hermit

And a beautiful morning it is! It's nice to be home but I wish I were back there already. Good luck! And MeatHunter hope you get out there soon too, it soothes the soul.

Thanks all I had a great time, well worth it. Pap hang in there I've read your posts, sounds like things are improving for you too. MeatHunter I was typing this up before I realized I didn't take a single pic! All the good nights were by myself and I just wanted to get to bed I guess. Thanks again Justin I'll see you soon I'm sure. Have a great weekend everyone!

This past week I had a cabin at the campground and fished 7 nights in a row. The week straight of fishing paid off and I’m finally getting a feel for the lake, the fish, and the techniques. First off I had an immense amount of help from Justin over the past few years! Thank you, your passion and knowledge really shine. Anyone looking to learn some walleye or tiger musky techniques could not choose a better guide. It’s been a blast hanging out and I’m glad to return the favor and help you out too. One of these days we’ll even go trout fishing! Overall I had one of the best weeks I’ve had in years- the weather was good, the fishing was good enough for me, and just the simple fact of being physically healthy enough to do this for the first time in 7 years was amazing in itself. I needed that trip and it was freaking awesome. The reports: here’s the details! Friday 5/20: The trip got off to an inauspicious start as my tow vehicle broke down two hours before departure time. Oh crap! Got it in the shop ASAP but it’s Friday afternoon. Luckily PCPete was going to join me for some of the weekend and was able to pick up me and the boat and we made it to Otisco late but before dark. Okay. The fishing was slow for us, we bounced around the lake and finally I hooked and landed a 18.5†walleye around 1:30 AM at one of the points on the west shore. It made our night, at least we got something! Whoo! I was pretty psyched, I know it’s small and not that exciting in the big picture but it was the first walleye of the year and the second one I’ve caught on my own. Saturday 5/21: Virtually a repeat of Friday, except we didn’t catch any walleye. Saturday was a tough day all around and nearly everyone had a hard time- the tiger tourney shows that too. Let’s blame the weather front. Pete and I tried trolling for tigers in the afternoon with nothing as well. Sunday 5/22: Success! A change in the night-time weather made for the best fishing of the week. Every night this week with the exception of Sunday was dead calm, with very few clouds. Sunday night it was still calm but it rained and I had a hot window in the rain, landing 4 walleye in the hour it was raining from 9:15-10:15 pm. I tried one of Justin's spots he showed me last year and Pete and I tried several times earlier in the weekend without luck, but this time they were there. Went home that night with my first limit of walleye and was super happy! It can be done! The bite can be better than the tough fishing I’ve had until now! The campground and lake were quiet and it added to the illusion that I was out there figuring this out by myself. At this point I begin to feel that I’m getting the technique down. Monday 5/23: Went out with Justin and his friend Jim on Justin’s boat. They got three between them and I got skunked. At this point I’m beginning to feel I still have a lot to learn and am appropriately humbled after my success the night before! I did try a different lure as an experiment and either the lure sucked or I did that night Tuesday 5/24: I figure that since I’ve located fish and they haven’t moved for several days, they’ll be there again and I don’t need to move around as much. I bring bait and run a bait rod while I’m casting. This works great, and I nail a nice 23†walleye ten minutes after setting out the rod. I got a few laughs from people over my circle hooks for walleye but I started using them on Cayuga a while back and like them a lot. They work great whether or not you intend to release the fish but it gives you the option most of the time. That night I go 1/2 on stickbaits and 2/2 on alewives, again catching a limit. Big fish of the night was 24â€. Wednesday 5/25: More of the same, more or less. I generally like to be more active than anchoring for hours but I’m trying to learn how to catch them before trying to find new areas. If you can’t catch them it does no good to search for them! As a compromise I slowly work a section of shoreline where there are fish all along. 2/2 on stickballs and no takes on the bait. Thursday 5/26: Feeling pretty good after a decent week, I have PCPete on board again and really want him to get a fish, so naturally the fishing was tougher than it had been all week. We tried hard and fished until 2 AM but only came up with one 17†walleye, though Pete did nail a huge smallmouth. Again no luck on the bait rod. A tease, it worked the first night then not the next two. My takeaway here is that it works but there are more effective techniques. At best it was equal to the stickbaits and at worst it just plain didn't work. Week total: 7 nights of fishing, 11 walleye caught, 9 kept, one lost boatside. Several 24†fish with most 21-24â€. I ate one fish already and managed to put about 12 pounds of fillets in the freezer. Two nights of zero fish, two nights of one fish, two limits and one night with two. Considerably better than I’ve done before! As a learning experience it was top notch and the blitz approach really helps to understand how things chance in the lake on a day-to-day basis. That’s seven years of fishing once a week in late May all squished into one week. The water temp rose from the mid-50s into the mid-60s over the week, and the alewife activity went from light to heavy too, we were fishing in a sea of bait at the end. I did gain some confidence in technique and finding fish, and was able to draw some parallels to fishing I’m already familiar with. Alewives behave the same in Otisco as they do in Cayuga, and the shoreline structure is also naturally very Finger Lake like. It was a fantastic week all around. I did think I'd do more tiger fishing during the day but staying up until 3 every night kicked my ass pretty good and I wasn't up to it. That's about it!

Came across this story today. Not much to read but there's a heck of a picture. Thought some of you might like to see it.

That's awesome Dennis! I too remember my first pickerel, I was around 10, fishing with my grandfather (who got me into fishing) and sadly it got wrapped up in some weeds and broke off. Still remember how exciting it was. Great trip you had!

I don't remember what regulating body it was, but it was in the news a few weeks ago that NYS is not going to let them convert to natural gas. It's already running part time and will probably be decommissioned at some point in the future though that is far from certain. But the problems it is having are New York's fault, and has nothing to do with Obama. Edit: here's the news article.

About now, they start at the beginning of March or in the first week or so. I think they forecast it some based on snowpack. It came up over target level and went back to target as of 3/14. Should come up another foot and a half by the end of March.

In my experience that's how it usually is there especially with salmon. Long periods of nothing happening punctuated by streaks of hot fishing. The minnows might have been fine but you were maybe there an hour early or late. Early morning seems to be better, though plenty can happen all day. Might catch nothing for four hours then several within a few minutes. I've even seen people catch down a line, starting at one side of the park then progressing to the other as a school moves through. Man I love Taughannock for so many reasons!

Ha yeah "the truth is out there", just didn't want anyone getting funny ideas!

Never heard that one but it's just plain false... numerous studies have shown little to no effect on other species. I couldn't find one that referenced smelt specifically but here are some quotes from one, edited for clarity:"We exposed juveniles of two species of fish (lake sturgeon and rainbow trout ) and one adult fish species (fathead minnows) to various concentrations of TFM (0.25–7.5 mg/L) in three sets of experiments examining TFM effects on growth, avoidance of TFM treated water, and predation susceptibility. Lake sturgeon and rainbow trout were monitored for two weeks after a 12 hour exposure to TFM... [g]rowth rates did not differ significantly among control and treated fish of either species. Finally, fathead minnows were exposed at three different concentrations of TFM and placed in mesocosms with a non-exposed largemouth bass Micropterus salmoides predator. Two separate trials were performed, both with no significant differences due to treatments. In summary, results indicate that for the conditions tested, TFM has no detectable sub-lethal effects on growth, avoidance behavior, or predation mortality on the fish species tested."

Looks like a drop shipper and for me I try to avoid such sites, they don't handle merchandise themselves. Only time I ever used such a place was by accident and the product arrived in a box with a Walmart shipping label on it. I then looked it up on Walmart.com and could have saved 10 bucks just ordering it from them. I'm with Total Chaos, I'd say keep looking. Generic site and sketch factor high.