Yankee Troller

Whens the last time you heard me lie on here? LOL Jax can vouch for it as he fishes with me quite often. I would say my hook up to land ratio is pretty good, although I have never calculated it out. As Paul said its personal preference. But, for the weekend warrior trying to get some diver setups and save some money there is 20 bucks in his pocket.

Billy V, Maniac, and Myself ar teaming up.

Like Gambler said the Big John Otter Boats are probably what you saw. I'm on my second season with a set, and I have run them in 4-6' waves pulling 400-600' sections of copper. These boards can take a beating and when or if they dive or go through a wave a little slack and they will pop right up. If you do purchase a pair your string should have 9" in front of the knot and 11" behind it.

WOW....haven't done that in a while! I remember all the old captains in Rochester used to do that back in the day.

My wires drags are cranked down all the time until i get to the rod. Jax can vouch for that! I have found out through fishing these Pro-Ams that some of the best captains on the lake do the same. When I get to the rod I just back the drag off until i hear line coming out, and then get the rod out of the holder. Again I always use 25lb McCoy Mean Green as leaders behind my dipseys and never crack anything off. During the Spring LOC I was putting out an otter boat when the wire on the other side of the boat starts diggin. One of my crew goes over to get the rod and he couldn't get it out of the holder. I told them what to do wbut in the heat of the moment I guess he forgot. This fish dug for a good 10 seconds thrashing that rod. When it stopped I was sure I had gotten cracked off. Brought it in and everything was still in tack.

Ahhh...apprentice.....you make your mentor very happy! LMAO Who am I kidding you didnt learn anything on my boat! You just got a heck of a sun tan on tehat flybridge. Remember when we were pulling in 12lb cannon balls by hand with 10 minutes to go in Niagara! Nice job BTW!

6/21 - Honeoye - Fishing was slow with many small ones to weed through. Stilla fun day though. Biggest was just under 3lbs and the rest were 1lb-2lbs. Couldnt buy a topwater bite! Most fish came pitchin creature baits. 6/22 - Sodus - Fished a open tourney and smoked the fish. We ended up catching probably 30-40 laregmouth al between 1lb and 3lbs. Our 5 biggest weighed 12lbs. We finished right out of the money, and all we needed to cach a check was a lunker. One 4 or 5lb fish would have put us into the top 3. WE caught all our fish pitching craws and jig and pigs. Half was into the dayt I snapped my TM cable and couldnt really fish. So, we just drifted, which really hurt us.

I also used Ira this Spring. Good guy, knows his stuff, and is very personable.

Fine DAD! LOL

A buddy was there this past weekend and crushed them. If you find a pocket of weeds in a bay...fish it! Other than that fish around the white pin bouys....these mean its a shoaly area and the SM love those areas. Toss tube jigs or hair jigs in these areas. You can get a good topwater bite if your there early enough. Other than that spinnerbaits and crankbaits will work well in chartreuse colors.

I do know a charter boat that rammed a sailboat that was harassing him.

Well, what you are learning are bed fishing tactics. These fish can be difficult to catch when they are on their beds. They are easy to catch prior to the spawn however. We have one of the few "seasons" in the country. Look all over the south and there is no season. Therefore there are tourneys during times when bed fishing is a pattern. Look at the Elite tour and we have a NY'er competing for the first time ever the last few years. Some of the earlier tourneys this year bed fishing was a huge pattern. It doesn't hurt the eco system like people thought it did years ago. Hence the catch and release program we have here in NY now. Its all personal preference, and if you don't want to fish them you don't have to. On a side note you mention bassfisherman in general, and their bass boats. Do you have a personal issue with these guys???

Freakin smoked the LM! Dinks to one just under 4lbs. All the fish came on 7/16 jigs or 1/8 shakey heads with various zoom finesse worm colors. Couple on a chatterbait also. Our biggest five would have given us cose to 15lbs or so. They are all spawned out so go have fun!

That would be the day! I can understand accidents, but that requires a boarding and an a$$ whoopin! or better yet a nice spoon into their expensive sail to rip the thing to shreds!

Most of the guys I know runt he 27lb core. i wouldnt put any less than 150 yards of backing on the reel. Espeically since high kings have a great fight in them. If you buy the 200yd spool go with 2 - 10's, or a 9 and an 11, or an 8 and a 12. Stinger makes a great weight that you can add to the core to achieve a little more depth. The article is in this months Great lakes angler. If you want to go below 50' I would suggest copper. Like I tell everyone whop wants in on the copper game. Buy one 600' section. Have it marked every every 50' so you can precisely put it into the strikezone.

Drop-Shotting a 4" handpoured worm wacky style

I fished them Friday afternoon of Hedges and I saw some monsters! One was over 5lbs. At one point I saw 20 of them in a little pocket. WE only managed 3 in about 30 minutes (she got hungry so we went back in to get some grub). All were keepers though.

WHAT?

You can buy it from Tom Allen at A-TOM-MIK.

Go through the swivel with about a 1 inch tag end. Then just wrap the copper up itself as tight as you can. As for a knot.....use the albright knot.

No, you dont need a snubber. I havent used one in probably 10 years. I'll typically run 4 wires too. My leader behind the dipsey is 25lb McCoy Mean Green. I keep the drags locked down and still havent cracked off any hardware.

FYI....the guy who runs the SmartFish Pro-staff will be at the Rochester Gander Mountain on June 16th. If you are curious about how they work, settings, or want to know anything else this would be a good seminar to attend.

Absoutely! I run flasher flies on my copper 90% of the time. I have, however, started running spoons off the board coppers when it gets choppy out. I dont think the start stop action from the board is good action on the paddels. The spoons will just flutter when a board stalls.

I am under the impression that once you go into another port your DQ'd. I was also told I wasnt able to fuel up during the day in another port. Isnt it even rediculous we are talking about re-fueling up a boat with a tank that holds 110 gallons at 4.50 a gallon on the water? LOL