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very well said Jeff. Nick

oh man 9pm would be SO nice Nick

haha yeah I didn't mean to put highway in there... meant to talk about teams in general. Post edited Nick

Have to disagree somewhat with you on your definition of amateur. Yes I agree with the fishing for fun and not money, but a lot of the charter captains also fish these tournaments for the fun and not just to get paid. You're missing a key part to being an amateur... skill level. In my eyes, the big difference between the amateur division and pro division should be skill level. If you fish a lot and feel confident in your skills and believe you are just as good as the next guy, you should not be fishing the amateur division.... the fact that teams that fish the pro division even think of fishing the amateur division... well... quite frakly it sorta pisses me off. If you're that skilled to where you can compete at the pro division, why would you join the amateur? So you can compete against people who are not as good and stand a better chance of winning? Am I missing something? Personally, I would think if you were to win in the amateur division, you would want to fish the pro division the following year. Sorry for the tough love, but I have strong opinions Nick

Ummm... yes you did suggest going back to the 9 fish limit for AMs. Kudos to the rules committee for lowering the min people to 2 plus an observer! This is one of the rules that has prevented me from signing up in the past as it can be difficult to find two more people for my team, not to mention 4 people on my 19' boat get's pretty tight. But then again, if we all had big boats and lots of drinking buddies like Highway, we wouldn't care either Nick

Rich good to see you gettin out! We'll be up at the bar from Saturday - Sunday... finally got a new kicker (kinda dropped the other one off the side of the boat in the parking lot... oops). Nick

Thanks everyone for your responses. I'll look into some of the sites provided. Money is tight this year, so I was hoping to keep it under 2k. Al, I figure I go through about 30 spark plugs a year at $3 a piece, that's only $100 It's the leaning over the water to change it out in the lake that gets me nervous... Nick

I don't know, I still haven't been able to get rid of the chill I caught last time we went brown fishing My weekends will actually be pretty booked now with striper fishing until we head up to niagara in may, thanks for the invite though. I'm guessing Ryan is having an aweful time out there, I mean catching all those fish in that warm weather... it must be hard on the poor kid Nick

I've had about enough of my old 9.9hp gamefisher. I'm trying to find a 4stroke 9.9hp trolling motor that won't break the piggy bank. Anyone have any suggestions where to look? I've checked the big name stores like cabelas and gander, but I'm hoping there are better deals to be found elsewhere. Nick

Al, Don't tell me you broke your boat or something??? Haven't seen a single report from you or Ryan yet... get it in gear man! We'll be striper fishing the next three weekends, then up at Wilson May 10-18. We have room May 11-14 if you're interested! Nick

Jesus people, if you don't want to fish the tournament, don't... but stop the complaining under anonymous names. This reminds me of all the charter boats that complain after each pro-am about the rules because they broke them (read that as CHEATED). It's an opportunity to win some money fishing... either enjoy it or shut up. I won't be able to make the tournament, but have nothing but good things to say about the wilson boatyard and it's marina. I've been there the last three or four years for a week or two each year and it's a class act and by far the nicest fishing marina I've seen on the Big O. Nick

There are a couple of campgrounds around Sodus Bay also if you are interested. Docking in Sodus will be a bit tougher than normal this year since no one bought careys cove as far as I know. Nick

Lee, Did you hear how much Abe is charging for dockage? We heard that Arneys is making some changes this year, so we're not sure where we're going to dock... Nick

Probably because tangs have small mouths and usually school in large groups... so one would nibble and the poor sucker next to him would get hooked Nick

The I don't know... is some sort of tang, possibly and atlantic tang. Lots of diversity in the keys Nick

I think the above posters have all just caught too many kings... well except YT, we all know that's not the case with him (j/k ) But seriously... nothing fights like a king, maybe pound for pound, but 25lb king vs the usual 5lb steelie... I'll take the king first, then after I've caught one or two of them, yeah I love a good steelie... like this one... But I'd prefer a rack like this any day... Nick

Guys, Just wanted to follow up on this... I drove up and got the steelie from the taxidermist last weekend. I had also dropped off my mom's natural bow she caught a few years ago that needed the brackets reglued on the back... Here's my fish... Here's the pic of the fish still alive after it was caught... And this is my mom's natural bow... it's a replica as the actual fish was eaten and then later my dad had it mounted for her (I tried to tell him when it was caught... I don't know that he believed me that there was a difference between a 12lb natural bow and a 12lb steelhead). Nick

Ok well I placed a dispute with the credit card company and asked them to hold the payment until the repair of the item has been completed. I think that is fair, especially since this is the second billing and they have already received my down payment over a year ago. Once the fish is fixed, I'll repay or release the hold. Anyone disagree? Nick

I understand everyone's statements above. The taxidermist's name will be revealed sooner or later, either with Kudos for fixing the mistake or with a poor review. Now the question is... should I put a hold on the credit card that they billed last week when they shipped the fish even though they said they'd fix it? Nick

YT, Yeah we should be at the boat house for the loc and for the long weekend at the end of May. Paul, I don't want to say who mounted the fish until I see how things work out. I'm hoping it was just a stupid mistake. We've had three other fish done by them and they all came out pretty nice. We actually drove 2 hrs from sodus just to drop the fish of with this particular taxidermist. I didn't look to see if they had any summer steelies mounted though. Nick

Guys, I spoke with the taxidermist today, I need to bring it up there and give it back to them to redo. Hopefully, redoing it isn't an issue. My mom had a natural rainbow she caught on our boat done two years ago (got it back last year) and it had the same color scheme... so my guess is they give rainbows and steelhead the same color scheme no matter what time of year or what fish it is. Hopefully they'll redo it without an issue, it just upsets me that I went through so much effort of trying to provide pictures and updates over the last year with pictures to make sure the colors were right the first time around. Nick

I fished out of mexico for about 10 years, then moved to sodus bay for the past 4. I also fish out of wilson in the spring each year. There are plusses and minuses to each port. Sodus can't be beat for big browns. However, steelhead aren't very abundant normally. Then again I caught a 20lber last september, but they are rare and normally around in the late fall mostly. For kings, they can be caught from summer through fall. Not many around in the spring. When I fished out of Mexico, you could only catch kings with regularity in August and September. Now I'm sure there are better fisherman than I was there that will say different though Wilson is great in the spring and fall. I love wilson and if it was closer I'd be docked there. But the 5 1/2 hours I have to Sodus from Philly is far enough. Fair Haven and Oswego are very similar to Sodus in fishing conditions in my opinion. Nick

Here's a comparison picture... Nick

Well many of you might remember that in Sept of 06 I caught a 20lb steelie on one of our September trips.... We decided to get it mounted immediately, pulled lines, dropped it in the livewell with fresh water... got back to the dock and it was still alive. We took a ton of pictures (it was still alive in the pic above). We bought 20 bags of ice, filled the cooler and put the fish in. On the way to the taxidermist we stopped at CVS and got our pics loaded onto a CD and printed out a few. We dropped the fish, CD and printouts with the taxidermist and even put on the receipt that it was a summer colored steelhead. Well a little over a year later, I got the mounted fish mailed back to me. I excitingly opened the box very carefully, removed a ton of peanuts, and some platic wrap. I didn't even finish unwrapping the fish.... I could have cried at the sight... I was expecting my beautiful chrome 20lb baby. Instead, I see a bronzed fall colored rainbow I called the taxidermist and got the "what you didn't want that color?" Um, no I wanted the fish to look like the pictures... "didn't it have a red stripe in the pictures?" umm, no. Now I have to either send the fish back or drive it 5 hrs up to the taxidermist and pray that they actually look at the pictures this time. Would you be upset, or am I over reacting? Nick

What a moron. After the raft drifted 50ft, I would have ditched it an swam to shore. He's extremely lucky he survived, especially this time of the year when there are few boats out there. Nick