Gill-T

How did you afford that with your giant spoon fund?

Olcott is open, but the bait has not come in yet. The boats are scatching a fish here and there. All the diving birds are patrolling at the mudline.

I think they would work on Lake O. When I was in Alaska, I rented a small boat to take out for some ocean trolling. The guy renting the equipment offered Penn trolling outfits with dipsy divers/dodger/herring as the method of choice. The wind was blowing 30mph inshore, and there was an outgoing tide. What a mess! At one point the dipsys got ahead of the boat due to the strong tide. We saved the day by ditching the heavy gear and just long lined trolled vibrax spinners on light tackle and lit up the silvers. What a riot. Cohos to 18 lbs on light spinning gear.

I hate the metal retaining clip on the Roemers. I always nervous about dropping it in the drink when rigging as a stacker. Very awkward esp. in waves.

That is a good thought on sliders Ray. The singles on sliders are a lot easier to untangle after netting the fish also.

Trebles kill less fish, and hook up better. Singles work better on certain spoons. I like the action on Savants a lot better with a siawash (it comes with a treble). When running a spoon behind a flasher, run a treble....the extra kicking induced by the flasher makes the lure harder to catch (your hook-up ratio will suffer with a single). When you get a mature on a single siawash, it usually buries deep, and unfortunately the spoon will often get bent to sh*t. Test the spoon dockside. Adding a treble will add weight. You can use this to your advantage.......for example, if you want to run over 3 mph.....maybe a treble is a better option for good lure action because a single/spoon may be flipping over too much at that speed. Conversely, in heavy waves where you have to troll with the waves and with the current, if you strip the spoon down of all unnecessary weight it will stay kicking at resonable speed ( ie. replace treble with siawash single, remove split ring and use duolock swivel.

Break-in with regular oil, then you can use a synthetic.

I was hoping to get some insight when dodgers are deployed instead of flashers. I know dodgers run slower so obviously if you are running a slower program you might chose dodgers over flashers. What about time of year one vs the other? What about time of day? I wonder if the "rules" we make up are just educated guesses. I know last year we took a double on matures where the second fish hit a spin doctor while we throttled down to almost a standstill to make easier to land the 25#er we had on the first rod. This off-season I bought some Optidodgers that I custom painted and would like to know if I should be running these first early in the season when the water is colder and a slower presentation would be better or is it just a crapshoot and I should just deploy both dodgers and flashers and let the fish choose.

Blue Knight .......you really are over the top with your Hotspot plugs.....on ALL of the internet sites.

The lower metal loop on the Roemer...not really a clip, but it has a small bump to keep the line in the release. After a few releases, I found that little bump puts a kink in the line. I am going to try to figure out a way to make the Black's work as a stacker....I just can't find a stacker on the market that I can fall in love with yet.

I think a lot of those takes were with meat by the way the bait rolled. The steelhead was a fly for sure.

I agree, you may be able to reinvent some of the old spoons. Get rid of all the old stickers, and get back to just the blank. You can go on any spoon manufacturer web sites and use the pictures of their color schemes to reproduce on your spoons with new stickers. Lazer flash ladder back stickers, glow crush, hologram die tape etc. etc. will be able to bring your old spoons up to speed with what is working now. Sometimes, your invention will be different enough to what everyone else is using, that you may stumble onto a "hot" pattern all your own. Great for cabin fever.

Did you see it in person or web cam? The live webcam at the falls shows the river free and clear. Modis lake erie sattelite view shows most of the ice is breaking up on Erie, but it is backed-up at Buffalo.

If you run them, don't put extensions off them of wire or mono, just attach the attractor item (grub body, willow-leaf blade, or spoon) to the eye on the spreader bar and you will have less tangle issues. I didn't like the blow back or weight of the rigs. Pop-eye charters I think run a similar rig called a six-pack ( I think).....similar with fish shaped spoons without hooks. I would think if you attached an umbrella rig to the back of a downrigger weight and ran a release 6-8' above with a deep diving stickbait back 20' the bait would settle in behind the rig and stay out of the mess. Blow back will be an issue. I have had downrig hits on mature fish that went straight down.....you will have a serious FUBAR if that happens. Good luck with it......just not for me.

I tried them this past spring. They were a pain in the arse to say the least. I used willow leaf blades on mine. The problems are tipping, tangling, and netting. Not worth the effort IMO.

I have noticed large yachts mooring overnight in the back area at Wilson, near the state launch. Mostly Canadian vessels staying the night before heading back to Toronto. Is this legal? I am wondering in case there are no slips for the Pro/Am....instead of having to re-launch each morning.

That would be awkward as a stacker. You would have to have the release already on the downrigger wire, and then hold it with you hand as you release the ball down until you hit the desired spread from the main line, and then grap two toothpicks and jam them in the holes......all while bouncing in waves? There must be a better way.

Blacks..."once you go black you never go back" because you will never get the false releases like you do with a pad style release, and you don't need a rubber band to see a shaker.....trust me I am the shaker king! I only wish they made a stacker release. I use Roemer for a stacker, but I do get false releases and the metal clip will chaffe the line fairly quick.

Even Friday night after the Captain's meeting? Most boats go out friday before the morning.

Nope, catch and release. Points deducted for dead fish esp. with large holes in them.

Come on Tim are you up for a little Carping ie. "poor man's salmon" ?

That second photo is a terrific picture of the hydrodyamics of the Niagara plume. At the head of the Plume you can see the well demarcated drop off past the red can shown as the blue water line intersecting the head of the plume and then the resulting reverse eddy north of that line that swings back towards the Canadian side. When you take speed readings on your down and temp monitors you will notice the difference inside the eastward plume vs the eddy north of the drop. You will see the difference in the downrigger cable angle as well. Two different water qualities in the summer between the two areas. When the eastward plume is too warm and debris ridden, the eddy will be cooler without the debris.

What I had in mind for the guys staying over for the Pro/Ams is having a little Carp contest. Rules would include a $25 entry fee. Biggest carp takes the pot. Great activity from dusk til 10 pm before the serious card playing starts. We will have to start a thread on best carp baits Blueboy korn kernals vs Delmonte. Great way to spend a summer evening on the dock or back of the boat in the slip with a rod in one hand (insert joke here) and a beer in the other.

We were off Weller for most of the ELSO derby last year. The US side was a huge disapointment last year because of old man winter hanging on too long. I sware the seasons have shifted one month. Thank god the boom is out already.

Sorry, IMO leadcore and copper kill the fight of the fish. I love to see that rod snap up with a rigger release and have nothing but the weight of the fish to feel. It was not an option, but, my favorite is hooking a king off the piers in the fall while casting. To feel that slam when a mature nails your spoon in the dark is nothing short of orgasmic.....sorry for the visual.