Finders Keepers

Yeah, I am hoping to get out this Saturday, but with another arctic blast and probably several more feet of snow, it looks iffy... Reminds me of a tourny I fished with my dad a few years back on Fair Haven, when the lake dumped 40" of snow the previous day. The snow was so deep we couldn't see the flags on the tip-ups when they tripped!! We had to keep making rounds checking to see if any tripped. Oh yeah, and there was close to 2' of ice too... it was a lot of work fishing that day!

Thanks for the info guys! I'll have to test this theory before I "believe"...

Yeah, it gave Woody a great fight - one that he said he won't forget! So what's the deal with the Solar Tables? Haven't heard of those before - anyone care to enlighten me? Woody and I thought it might have been the front coming through that got them active... PP - Nice catch! I have an LMB on my wall just shy of 5 lbs that I caught in Port Bay a couple summers back. Did they give you much of a fight or were they like catching lakers: just pulling in weight. All the bass we caught were fairly inactive. Typical of the cold waters I think...

Hit the ice at 11:30 am today with Woody and, after hearing of good reports at the south end of the bay from Davenport's, decided to target that area. Set-up north of the pack on the east side over 10 fow +/- with a spread of 10 tip-ups and a jiggin' rod for each of us. It was pretty slow, however we did have a good flurry of activity from 2 to 3:30 with a couple dozen flags and some activity on the jiggin' rods. Ended the day at 4:20 with 10 largemouth bass (2 were 3+ lbs), 7 jack perch, 1 3 lb pike, and Woody iced a sweet 7 lb brown!! Pretty decent day on the ice considering we missed the morning bite! I won't be out again until next weekend...

I didn't have a vantage point for Third Creek, so I can't say. However, some guys did come into my area from the west side of Eagle. I would guess that there's decent ice over there too, but I can't say for sure. I'll take a look tomorrow. What do you primarily target over there, perch or walleye?

What a great day on the ice! Got on the ice at 7am and set-up shop at the NE corner of Eagle Island. Had 5 tip-ups down and a jiggin' rod working... nada. Not even a nibble... So I packed up shop and headed to deeper water, where I did well later in the season last year, in between Leroy and Newark Islands. As I was setting the second tip-up, the first one tripped (that's a good sign), and when I checked it the line was peeling out! I picked up the tip-up and was about to try to stop the run before I ran out of line and it made a quick dash (fast enough to put some pressure on the line) and then the line went limp. It dropped the minnow... Bummer! So I set back up and stayed in that area for the remainder of the morning (until 12) when I called it quits. I iced a dozen decent 10"+ perch and had a lot of runners on the tip-ups, but couldn't hook the suckers today... I did have a real nice pike on that I fought for a good 15 minutes as it kept circling the hole and giving real good head shakes, until the swivel that connects the fluoro to the main line got caught on a little nick of ice and...GONE! It amazes me how smart the larger pike are! I never saw it, but judging from the way it fought I would guess it was in the 12-15lb range. The ice is a good 5-8"+ everywhere I went today and is the good, clear, black ice, and super polished, spikes were a must. It was cracking something fierce too - gotta love it when a huge crack rips right under your feet!! As soon as my little one wakes up tomorrow, we're off to grandma & grandpa's house (babysitters) and I'll be heading back out, probably in the same area. If you're out, feel free to stop by and say hi - I'll be sporting my new Frabill Camando shanty and will hopefully have some fish floppin' on the ice!

Change of plans - Coup, sent you a PM.

Has anyone heard if there are going to be any ice fishing tournaments on Sodus this year?

Hey Coup - Friday's out for me, I've got to watch the little one. I think Woody is available if you want some company. I'll let you know how I make out today - picked up a new Frabill Camando shanty yesterday and I'm Jones'in to try it out! I think I will target the area between Leroy and Newark Islands, since it seems the other areas were slow yesterday. It was killer there last year...

Hey Coup - I'm looking to hit up Bass Pro tomorrow for a new shanty and some fluoro for my new tip-ups, and then hopefully heading onto Sodus Thursday. Are you game if the ice is good?

Count me in! Let me know when you'd like to get out! Hopefully we'll get some decent ice before too long...

Nice job Coup! Did they take the place of the turkey on the thanksgiving table? Can't wait for the ice to build in, it's a little chilly fishing out of a boat this time of year...

Got out on Wednesday at 10:30am this week and it was beautiful if you could get out of that NE wind! Started off on the SW side of Newark Island with not even a bite, so we moved south to the SW side of Eagle in the cove and ran into a few keepers (10"+) in shallow (5-8 fow) and small ones if you drifted deeper. But it wasn't hot 'n heavy so we drifted across the cove in 8-12 fow dropping swedish pimples in between the weeds and nailed quite a few during the drift. But no one spot was better than any other, so we headed to Bonnie Castle Point (where we hit them on Monday evening). Again, we hit some, but it was a slow steady pick with quite a few small ones mixed in. Ended the day at 2pm with around 40 keepers, and a few pushing 14". We also boated 5 largemouth bass off the rock pile at Bonnie Castle.

Got out for an hour and a half tonight after work with a buddy of mine on Sodus. Started at the northern end of Eagle Island with very few fish and only 2 keepers (10"+), so we headed south to a point on the east side of the bay (the name escapes me), where we landed a dozen or so keepers in 12-15 fow (ran out of 'em if we drifted shallower) and there were also quite a few dinks mixed in (ratio: about 1 keeper to 8 dinks). I did a little better using a Swedish Pimple tipped with minnows over my buddy who was using a minnow on a single hook. Seemed I did best when I had the jig laying right on the bottom. All keepers were in the 10-12" range, no lunkers. What a beautiful evening on the water for November!! Looks like the rest of the week is going to be nice too! I'll probably be out on Sodus again late morning on Wed.

Sounds good! Thanks for the info!

Looking to get out this Wednesday on Sodus or Port Bay and was wondering if anyone has had any luck?

How did you make out?

We've been catching the kings all season in the 70 - 120 fow range, so they're within reach for you. When an upwelling does occur, get a set of planer boards out and run the riggers shallow with long leads. Then vary your paddling speed and direction and you'll hook up!

Hey Jim, Sounds like a decent day. I went out of Hughes with Woody and Coop from the board and we went 1 for 2 with a 16 lb king and dropped a steely just behind the boat. My dad and I went out for a short trip in front of Port Bay today and only had one short rip on the wire before we had to pull lines at 9am. How did you make out today? We'll be out on Monday and are hoping for flat water so we can power down to Oswego.

Fishing Report Your Name / Boat Name: Tim Thomas / Finders Keepers ============== TRIP OVERVIEW ============== Date(s): 8-29 Time on Water: 6 - 11am Weather/Temp: cloudy/rainy/60's Wind Speed/Direction: SE 15-30 Waves: 1-4+ Surface Temp: 71 Location: Port Bay LAT/LONG (GPS Cords): =============== FISHING RESULTS =============== Total Hits: 1 Total Boated: 0 Species Breakdown: ---- Hot Lure: Death Wish Spinny / Purple Pasion Fly Trolling Speed: 2.5 Down Speed: ??? Boat Depth: 40 - 160 Lure Depth: 20 - 75 ==================== SUMMARY & FURTHER DETAILS ==================== Tough morning on the lake for sure. Strong SE winds made it tough with 1-3' waves in the 40-70 fow range and occasional 4 footers beyond 70 fow. Set up over 50 fow in front of the silos and marked a ton of fish all throughout the water column from surface to the bottom. I counted 12 fish on the graph at one point! I threw everything at them and tried all different directions and speeds to no avail. I couldn't get any of them to budge. As the morning wore on the winds began to slacken a bit so we started to work deeper and had our 175' wire get wacked over 75 fow. Felt like a 6-8 lb brown and it threw the hook halfway back to the boat. At that point we were marking occasional bait pods on the bottom and up high around 30-50 ft down. I decided to use my super hi-tech dual-guage probe for temp (i.e. Checked my balls ) and found that the temp was down 45-50 ft as my 40 ft rigger weight was warm and my 50 ft weight was ice cold. We swung out as deep as 175 fow with nothing on the screen and when we came back into the 50-75 fow range the earlier marks were gone. The lake was calming down nicely around 11am, but we had to come in due to prior commitments. Only saw 4 other boats out today and didn't see much activity. We finished 0 for 1 today. Looks like tomorrow will be a blow-off day and I am booked with beginning of school shinanagans through Thursday, so Friday will be my next day out weather permitting. Good luck to all of you who can get out mid-week - looks like some good days on the big pond once this blow has gone through...

I would also recommend trying different speeds. This past Saturday they wanted our lures traveling at 1.8-2.0 on GPS, whereas on Monday they wanted it fast at 3.0-3.4 on GPS. Sometimes the currents can play tricks too, where you have to go very fast one direction and very slow the other. Like many things it takes a lot of practice and patience to master this game: depth, speed, lure type, lure size, lure color, leader length, etc. all are factors that need to be adjusted to find the right set that produces fish. Even then, sometimes they simply have lock-jaw and don't care what you thow at 'em!! Lately the key has been to first find the fish, then work them until you find what they like.

Yeah, I also thought it might be a coho, but it was dark and once in the boat, it was definitely a king. Hopefully they will be hungry tomorrow, looks like the wind is going to come up tomorrow afternoon...

Fishing Report Your Name / Boat Name: Tim Thomas / Finders Keepers ============== TRIP OVERVIEW ============== Date(s): 8-25 Time on Water: 6 - 11am Weather/Temp: Sunny 70 Wind Speed/Direction: Light SW Waves: 1' chop with 2-4' swells Surface Temp: 73 Location: Port Bay LAT/LONG (GPS Cords): =============== FISHING RESULTS =============== Total Hits: 2 Total Boated: 2 Species Breakdown: 2 Kings Hot Lure: Dalmation Spinny / Hammer Fly Trolling Speed: 2.8 - 3.2 Down Speed: ?? Boat Depth: 100 - 300 Lure Depth: 80 - 100 ==================== SUMMARY & FURTHER DETAILS ==================== Got on the water at 6am and set up in the same place as usual over 70 fow. Seemed like the same story as the past few days: bait and fish hugging the bottom out to 100 fow and then lifting off and suspeding 70 to 90 ft down. However, today they had either already feasted overnight and were full or just didn't want to play ball. Either way they had lock jaw and we had a hard time moving any rods today. Eventually we worked out deeper in search for some active fish and the port side wire fired over 240 fow out 440' pulling a deathwish spinny / purple passion fly around 9:30. Ended up landing a small 4 lb king. Worked between 230 and 300 for a while and finally around 10am the 98 ft rigger fired and began ripping line. Soon thereafter we could see something decent thrashing on the surface. My first thought was a huge steelhead, but then it made several runs and felt more like a king. Got it about 75 feet from the boat and it jumped a good 4 ft in the air! Finally got it to the net and boated a nice 24 lb male king. It hit a Dalmation spinny/hammer fly combo down 98 over 360 fow. The lake was laying down nicely, but we had to call it quits at 11. So we ended 2 for 2 today. We'll be out again tomorrow to see if they'll turn on...

Fishing Report Your Name / Boat Name: Tim Thomas / Finders Keepers ============== TRIP OVERVIEW ============== Date(s): 8-24 Time on Water: 6 - 10:30 Weather/Temp: Mostly Cloudy 70 Wind Speed/Direction: light north becoming west 15-20 Waves: 2' building to 3-5' Surface Temp: 73 Location: Port Bay LAT/LONG (GPS Cords): =============== FISHING RESULTS =============== Total Hits: 5 Total Boated: 5 Species Breakdown: 4 Kings, 1 Coho Hot Lure: Black Green Dot Spinny / 42 Second Fly Trolling Speed: 2.4 - 2.8 Down Speed: ?? Boat Depth: 100 - 170 Lure Depth: 70 - 80 ==================== SUMMARY & FURTHER DETAILS ==================== Got on the water a little after 6am with showers along the shore. Had a 1' chop from the north along with 1-3' rollers from the west. Set-up over 65 fow and worked out. Hit a skippy king at 115 fow down 82 on the rigger on a glow frog. Worked the inside waters for a bit more with nothing doing and dininishing screen, so we worked out a bit deeper and hit a honey hole over 140 fow where we doubled up on kings (24 and 21 lbs), one on the 72 ft rigger on a chartruese echip w/ aqua hammer sushi fly, the other on the wire out 380' pulling a black with green dots spinny with a 42 second fly. Swung back around through that waypoint and hooked up again on the same wire and landed a 16 lb king. Swung through again and hit a 12 lb coho on the 72 ft rigger, same sushi rig. The the front passed and the wind really kicked up with the waves building to 4+ ft and we called it quits. On the way in we saw 2 really nice waterspouts to the east off of Fair haven. I'm hoping to get out tomorrow if the lake calms back down...

Hey Jim - Wow, not one fish! That's the way it goes sometimes... Did you mark much on the FF and they just had lock-jaw? I know we had a good screen the last few days out there. We'll be out the next few days and I'll post how we do.