hermit
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Everything posted by hermit
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Nice Paul looks like fun!
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Hi, I do sell several styles of lake trout jigs on quality hooks, I use Mustad black nickel. (thanks Ed.) 1 oz. ball and 1.25 oz are the most popular. Unfortunately my store isn't fully stocked with painted heads, I only have unpainted ones at the moment. http://deepwater.cayugafisher.net/ They still work fine and catch fish, I've caught derby fish on them unpainted, but if you prefer colors (whites and chartreuses are best, same as trolling) I'd check eBay or elsewhere online. But that'll give you an idea of what to look for. Also unfortunately (and the reason I started making these) is that Bass Pro sucks for laker jigging supplies. They have several brands of soft plastics that are good, but the jig head selection is poor. Best you'll see is a 3/4 oz on a bottom of the line Eagle Claw hook. They do have a few good jigging spoons but plastics are usually better on Cayuga. If you're doing other fishing and just want to buy a few jigs while in town, I'd check the bait shops, Bear's at Myer's Park in Lansing and Hook Line and Sinker at the bottle place downtown. Last I saw they had a few bucktails. You could probably get okay plastics like Flukes at Dick's Sporting Goods at the mall, but they are very poor for everything fishing related. I can also meet folks sometimes. Good luck! Alec
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While at first glance you'd think a smaller lake will warm up faster and have warmer water (often true for a lake-wide average), the manner in which it heats up causes what you are describing. A lot of factors actually go into each lake's characteristics, surface area, depth, shape, surrounding terrain, latitude, etc. But for this example what is mostly important is surface area. Less wind to move water around. With small lakes there is less mixing of the water due to less wind and wave action. The warmer water floats on top better and creates a higher, tighter thermocline. It doesn't mix down as far in the spring as the lake warms. That's why you'll see a thermocline at 30' on a small Finger Lake and 60' on one of the larger ones. Also as a consequence the surface temps of the smaller lake will be higher. There is also the possibility that some of the effects you guys were noticing were from an internal seiche, where the thermocline and bottom layers slosh back and forth over one another. This can move the depth of the thermocline around drastically, again more so on the bigger lakes. A strong north wind for example will pile a lot of warm water in the south end, in turn driving the cold bottom water north. The thermocline will then be very deep on the south end and shallow on the north. Hope it helps picture what's going on... Alec -
Nice report, sounds fun! The Bass Pro in Auburn carries Needlefish in decent colors, at least they did a year or two ago, I haven't looked this year.
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Sweet nice going, can't wait to get out there!
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Nice bonus brown! That's always fun to hook into something other than a laker. Pete, yes you can tell the difference, especially the salmon. They're much faster and and active! The lakers have very distinctive fights, big ones with their head shakes surges for bottom and smaller ones love rolling in the line. Don't know if I could really describe it in detail but yes, you can usually tell it's not a laker! -
Big thanks to Justin for putting on the event, and both Justin and Tracy for being wonderful hosts over the weekend! It was great meeting a bunch of LOUers and starting to learn how to catch walleye. The picnic/DEC meeting was fun and informative also. Okay fishing report: Friday afternoon arrive, set up camp, launch boat and set off to learn the lake a bit. Fished 3 hours. Lots of marks, put lures in front of them. No bites- story of the weekend! Saturday managed to avoid the bigger weed areas and felt more like I knew what I was doing out there, but never hooked up. It was a great day to be fishing however. Went back out with Justin and Matt looking for the night bite, he put us right on a pile of fish but all we connected with were bass. Good surface action but the lake was pretty flat and it was easy to see our lures as fakes I guess. Hey it was action! Took a 2 hr nap, broke camp and was home by 9 AM for a full and groggy day with family yesterday. Overall it was a great weekend with fun but slow fishing. This was (unfortunately!!) the first time I've had my own boat out all year due to tow vehicle and health problems, and it felt SO GOOD to fire that motor up on the second pull and head out into the lake. Can't wait to get back on Cayuga again. And Otisco… can't leave a job unfinished! 15 hrs of fishing over the weekend and no eyes just makes me more determined. My girlfriend said I'm special when I told her that. I'll be back in a few weeks for sure, great little lake that suits my little boat just fine. Thanks again J + T for hosting, and it was fun meeting you all! Congrats to Miss Em and Pete for catching walleye, nice going on a tough day. Thanks to everyone who gave me tips for next time too, I'm excited about learning to catch a new species. Later all and happy fishing! -
Nice rainbows, sounds like a great day!
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Here's another good article testing many lines, not just braid. Went down the rabbit hole of research and haven't found my way back up yet... One thing I found interesting was the strength to diameter ratio charts on page 3. Some surprises there! PowerPro is middle of the pack on most tests I've seen, which is fine as it's pretty cheap. I like it as a quality economy braid. One big surprise was seeing the Stren Sonic Braid on top. I've never used it but it had the highest S:D tested! There's a lot of info here on a lot of lines. It would be nice if manufacturers were accurate about all this. It bugs me that PowerPro sells the exact same line and calls it either 20 or 30 lbs depending on sales location. As stated previously most braid products (sold in the USA) are like this. Personally I think there should be some standards where labels have to be within a certain percentage! Anyway that brings us to Seaguar and line diameters. (JT ah I didn't even realize Seaguar had the Smackdown, looks like a better line than their Kanzen which like I said has bad reviews. Some people were breaking Kanzen but if it's their cheap option it makes more sense. They have similar specs.) The Seaguar lines were not tested in any of the comparisons I saw or linked to here, but seeing the published strengths and diameters of those and other lines it seemed likely they were marketing the line as extremely thin and selling a more accurately labeled braid. This morning I found the following which explicitly says that: Source There are a few other brands that market and label things similarly (accurately!), another popular one is Daiwa Samurai. By all accounts Smackdown is a great line, I'd like to try it sometime. It's just labeled differently than most braids. Take a look at the breaking strength charts for braids, they're all over the place! I prefer accurate labels... all this BS just makes it harder on the consumers who are trying to find the products they want! Okay hope y'all find it interesting. P.S. one thing I read said to consider US-sold braid labels as knot strength, not line strength. Seems like a decent rule of thumb.
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Thanks for the input guys. I'm going to go with PowerPro, I like it and know it. Probably bump the test down a notch though (see below.) Though I'm still curious about the Kanzen if anyone has used it. A few thoughts from reading- the Seaguar Kanzen advertises a thinner line per weight class. I also read a lot of complaints on the Kanzen breaking. It's also pretty well known most braids break well above their rated strength. It's possible that Seaguar is just being more accurate with their ratings, and guys breaking Kanzen are used to overrated lines, which would help explain poor reviews. Regarding PowerPro. I was doing a lot of diameter to strength comparisons on lines. Checking the PP website and their own published specs, it's a mess! All over the place. http://www.powerpro.com/publish/content/global_fish/en/us/power_pro_v2/info/using_powerpro/specs.html The "20 lb" line has a diameter of 0.009. This converts to 0.23 mm. Look at the chart: 0.23 mm is rated at 15 kg, which is over 30 lbs! So the exact same line is rated at "20 lbs" in the US, but is rated over 33 lbs in the metric world. The "15 lb" line, when converted, is actually 19.8 lbs. From reading it seems a lot of manufacturers overestimate braid strength because braid knots are weaker, but using the right knot can pretty much eliminate this problem. Not going to go into detail as this isn't a knot post, but I found a few test reports (one here) that indicated that the bimini twist followed by a yucatan to attach the leader was the strongest, and for terminal tackle a palomar (2x through the loop). I was pretty surprised that the uni-knot rated so low... might be time to learn the bimini twist!
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Justin I'm curious how the Seaguar is working for you? I'm looking to respool a rod and like the specs of the Kanzen, but it has mixed reviews. Thinking of trying something new but I've also never had a problem with PowerPro. Didn't like the Spiderwire braid I tried a few years back but don't remember which one it was.
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Hey Rollie here it is: 315-636-9925 They still had slips yesterday. See you there -
Good weights on the lakers! Great to see them back up. Thanks 58johnson for the board pics! -
Really looking forward to this! Just got a tent site and will be heading up Friday morning. p.s. they still had a couple more if anyone is in need.
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Interesting. Looks like work but could work. I'd love something to help. The ticks are bad, real bad around here. Almost everyone I know on my road has gotten Lyme. I have it right now and it sucks. I have to say, if you're in an area with a lot of Lyme, go to the doc every time you get a tick. One dose of antibiotics if you do it within 72 hrs. I did a couple times but not for every tick and I'm paying now. Feels like a nasty flue, big painful rash on my arm, drugs for weeks and cross your fingers that does it. Sucks as I grew up 1/4 mile from my house and never had to worry about ticks. Never thought about them until I was about 20. Anyway... Lyme sucks, get the prophylaxis dose of antibiotics ASAP if you get a tick... far better than getting Lyme. My only solution has been mowing more of our field to try to keep the mice down but that's a probably pointless task. And mouse traps.
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My 1st LLS & 1st fish in my new boat :)
hermit replied to problemchild's topic in Finger Lakes Discussion
Cool, sounds like a great afternoon. Looks like it too from the pic! -
Zimm you'll have a blast, it's a lot of fun. A few years back I wrote up some info about jigging and it should help you get started. http://cayugafisher.net/pages/resdex.php. Personally I prefer jig heads and plastics and use them 80-90% of the time with spoons second. Spoons can work great too but if you're on a rocky bottom the mussels are a pain. Lots of guys on the FL section jig if you have more questions. Like the Cowboy said drop them down and reel back in playing with your retrieve style and speed. Don't spend much time jigging it on the bottom unless you have to. (If they aren't hitting on retrieve.) Alec
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I just saw a device to use your phone or tablet as a fishfinder. Not useful at all for trolling but maybe ice fishing or other applications. It was a round ball you set in the water, I believe it floats. So you need it on a line or rope or something. Didn't seem particularly useful except for ice fishing. Or maybe checking depth if in a kayak or canoe or something. Or drifting in the canoe... okay some uses but it wasn't made to be attached to boats.
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No doubt the zebra and quaggas had an effect but it sounded like he saw a decline in just the past few years? Skanperch when did you notice it getting tougher? If it was just recently maybe something other than the mussels as they've been here a while.
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Not a bass guy, but have a thought- with the gobies now in the lake and spreading rapidly I imagine the bass food base will be changing... try some goby snacks.
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Thanks guys sounds pretty good!
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Hey Ed sounds like fun and the weather sure was nice. Good you got some slime in the new boat!
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So fellow Cayuga guys... how's the fishing?!? Lots of Seneca posts so I figure it's either still kind of crappy or incredibly awesome... I'm dying over here waiting for a replacement tow vehicle, would love some reports to get me by! Oh and I think if one had deep enough pockets for a lifetime fishing license, that money doesn't actually go into the general fund and is put to better use... I think about it every year but haven't had that kind of extra cash yet.
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It takes all kinds... gotta ignore most of it. People tell you the craziest things about fishing. Last week I was talking to a guy about the Carp Derby in Waterloo. He said he's been fishing it for 20 years and "everybody knows" the winners catch and pen carp for years before "catching" them to win the derby. The winning fish are generally mid to upper 30's in weight. I asked this guy, who had been fishing this same spot for 20 years, how big a carp he's caught and if he ever placed. He says "I never caught a fish over 15 lbs out of here, these guys are definitely cheating." I'm thinking "or maybe you could switch spots?!?!" In this case he would rather think someone else was cheating than re-think his own strategy. At least I learned where not to fish for the derby! -
"There is no wrong way to enjoy the outdoors" is exactly right, and if someone is enjoying whatever style of fishing, then they're doing it right, and I'm not going to argue the pros/cons of anything... but I feel like chiming in here... it's definitely possible to jig lakers without a fishfinder, and do it well. It just takes skill, same as you're talking about with the older techniques. Just go jig in those same areas the guys pulling copper are in for example. When this first exploded in the FLs ~10 years ago not many people knew what to do or where to fish. Some guys had been jigging for a while but it really took off with the first LOU (all gone sadly) with many anglers contributing to the discussion and it was pretty cool to see the brainstorming and rapid development of some of these techniques and areas. Anyway, I had just gotten into fishing and didn't have much. Spent one whole summer jigging lakers in a 10' jon without a FF of any kind. I used a count-down technique to stay in depth. Got a Fishing Hot Spots map of Cayuga, some high-res depth data maps, and plotted good spots onto the waterproof Hot Spots map. I knew very little about Cayuga at the time. What I'm getting at is that even on unfamiliar water a little research can help you even if you don't have modern equipment. Caught lots of fish without the FF and I think it really helped to develop good technique and a feel for what they were up to, moods, time of day, etc. I use the FF a lot today but all the tricks of how to actually jig (and where!) I learned without the FF. A few years back it paid off when my FF crapped out on Seneca, it didn't ruin the day, I kept jigging. It's true you can catch more fish with more modern equipment, but experience on the water is better than any electronic device. Just my opinion... jigging isn't necessarily easier for the having the electronics and there is a wide range of skill levels. One of the best things about it in my opinion is the cheap access it affords to deep fish and you can try it without a huge investment. Edit: okay I see I snuck in a "pro" there at the end... but at least it ties in with not having a FF...