Yankee Troller

Good to see you coming back Dan. I like that you teach about all species and don't just concentrate on Kings. It seems like the seminars here focus on just King Salmon.

Paul and his brother, from the Albany area, joined us today on Oneida Lake. They have turned into regulars on our fall Oneida Lake schedule. These guys like to mix it up so we start out casting and then switch over to trolling. Today was no different. On our morning drifts Jigging Raps, Shiver Minnows, and i1baits blades took our fish. We imitated Perch and Shad with our color selections. Glow Perch Shiver Minnow, Green Tiger UV and Glow Yellow Perch in the Jigging Raps. On the blade bait a silver blade with disco ball tape was our best. Our best depths to drift were 27-24'. We lost a lot of fish, and the fish that made it to the net were barely hooked. When we got to trolling we utilized Offshore Guppy weights in front of various stickbaits trolled behind Offshore OR12 inline boards. Perch patterns and purple patterns were our best. We fished over 30-37' of water and put our baits in that 20-30' range. Our biggest Walleye of the day took a Bay Rat Short Deep in a custom purple color. 50' back, 1oz Offshore Guppy, 80' more before we clipped on the OR12 inline board.

Todd and his son joined us on Oneida Lake for some Walleye fishing. The weather man was a little off. The winds were East all day instead of the South that was predicted. Our first drift was off target, so we quickly picked up and adjusted. Those next two drifts over last week's waypoint we're on fire! Each drift took less bites as the boats started showing up. Size 7 Jigging Raps and 1/2oz Moonshine Shiver Minnows took all our fish in that spot. Glow Perch, Hot Steel, and Green Tiger were the good colors for us. We bounced around and hit a few other spots with little to no success. Around 11am my guys were a little cold, so I suggested we do a little trolling. We set up over 36' of water and it didn't take long. Perch and Silver/Blue sticks took fish for us. Our biggest fish of the day came on the troll at 22". We utilized the 50+2 method with 2oz Offshore guppies behind Offshore OR12 inline boards.

These guys from PA are regulars on the Salmon schedule, but this weekend they popped their Walleye cherries. They may now be Walleye regulars! Saturday we dealt with 15-30mph winds and had to fish the East end of Oneida Lake. We caught 40 short Walleye and a handful of perch. Sunday we got back to the waters where we usually fish, and on our third spot we found them. The school we found was in 25-27' of water. We worked them hard and kept 12 Walleye and four nice Perch. We tossed back some 16" eyes when the bite was good thinking we could limit easily. What's that saying? One in the hand is better than two in the bush? Jigging raps and Shiver Minnows took everything for us. Couldn't buy a blade bait bite. The fish didn't want monster hops. Fast retrieve with small hops triggered the bites.

I don't know when the pen projects started, but a few years prior to 2011 something changed in our fishery. The amount two year old matures has been consistently high since then,

If you look at the data from the angler survey over the years angler hours are at an all time low, so I have to disagree with you on that. I will agree the guys out there are much better than they once were.

If there is SOOOOOOOO much bait out there then why our the fish so small? You would think the 20lb fish we caught in April/May would have surpassed 30lbs by August? I don't think we caught one over 25lbs this season. That's awful! Here's an observation. I'm pretty good with my electronics and I have all the various types on my boat. Traditional sonar tends to make things look grossly oversized. Watching bait on those lower frequencies it may seem like there is a lot of it. When I get offshore and utilize my side imaging/down imaging it gives me a much better idea of the size of the bait pods. The one thing I noticed this season was how small those bait pods were compared to previous years. The other thing I've noticed the last 10-15 years is our fishery has changed. Back in the day July, August, and September were the months we made hay on salmon. West end fishing was good most of the season and the East end got hot in July and lasted the rest of the season. Check out the Spring Salmon fishery we've had over the last half a dozen seasons all over the lake. You can go out and target Salmon in April - May from Oswego to the Niagara Bar. It's almost looks like we've trading a Fall fishery for a Spring fishery.

Mark was a good dude. Sorry to hear of this.

Over 600'

I have run these rod holders for 12 seasons. I have had pins get loose and work their way out. Some have gotten sloppy over time from use. I have never had that happen to one. I have a double set that holds an extra large fillet table and they haven't had that happen to them. The black piece on the grip to ratchet the rod holder is a break away piece to help avoid the issue you had. I have had those break multiple times. My recommendation would be walk, instead of run, over to the rod and be a little more gentle with things. Those are really cool!

August 20th: Our guys today drove in from Maryland. Some of them are new, and others have fished with us in the past. We left the dock around 5:15am and headed offshore to the 31N line a little East of Port. The bite seemed to get better as the day wore on, and our catch was 2:1 Salmon vs. Steelhead. A-TOM-MIK meat behind poka dot pattern flashers were good on 175' divers and 80' Cannon Downriggers. Our best spoon was a UV Apple Seed on a 65-75' Cannon Downrigger. Other lure mentions for today are an A-TOM-MIK Stud fly behind a 10" White DW Spin Doctor, A-TOM-MIK UV 190 behind a chrome Mountain Dew flasher, and early in the morning a DW Gold Sea Sick Waddler. August 21st: The Maryland group was back out with us this morning. Mother nature kept us on the inside scrounging around for a lucky bite until 7am because of passing thunderstorms. Once the radar cleared we picked up our gear and ran offshore to the 30N line. We were met with 2-4' waves which offered great lure action. The lake would eventually calm down throughout the day and the sun made its appearance. On the set up the 300' A-TOM-MIK copper pulling a Wonderbread spoon would take our biggest Salmon of the day around 23lbs. That spoon and presentation would go on to take a couple more shots. The other 300' A-TOM-MIK copper was loaded with a DW Lucky Charms cut plug. That was good for four nibbles throughout the day. A-TOM-MIK meat, a BAM fly behind a Hammertime flasher, and UV NBK were other lures that took fish for us. The 30-32N line dried up late morning so we pushed it North. We ended up finding good screens on our Humminbird's, and cooperative fish on the 34.5-35N line.

I've ran them for three weekends with three charters each weekend. So far, they are great. No complaints at this time. If you're grabbing them at FishUSA click the link above if you don't mind.