Pete Collin

Hello All, Been a while since I've gotten out. Had my trailer all fixed up with fresh wiring and a new axle that hopefully won't chew up my tires anymore. There was a forecast of nice flat calm conditions so I was up at 4:00 AM for a trip. Was pulling out of the garage and discovered that the lights weren't working. No way am i going to drive an hour and a half in the dark without lights. So I fiddled and poked all morning with the trailer, eventually pulling out the entire harness that I so painstakingly strung through the frame. What I discovered that the ground connection, which is attached to the tongue, wasn't reaching the rear part. Either the rust or the coating on the tongue kept there from being a good connection with the rest of the frame. Took me all morning to figure that out. Joined front and back with a short piece of wire, and everything was glowing again. I launched at 1:30 PM. Bright and sunny - not best conditions of a good bite but at least it was calm enough for me to get out there. What is it with the wind often coming out of the exact opposite direction as forecast? I was expecting outgoing winds, but the breeze came from the NE, with some 2 foot rollers. Plenty safe for small craft, but a very bouncy ride and tough steering for trolling. Ran a shallow program, seeing plenty of marks from 20-50 FOW. No hits. I wanted to check on the lakers to see if they were where I left them. Went out to 100 FOW, and there they were on the bottom just like before. Trolled and jigged for a few hours, catching one and losing one. For the last hour of daylight I wanted to run shallow again, trying for a king or brown. With 2 lead cores and one downrigger, I worked from 30 - 50 foot depths. I could see marks peeling off the bottom to look at the rigger ball, so I was poised for something to happen. The rigger fired, and I fought both the fish and the steering wheel as I fan into the wind. It looked like a fat brown, and I patted myself on the back as I went to net what turned out to be a great big sheepshead! Oh well. I was expecting to see kings jumping at sundown the way I had seen them do out in the lake before. Nothing happened. The surface temp was 67 degrees. Looks like that wind blew in some warm water. I pondered trolling past sundown, but it was enough of a struggle trolling by myself by daylight! So i bagged it and wove my way through the pier fishermen on the way out. Not a great trip, but at least I got to play with my boat. Pete Collin www.pcforestry.com

Thanks for all the advice everyone. I hope to have a new one reinstalled before it gets too cold and/or I chew through another set of tires!

Both tires wear on the inside. Like what you would expect if the axle were bowed. The leaf springs bolt sits in a hole in the axle. You couldn't mount it any other way.

Hello all, I think I have to replace my trailer axle after chewing up several tires. Tried flopping the thing but it didn't help. Before I order anther I wonder. It has a square cross section. Is that a standard size? I'd like to mount the new one with the same brackets. What kind of factor of safety should I go by? If the boat is 1500 pounds, how heavy rated an axle should I buy? Am I better off mail ordering one or just go to silver lake marine? Pete Collin Www.pcforestry.com

Hello All, I have a question about salmon in the weeks to come. If I am jigging for them in a place where others are trolling, will that mess things up for everybody? Also, do lakers remain at roughly the same depths in the early fall? I can escape the salmon fleet by targeting lakers, presumably. I never trolled the big lake in sept and don't know what to expect.

Toughluck, no, I work in western NY.

Al, If you click on my name, it will take you to my profile. From there, you click on "find content" and that will show you all my posts from this summer. Pete www.pcforestry.com

Al, Glad you have been getting out. I have been jigging lakers on Lake Ontario this summer. have you seen any of my reports? In a way it is easier than fishing the fingers, but with a much bigger chance of getting blown off the water. The fish are huge!

http://screen.yahoo.com/blogs/screen-blog/crazy-good-dock-roping-skills-013201950.html?vp=1

Hello All, I have several leases available on farm property in the Southern Tier. Please contact me through my website if you want to see some maps of where they are. www.pcforestry.com Sites: Houghton, Belmont, Franklinville

Steve, Agreed! I haven't been to Pulaski in 5 years.

Hello All, Took another old fishing buddy Joe out today to jig for lakers. Report called for low, variable winds and scattered showers. Drove out in the fog and steered pretty wide of my hotspot. Caught 2 smallish lakers before the sun came up enough for me to realize I wasn't where I wanted to be. Meanwhile the wind is building out of the north and the drizzle became steady rain. Found good numbers of fish in my hotspot and jigging became more challenging from the boat being blown at a good clip despite having 2 bags out. Joe managed to catch one small one. Then suddenly we drifted over the tightest concentration of laker blips I have ever seen. I don't know what they were doing down there but I quickly hooked one that refused to budge off the bottom for the longest time. After a long fight I netted a 32 incher. I told Joe to leave his jig down there with all those fish, but he didn't get a strike (which suprized me) I tried to mark that spot on the handheld GPS but it's hard to do while fighting a fish. It requires 3 taps of a button, I only hit it twice. We made another drift and I got one more - a nice 28 incher. We found ourselves circled like planets by two trolling boats. I wondered if the other guys also knew about the tight group of lakers, or if they just saw us fighting fish and figured they'd get cozy. The wind kept building out of the north to the point where walking around the boat became a struggle. There weren't whitecaps but it became clear that if the waves got any bigger things were going to get hairy. I was promised winds out of the west and southwest. Learn your damn meteorology, willya? We pulled in the drift bags and surfed back to the launch. Total fishing time: 2 1/2 hours with a 3 hour round trip by car. We found a wonderful breakfast place in Brockport and hoped things would improve after we were fed. Full of banana pancakes, we checked the weather. It was still drizzling. our clothes were soaked and it was easy to call it off and try another day. I bet you those other 2 boats stayed out there and hammered them! Pete Collin www.pcforestry.com

Nice Job Brett. One of these days i will target browns, bows and landlocks on Seneca

Kurt, I have you to thank!

STEEVVEEE! Are you retired yet?

Hey, Mike! Have you been getting out at all?

Baitcasting reels. 6 1/2 to 7 foot rods with fairly stiff action. 10 pound braid with 10 pound mono leader. Leadhead jigs with plastic bodies.

Second biggest fish of the day:

Hit the big lake again today with an old fishing buddy. We go back 20 years, have been all over the continent on fishing trips, but he moved to Europe and I only see him once a year now. Moose was intrigued with the sport I have found jigging lakers in LO. Best day yet out there. 14 fish caught, two biggest were 15 1/2 and 18 1/2 pounds, according to the DEC's "weigh your fish with a ruler" table. These fish brought me to the limit of my tackle!

Yes. It's just a scaled- down Seth Green rig.

Hello All, After a successful first trip going for lakers, i couldn't get back out there fast enough. So I launched Sat. afternoon with a good breeze and rolling waves. Totally different trip from the last one. The fish moved out of the area where they had been. there was a continuous carpet of baitfish down there, with not a boomerang among them. It was impossible to slow troll. The wind wanted to push me way faster than I wanted to go, and trolling into the wind is not possible when you are by yourself. Jigging didn't work, even with two bags out. The boat was moving too fast. I sat and thought about what to do or try. It had been really hot for a week. What do coldwater fish do when it's hot? They go deeper. Looking around an area 40 feet deeper than before, the screen lit up. Cool. In a stroke of good luck, the wind was blowing in a good direction to troll. So I let down a meatball rig and watched the lure action beside the boat. There was enough motion to give it a good flutter. Also cool. Down went the line and I had a nice bottom bounce going with just the breeze to push me. I discovered that I could cut the wheel so the lower unit acted like a rudder, pointing the bow downwind. This enabled me to put a second meatball rig down. So now I have two lines down among a good batch of blips and bait, drifting along, waves giving the rods a tug every few seconds. I caught two lakers one after the other. This got me really excited. I used my smarts to figure out how to catch them under tough conditions. I was poised to give the fish a good hosing! Nice and quiet with no burbling motor, no exhaust fumes, no need to steer! Then the wind died. That killed my "blow troll" technique, and trolling under power couldn't get any to bite. Oh well. Pete Collin www.pcforestry.com

Just wanted to thank you guys for the advice. I had a successful morning today. Never discovered if they would bite in the afternoon. The heat was so bad i couldn't stick it out past noon!

Hello All, Today I tried a great experiment inspired by canuck. Last year he told me about great, fast action with the lake trout in Lake Ontario. While lakers are a Finger Lakes staple, they get no respect in Ontario and most boats go for sexier stuff like chinooks and steelhead. Well if I can be happy catching them in Canandaigua, Seneca or Keuka, i can be ecstatic catching them twice as big, right? Canuck gave me vague instructions as to where to look for them. I took my 16 footer on this calm morning and found fish right away. I set up a bottom bouncing troll, and quickly caught my first Lake Ontario fish in years. In fact, the only LO fish i ever got were in others' boats where my only job was to reel them in. So today was a true milestone. The lakers are so fat - big round guts on them. They do seem to average twice the size of typical finger lakes fish. There were jillions of marks down there - as many as I have ever seen in Keuka. but the bite was tough. I started the day with many missed fish, which to me is a bad sign. Light strikes are halfway house to no strikes. But I worked on them and got steady action. When trolling slowed down, I set up jigging. they didn't chase my jigs much at all, but with that many down there I found a taker now and then. What great fights! These fish seem much better matched to my tackle. I finished the day with 6 fish - 3 trolled, and 3 jigged, many missed fish. 23 to 30 inches. I was so stoked I wanted to stay the whole day, but that heat was wicked. And at noon when when the wind died to nothing, these ankle biting flies went after me until my sandalled feet bled. I wondered why more people didn't jig LO lakers, but after today it made sense. The big boats most guys fish from are not good jigging platforms. It would take a drift sock that a paratrooper could use to slow a big craft down. Well I intend to spend some time out there. Imagine when all those fish are in the mood to strike! It is just as far as my drive to Geneva, and I don't have to pull any big hills like I do when going to Woodville. The prospect of rough seas is scary, but since I am in pretty close, the coast and the Devil's Nose will protect me from a south or west wind. Can't wait for my next trip! Pete Collin www.pcforesry.com