chinook35

Thanks for posting the " rules of the road " . Anyone using a boat on any waterway should take the boaters safety course . You need to jump through hoops to drive a car ,but any body can buy and operate a 400 hp boat on the water with no training at all . Too many people on the water with little or no idea of rules and regulations .

Make these "educated people " eat LT for a week and I bet we would get more kings .  LOL

Has anyone been to Altmar ? I wonder how the salmon run is progressing Hearing conflicting reports. Lots of salmon or few salmon. Both can't be right.

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The finger lakes lakers do taste better.

What he said !!!     

Throw the LT away and eat the cooler . Much tastier .

In for a penny , in for a pound . I have fished Lake O for many years ,and the last 2 are by far the worst I have ever seen . I will continue to fish out this year ,hoping the majors materialize . I fished 6 days of the LOC derby and landed some fish , but the biggest fish weighed just  20 lbs. I remember years past when fishing solo , I was able to catch (and release ) 5-6 20 lb. + king salmon . I guess my take on these last 2  down years is an unwillingness to upgrade equipment  ( sonar ,fish hawk  etc.) until the fishery improves (if it does at all ) . Next year I will take a wait and see attitude . Normally I am on the water in mid July , but next season I will wait for reports of fish being caught before I venture out . The cost , in time ,boat fuel and maintenance ,cost of tackle ,fuel for truck , food and  BEVERAGES , just don't justify going salmon fishing . I hope , with all my heart , things improve .

Pancake weights = tangles  PERIOD   I have 2 13 # weights that live in my cellar and will never see the lake again . The large surface area cause cross currents to give pancakes a life of their own . Save yourself a lot of grief and invest in shark/torpedo weights .

Slimy , oily things .  

Great eating  whitefish used to be a delicacy when they were plentiful . They fish for them in the adirondacks (Piseco Lake) with clorox bottle bouys .

I really need to invest in shark/torpedo weights . I have so many finned balls in 10 , 12 and 15 lb and some 13 lb pancakes ( tangles on tangles in a cross current , I retired those and they sit in my cellar collecting dust ) ,that I just can't justify the expense . Next year ,for sure .

The amount of rigger cable you need to reach a certain depth is affected by down currents , boat speed , amount of drag from lures you are using , weight of cannonball , on and on .  LOL  . 130 ft of cable is a good starting point to reach 100 ft fishing depth . Watch your rigger cables and try to estimate the angle from vertical . The bigger the angle ,the more cable you need out . I was out Thurs. and going with the waves I needed 140 ft of cable out to reach an actual ( speed n temp ) depth of 103 ft . using a finned 15 lb cannonball . 

Fished today 130 to 300 FOW  very bumpy  only 2 boats visible in the whole bay . Had s screamer on a dipsy rod , but the newby at  the helm let the boat come about way too fast and he spit the fly . A few marks and very little bait . Things have really changed in Mexico Bay in the last few years .Hope things pick up for the derby . 

Yes. Your boat is traveling over the fish ( hopefully). That is why they appear as arches. As they come into ur ducer cone the sonar sees them as farther away as you move directly over the fish ( the top of the arch is the real depth of the fish ) the arch starts back down as you move away. They are separate entities as is the bottom of the lake. Ur rigger balls are traveling along with u and are returning a constant signal from a set distance

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I belive the cone angle on an 83 kzh ducer is 60 Degrees . And if my information is valid (been looking at Lowrance CHIRP 7 ) an 83 kzh ducer covers an area roughly equivalent to water depth ie : 50 fow = 50 ft diameter circle at the bottom . Again your sonar is a DISTANCE finder . It will return an echo from an object X number of feet from the transducer . if the bottom is 100 ft away from the ducer  the ping is returned and your unit shows bottom at 100 ft . You let out 100 ft of rigger cable with your ball attached , the sonar ping is returned from an object 100 ft from the ducer . Is it at 100 foot depth ? Absoluetly not , unless you are drifting with little wind and your cable is straight down . With a 30 degree cable blowback ( not unrealistic at 2.5 mph , an 11 " flasher and meat rig, perhaps your down temp probe , and loading the rod ) you are going to be fishing well above 100ft . But your distance finder is going to show that you are fishing at 100 ft . And CopperJon , you are absoluetly right about the x4D  That is why I went for and still have the Speed n temp  shows actual fishing depth  no guess work 

When my speed n temp finally sends its last depth and speed and temp. I will be buying an X4D.

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Lol. I feel your pain. I felt the same way trying to get my mind around this Thing I started out with simple geometry to figure out cable blow back angles and calculating amount of cable to let out to reach a depth I still have tables I made up for angles from 10 to 45 degrees. The speed n temp took the guesswork out of it I guess my intention was to convince rollmops that he was not trolling at the depth he thought he was Hope I got my point across I should seriously consider investing in sharks they seem to have a lot less blow back. But even they will change from day to day. And even hour to hour depending on speed and down currents

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Think about this for a second . It took me a long time and a lot of pros telling me ,before I got the picture . I don't mean to lecture .but just take a look at what you said . I use a 200/50 Hz transducer ,which clearly shows my cannonballs and any thermocline . Quality is not an issue . The thermocline is at say 100 ft . , It is not altered by the speed of your troll or cable blow back . Now , you let out 100ft of cable . Your transducer/sonar is showing that your cannonball is 100 ft from the transducer , it also shows the thermocline at 100 ft . It does NOT mean that your trolling at 100 ft depth . It is showing two things 100 feet from the transducer . The sonar will show both objects at 100 ft  They are NOT neccesarily at the same depth

I can see my downrigger depth on my fishfinder(Furuno 582). With 15 pound torpedoes the blow back is far less than it is with 6 or 9 pound balls. But what you say would make sense with lighter balls

I can understand what you're saying ,  BUT , your fishfinder /sonar is NOT showing the depth of your cannonballs . It is showing the DISTANCE that your cannonballs are from the treansducer . The counter on your rigger should read the same as the distance showing on your sonar . It took me a long tome to get this truth through my head . I use 12 and 15 lb finned balls and find tha it is neccesary to let out a lot more cable than I would have imagined . I bought protractors to measure cable angle and figured out angle to cable length . I find that to fish ,say 100 ft down , it needs 150 ft of cable out . trolling speed and down currents can alter this . I use a Cannon Speed and temp now and it verifies my findings . it sometimes takes 180 ft of cable to reach 100 ft .

Today was weird upside down fishing with a clearly defined thermocline at roughly a hundred feet down over a 180. We caught 2 decent sized browns on flasher flies well below the thermocline 120 foot down over 140.

We also caught 7 kings on flasher flies ,all around a hundred feet down. The kings were above the browns....

Most boats around us caught zilch or only one or 2 while we were working on a double header. We concluded that it was dumb luck combined with more dumb luck.( there were two of us on board)

We went 9 for 10 . The one we lost came off a few seconds after it hit.

All in all, a great day on the water.

Reading your post I am thinking . When you say you were fishing 120 ft down over 140 fow . Did you have 120 ft of downrigger cable out ? or a probe telling you that you were fishing at 120 ft ?  With 120 ft of cable out and depending on your speed , you would actually be fishing at approx. 80 ft . That could account for the browns .

Any reports on the perch fishing in the harbor ? Last year the fish came in late . Any activity now ?j have an old  (80's) friend who loves perch fishing and I would love to get him out if there are any fish available .

All the reports on these forums are " swell "  lol

Pm sent

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That's Schneiders 'lil salmon inn Right Cross from Mike's marina on 104B

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How about Schneider's on 104B ,right by the launch . Great breakfast when we get blown off . And pub menu for lunch and dinner .

I almost forgot about our first sortie into high tech  The "Combinator " first temp probe we heard of  came from a company in NC . Even worked sometimes . But what a pain in the azz .Fredon's brought back memories , bought my first rivieras from them ,great tackle shop . We would fish the "boil" at Nine Mile in the very early spring (March) ,Slide a 16 ft aluminum boat down the ice covered ramp at Wright's landing and run down to the nuke plant . Back then you could run right tight to shore at Nine mile , no exclusion bouys and no terrorists . We always caught fish flatlining through the outfalls at NM1 and Fitzpatrick . On a side note , anybody remember duck hunting in Oswego Harbor  ? We used to hunt for divers the second half of duck season. Bluebills ,Whistlers , lots of mergansers , even shot a Woodie off the West wall one day . Coasties used to have a heart attack , we were out there in -10 degree weather in a 14 ft mirrocraft with a 7 1/2 horse Honda motor . Ah ,the good old days .