Gator

Oooooh. Gator want. Man, that's just awesome. If whoever you did that for balks, give me a shout. I'd take it in an instant. You sir are an artist.

There's certainly drift out there, but the main issue is that there are top and bottom currents in the lake, and they make it hard to get a jig down as you've seen. There's no simple solution. You have to hit a day when the current's not running strong and the wind and current are working together instead of against each other. It helps too when the fish are in shallower, of course. Use braid not mono with a fluorocarbon leader, as thin as you're comfortable with. A 1 oz jig is as small as I'd go, but 1 1/2 or even 2 oz are necessary sometimes, and something that's designed for current will help. You need a stout rod to drive the jig home when it's that heavy, but you can sacrifice sensitivity, particularly in the heavy currents. It's tough but achievable. Sometimes. Spring jigging for lakers at the Niagara bar can be nothing short of phenomenal and you're generally in shallower water so it's not tough. There are lots of guides to help you learn the ropes out that way too. Of course, that's Lady O. The Finger Lakes are a different story, and much easier to manage technically.

I'm going to hazard a guess that the NE wind may have cleared up the river by pushing the remaining ice away from the mouth.

The walleye run immediately follows the pike, and it was solely pike on Monday. I'm always amazed at how quickly it happens and how it's so well coordinated. Get down there this weekend for the show! As usual, I'm assuming it's the only walleye I will see from Conesus all year .

"New" type of sonar system from Garmin that looks to the side of the boat and projects images in real time: https://explore.garmin.com/en-US/panoptix/

That's just insane. The waves look like they're standing in place, it's as if the wind has lined them up and just pressed them against the pier, with nowhere to go.

Awesome!! I thawed some crappie fillets for tonight and am going to experiment with a new recipe as well...heavy on the garlic, with a hint of coffee blood orange balsamic over a bed of fresh greens.

We walked Conesus Inlet on Monday. There were lots of pike but very few eyes to be seen at the falls. However, most of the creek was mud, and visibility was low.

Our favorite way to make perch or walleye, before the wife developed a tomato allergy, was simply to flash fry the fillets in grape seed oil...which gets much hotter than other oils (up to 485 degrees!) without smoking...use very little--2 Tbsp-- oil. Dust pan searing flour lightly on the fillets just before adding them. Remove the fillets after ~ a minute per side, then add diced tomato and capers to the little bit of oil that's left in the pan and when the mix softens, dish it over the fillets. Healthy, flavorful, and one of those things that just tastes way better than the sum of its ingredients.

I picked up a Daiwa Tatula this past week and fished it for steelhead yesterday. There was some funny stuff going on with the drag where it would suddenly back off during a run (to the point I thought I'd lost the fish), and there was a lot of play in the spool. When I got home, I pulled the spool off and it appears to me that the play I was experiencing might be normal. The spool sits on top of a wire spring that allows it to respond to side pressure even though it's tight to the shaft. Is this something that's completely new or did I just miss an innovation from Daiwa? Does anyone else have a feeling for this model reel? It's marketed as extremely light (6.2 oz) for bass anglers, but has nearly 22 lbs of drag in the 2500 model and accepts nearly 200 yards of ten pound test mono, so I figured it should work for steelies. I'm contemplating sending it back, but it feels great in the hand...maybe it's just not made for handling sustained runs. Thoughts?

As anyone who tuned in rapidly figured out, Tommy's interview was not broadcast live at 10:30 am yesterday morning. I did enjoy rolling with Three Dog Night though . My understanding is that it was recorded and will be broadcast at a later date. I'll try to update this thread then.

Everybody's favorite Sandy Creek marine mechanic and heart transplant recipient Tommy Barbera will be speaking about his experience and pitching for organ donors on 102.7 FM this Wednesday at 10:30 am.

How was the turnout? I know that DEC uses turnout as a measure of stakeholder involvement. Which makes me wonder whether the information that I and others posted about the Rochester meeting might be counter-productive, like movie pirating keeping some folks away from theaters. I hope not. Even if you know the story, it's worth showing up in solidarity.

Yeah, a guy can get tired quick on your boat...no doubt, you have a system. Thanks for sharing it with us mortals You're going to be at the ELOSTA show this weekend with your rigs?

Cyberlink Powerdirector is the go-to for a few of my students. It's not free, but it's not too bad price-wise, and I think that there's a mobile app from them that may be free. Windows 10 can do some of the basic stuff and I've heard that the open source software Shotcut is serviceable.