresh sawbellies into the bottom of my boat. I don't believe he was real hungry!

[Sk8man]