Gill-T

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.

I did well last spring at the bar on 3.25" smaller spoons clean or with a flasher. Most of the Kings were teenagers last year so smaller baits seemed to do better. Now, thinking ahead to this year.....all those teenagers are going to be MATURES, with plenty of them remembering the painful experience of biting a spoon. I think we will have a good plug or flasher/fly bite this spring if logic holds. Then again, fish have the brain size of a pea and I may be over-thinking it.

Hot n'tots and reef runners work. Try throwing them down the chute ( off the back). I will often send these back on a light action spinning outfit with 8# test and set it in a rod holder on my hardtop. Will catch anything from cohos, and browns in the spring close to shore or even smallmouth and sheephead in the summer.

I have a Bayliner trophy that I purchased used four years ago. The boat came with marine carpet installed over textured fiberglass. The carpet was "non-slip" as intended, however, the carpet smelled of fish by June. My wife was not pleased! I also had to fight the adhesive failing along the edges over time. This made the boat look unkept. I decided to pull up the carpeting over the summer. WHAT A PAIN IN THE ARSE!!! The adhesive is very tenacious to say the least. Each little anti-slip groove in the fiberglass had to instrumented for gross adhesive removal, followed by stinky Acetone wiping. I am going to apply a non-skid paint this spring. DON'T put carpet over fiberglass if you ever intend to sell the boat. I think it will decrease the value of the boat, and if you ever had to replace the carpet.....a pain in the arse is in your future. On the interlocking matts...I looked at those to. My main concern is they will still be slippery when wet, and they will scratch the floor gel coat through micromovement. You certainly don't want to cover any floor hatches you need to store stuff in either. You could try just using a wet towel where people stand to rig or fight fish. Dollar store towels. When you net a fish, just place the fish on the wet towel and the slime stays off the fiberglass. Hang the towel over the side, ring and replace if needed.

When I put my new block in my 305 I/O, I used regular oil for the break in season. I have since used synthetic and have found the same thing....the oil looks as clean as the day it was put in! My plan to save money on oil is to drain one quart out at the start of the season and replace with one new quart before start up. My thinking is compared to a car....we don't put the miles or time on our oil with our boats each year....so why change it if is not needed? By adding one quart to the upper engine compartment before start up I may be protecting the upper engine when the key is first turned in the spring. I am also running the synthetic in my trolling motor. No problems reported.

I am just here to help Tom.

How about Tampax to plug the hole in your boat?

NK Purple hologram glow, and an orange-crush-ladderback on a silver NK

Leave the ring, and attach just a barrell swivel ( no clasp, usually Spro-SOLID ring). Your knots will be stronger, you get the anti-twist feature of a bearing swivel and you don't have to worry about a clasp opening up. Changing lures is done by back up rods. If your hot spoon is going cold, line up your back up rods with different spoons and replace in mass. I have a wacked out theroy that ball bearings spinning around produce a small electric charge that fish can sense as something alive.......just a theroy.

Usually, six rod spread. Two braid lines off the Otter Boats, two dipsys, two riggers. If I can add rods, a deep six down the chute, maybe a stacked rigger rod, maybe two fixed sliders...it depends how fast the action is and the wave height. I love rigging, but the guys in the boat like it simple esp. when the fish are biting. This year, I am diving into the copper game.

#14. All the flashabou glitter pieces that spring up when you cut them to length land on your face.....your buddies will worry about you, but your daughter will think you look cool.

They work, but they don't spin as freely as standard clevises. How big is your boat? I know the walleye in your area head out into the main lake as the summer progresses. Out near the islands towards the St. Lawrence river entrance the fish suspend.

The Black has huge fish that can be caught at night in the fall casting stickbaits like rattling rougues or thundersticks from the bank. Can't help you with trolling in the river although in the spring I have heard there is good fishing off the points near the mouth with crankbaits and spinner-worm harnesses.

It all depends on the body of water. Where are you fishing?

Yeah, wierd year again shaping up. Climate change? shifting of seasons? All I know is '06 on the bar had to be one of the best for numbers and size. Last year had to be one of the worst. For what ever reason....wierd winter weather or otherwise, the baitfish and salmon missed each other. Because the Niagara plume was colder than the rest of the lake, most of the salmon were off Jordan to Weller in Canadian waters where Hamilton Bay water was mixing in ( warmer ). Lake Erie kept it's ice well into April keeping Niagara water cold. The bait did not move in shore until mid-June, and by then most of the fish were between Olcott and Oak Orchard already. I was charting huge plumes of bait between Wilson and the bar all June with NO Hooks around them. Steelhead dominated our catch early. It was not until late June when some of the Canadian fish moved thru the area that the bait and Kings found each other.....then it was on! July and August was great off the bar and I had the whole are to myself. We were the only boat out there all summer. Not sure what happened, but recounting a post in May on Spoonpullers' site, a troller disappointed with the poor bar fishing headed out deep for ****s and giggles, and reported a pod of bait that extended for MILES. Two weeks later I believe all that bait came a shore. Too bad the mature Kings had moved on.

Big Jon's web site

Grouse hunting, teaching my kids to ski and skate, Steelhead fishing, tying trolling flys, respooling reels, creating new doctored spoon patterns, repairing broken equipment, and most importantly the "HONEY-DO" list.

I did not get your PM, sorry. I have the manufacture's suggested line length already established on my boats.....and they work fine, but I am doing a little fine tuning to get them to not sag behind while under a heavy load, like a dipsy w/ring or heavy copper.

Ok, not to highjack this thread.....but..... .... what modifications to the otter boats do the "copper gurus of Oswego" recommend for pulling 600' of copper. I have heard various modifications to cause them to pull harder ie. change hole position, string length, and even a second add-on keel that some Michigan boys are running. Which is correct?

Billy, could you expand on "proper copper-care". I am getting together a couple of copper rigs and any tips to keep things from getting FUBAR'd would be appreciated.....copper ain't cheap.

I would add to Capt. John's info-link that because of the zebra muscles, your line will get abraded quickly while dragging bottom. Check often. I have found going to a light braided line for the main line and flourocarbon as a leader works best. Use mono for the drop weight line. The braid holds up better against the sharp muscle shells.

If this is will be your first trip drifting the Niagara, consider staying below Artpark. The water above Artpark is very dangerous. You may have heard about the guide and clients who lost their life recently on a drift trip. This was a seasoned guide! STAY AWAY FROM anything that looks like a whirlpool. Sometimes these fisherman killers appear out of nowhere, and can suck your transom and you under in seconds if you are not under power. You don't have to worry about whirlpools below Artpark. Fish safe.

All the rock jetties in Florida where the intercoastal way meets the ocean have serious outgoing/incoming tide currents which attract bait/gamefish. If you go down to the jetties at first light the water is alive with predators wacking bait balls. For kids, a live shrimp 3-4 feet under an ocean bobber is the coolest thing in the world. You will be amazed at the species of fish you will catch. If casting is your thing, Yozuri stickbaits or Little Cleos work. Make sure you bring some heavy Fluorocarbon leader material for those toothy critters.

There is a farmer closer to Randsomville who will store your boat, but I don't have the specifics. Ask some of the local Youngstown farmers, they know who he is.

I could have sworn last years Pro-Am web site had some tournament locations not allowing cell phones......in re-checking the updated site I see I may have been mistaken? Oh well, my bad.