Slimy Hooks

That was'nt the fish we waved you off on... Had a major on the 350' copper... Took a lot of line and we mis-informed the Captain about how much line was out...So, a severely hard turn was made that put my fish under 2 long-lines and the fish was in front of the otter boat with line rubbing against the keel as I reeled...Backing to copper swivel coming in with a small piece of grass on it...Swivel touches the tip and snap... Then the copper was caught on the 7 color, i'm bringing that in and the backing to lead-core snaps...2 chances and I broke'em both...Was'nt meant to be I guess...Should not have trusted a factory knot on the core, and am admitting I have no idea when the backing knots to that copper were re-tied... Every leader for every rod was re-tied Friday night but never checked backing connections...I will now never trust a factory knot except for atomik's, and am using albrights or blood knots instead of swivel's for every connection as I never had those knots fail...That fish cost us a lot of money...

Hopefully the results will be posted again soon, so we all can see... We took big fish Mark??? We were pretty sure someone else had a bigger one... You did a great job on that 24+ considering it was barely, just barely hooked in the top of the nose...Great rod handling and makes me thankful you were on him and that I sharpened the hooks the evening before... Oak is next, and Murphy is not allowed on board anymore... Maybe it was him who moved your wire that morning...

Thanks for posting the pics Mark...They came out very well... By far my biggest atlantic and when the boat surged from a wave, he slipped out of my hand and there was nothing I could do...On round two it was really terrible that the fish was breathing good, responsive eyes, plenty of color, but would not try to kick away and would belly up in my hand if I gave it the chance... Sorry Mr. Allen there are spoons in those fish's mouth...Could not get a good fly bite going the past 3 weeks, and with fish up high, I took them out of the water except for long lines to not spook them from entering the rigger spread...Our pre-fishing days and Saturday saw 3 or 4 bites on flies compared to 45+ on spoons...Just a matter of time before they start pounding your flies again...Thanks again for the hat and hope everything works out well with Mr. Burkes engine...

Driving over the bay bridge yesterday there were 4-6 people south of the bridge right in the center of the bay... No idea what the conditions are but I am not to sure I would be out there...Have not seen people out anywhere else...

I would think that early April might be just that, early...May would be much better and the bay is loaded with good structure, weed lines, and "bassy" lookin' waters and you'll have no problem finding them... There are very few smallmouths in the bay, mostly largemouths and I was always partial to plastics like senkos, just because I get to let'em chew on it a second before I try to launch them out of the water with the hook set... I am curious, is that early season catch and release bass just Lake Erie and the Finger Lakes??? I admit to fishing bass in Iron. Bay before the 3rd Saturday in June but I never gave it much thought...

Fishing has been like that, like someone flips a switch to on or off...Only takes one period of the switch in the on position to make a good day...My buddy hooked a dozen in the 4 hours we spent down there yesterday on his pin...Dont care for numbers anymore or I would've been pinnin' right next to him and done just as well... Leaving shortly to pull the hot shot planer board and more cleo thumpin'...Taking a break from the pin, 10 years of only fishing the pin got a little old, new tactics to learn and refine...Thankful the river is very close to my house and gives the opportunity to fish different techniques...

Greatly surprised it took this long before someone mentioned the Genny was fishable... Very nice fish and pictures...Winter time is incredible down there...Just to bad that the police sirens break the peace and tranquility... Your jacket looks very familiar from someone on the West side today...Was happy to find multiple fish willing to move and take a thumping cleo...

I'll be the 3rd to strongly suggest Capt. Ryan Williamson if you want to fish out of Sodus... Fishin' Magician charters... Honestly, I bet he already has 30 trips booked in August (he booked over 170 last season) and might not be able to take you, but he will refer you to the best Captain's available...

Was a pleasure meeting and fishing with you the other night Kremer01...That was a nice king you put on the pier, and I was hoping your other one was going to find dry land as well... I guess luck was not on my side as I hooked none and had 2 bumps that warranted a hook set... Hope the Oak was kind to you...

Fish are being caught around the mouth and up river all the way to the falls...

Average distance for me is 8'-35' back... Deeper I am fishing the tighter I usually run the attractor/fly to the ball...For example if I was to put a rigger down 100', I would be using a 8-10' lead...If I was going to say drop the rigger to 60' I would start with a 15' lead... I always tend to start shorter and lengthen every time I change out the rod until it starts getting bit, if i've streched it as far as I think necessary with-out any bites, i'll start with short leads again... These are just generalizations and sometimes the fish prefer shorter, or longer leads no matter what depth they are, just experiment and the fish will tell you what they prefer for that time...

Still quite a bit early for trout (browns/steelhead) but if you stuck it out from sunset to sunrise you could tie into a king...Still a little early but you have a chance as my friend fish's every year on August 27th for his birthday and has landed kings with out the lake having a major up-welling... Even at the height of the run this is very fickle fishing...You should hope for 1 bite and be greatful for anything more, but some nights i've brought up to 5 kings to the pier casting glo cleos...

I am all for zero communication during the Scotty events, as well as the Pro-Am's... I believe in this mostly to even out the playing field during the course of the fishing day...I dont find it very fair that someone not catching anything could just call up one of there buddies or anyone for that matter and get put over fish, while someone with-out these connections would suffer... Basically fish these tournaments utilizing gut instinct and all your knowledge gained over the years instead of pushing some buttons and asking where they are, how deep, on what, etc... I also want to say that I fish as many tournies as possible, which included 5 this year and the person I fish with has connects with some of the best fishermen on the lake and it has def. helped in finding fish but I would still like a zero communication rule...

Sorry to here of your lost probe, but it seems the fish God's rewarded you very well for the sacrifice... Great job Jason and Jeremy on a big derby king...

Pier fishing during the summer months around here is basically a waste of time in my opinion if your targeting trout/salmon...Possibly during a cold water upwelling you could catch a brown or two say off of Irondequoit Pier or the Genny Piers but nothing will be consistant most likely... A friend of mine lives in Sheboygan Wisconsin and told me that when they have upwellings, they simply go to the pier and hammer kings, browns and all the other species every time an upwelling occurs...It's just not the same over here for some reason... For all I know, you could do very well but you should wait until a upwelling occurs and give it a shot...

Good job on the derby fish Mark!!! Was supposed to get out today with Shaun and Mike, but that horrible activity called work kept me away...Dont remember that ever happening before... Again very nice fish and I hope it stays on the board, or until you catch a bigger one...

Nice atlantic Mark...Such a nice thing to be seeing more of these fish...

If you think it might work, try and see... I was always a fan of plain lead colored weights...I dont want the fish to have any reason to swim away from my spread so I figured the dull grey of lead would be less spooky... I know a person who has a laminated picture of a king, about 24 inch's long that he has bolted to his 12 pound black coated ball and we have torn kings apart on that rigger with short 10' leads as well... Also, the Fish Doctor told me many years ago that if you fish lakers, paint your ball chartruese and it worked very well... So, in summation you really cant go wrong with black or plain lead balls while say the chrome sharks or other bright colors will have me worried if fishing up-high, shallow water or when every streaker on the screen I see is going down and not up...

Been hearing that right out front East or West a few clicks in 60-80' has bait and hooks with a very mixed bag being caught but they were very fussy for a lot of boats, while others had no issues getting there fish... A friend on the boat knew a guy on Buc-A-Roo and Saturday he pulled 6 mature kings and had another dozen fish or so from that inside water, but I know guys who fished the same area's with nothing but a laker or two... We also fished out in 450+ out front for steelhead and a few small kings... This was last weekend for the Pro-Am, it could all be different right now...Good Luck~~~

Maybe try out deeper??? I fished the 36-37 West lines out in 300-350 on Wednesday for 8/9 with 7 kings all 4-6 pounds and 1 5 pound steelie...Set up in 120' with 39 for surface temp. and had to convince my buddy that we should go deep and not shallow...Warmest we found was 43 out in that 300-350 where we caught all our fish... NK DieHard down 35 back 35 was hot and I almost laughed to death when my buddy wanted to change a rod and picked the only rod to catch a fish and two at that...Steelie hit a Pirate Melon off the board, 2 diver shots out 125 and 200 with a mountain-dew doctor mirage fly, and a green glow doctor and green hammer...125 diver shot was the only good fish and we dropped it after a smoking run...Divers were braid and ran on 3 settings... Also, cant beat when the boss calls in the morning and says its raining, lets go fishing for a few hours and take it from there...We never made it to work that day...

I'm just waiting for familiar bite to come out with some different colored heads to match up with the twinkies than i'll stop slicing up the alewives... Hard to throw away proven killer rigs just because they wont hold a full alewive, and twinkies do catch more fish than the whole bait for me but our biggest king of the year came on the blue meat rig you gave us 170 down over 150 at Wilson...Scrapped that one off the bottom... Your two cents are always appreciative Mark...

http://www.bobsoutdoors.com If anyone is looking for a few Twinkie rigs they have a decent selection for under 4 bucks a piece...I was shocked to see such a low price so I figure someone might be interested... If you fillet green label familiar bite and trim it up, it works just as well if not better than the Rhys Davis strips in these heads...Just have to take the extra moment to make sure its rolling correctly...

Without knowing where you want to fish out of, I would suggest fishing from Wilson or Olcott for kings...

These fish were from Friday...1st pic is of the quad we started off with and we actually managed to land all 4 fish...Was funny watching the graph loaded and nothing for 45 minutes, then 2 wires and 2 coppers go in about 3 minutes then it got hectic for a long time after...2nd shot was the big fish of the day, at 20-21 on the scale...

That fish came on the Live Wire spin-doctor with a nk mirage fly 150' back on the wire with a glow frog dipsey on a 2.5 setting... Thanks again for the day on the water Mark, was nice reeling in my 1st king of the year out of our home port...