Pete Collin

4 hours ago, GAMBLER said:

Congrats Pete! Was that you I trolled past yesterday in 130’ off Sandy?


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Think so.  I wondered if that was you as well.  I was hoping you would troll close by so we could talk!

34 minutes ago, MadPerry said:

That is a great story and thanks for sharing.  Was wondering what kind of sonar you were using?  Vexilar?  

I use a Lowrance.  If you look at my recent posts, I have a video that shows the graph in action.

After five years of jigging Lake Ontario, I got a chinook salmon!

Every trip I have made this summer, there were marks up high, between me and the lakers I was targeting.  But they never seemed to bite, or even follow.  But last week, when it was flat calm, I saw a salmon follow my jigging spoon all the way up to the boat.  That gave me the courage to try for those up high marks some more.  There was one that seemed to chase my jig as it dropped, visible on my sonar screen.  I stopped it at 60 foot down, pumped, the rod a few times, and got a bite.  It was obvious at the hookset that this was no laker.

I had always imagined that a chinook would immediately tear the rod from my hands, but that wasn't the case.  It more like swum fast figure eights, making it hard for me to keep a tight line for the first minute or so.  He bulldogged me as I brought him up, and I was tickled to see silver as his back broke the surface.  There was a big eel stuck to him.  Now, when you have a lake trout at boatside, he is pretty much licked and netting him isn't hard.  Not so for the salmon.  He wanted nothing to do with the net, and tore off on a run every time he saw it.  It was crazy, trying to pull him in with one hand, scoop him with the other, and watch him bolt away again and again!  Finally I exhausted the salmon, he rolled over, and I got him in the bag.  The eel had skedaddled by then.  Smart move.  I would have made a "Join or Die" flag out of the lamprey had I gotten him!  The chinook measured 36 inches.  A little thin, maybe, but a solid teenager!

It's remarkable how fast a fisherman can get spoiled.  I hooked a lake trout maybe 2 drops later, and it was so less satisfying after that king!  Overall I had good action in the morning, there were lots of fish around in the same place I found them last week, but once it got bright and warm the fish shut right off.

Nonetheless, it's always an awesome day when you cross a personal milestone.

Fish of a lifetime!

Hello All,

Imagine if you could talk to yourself as a kid.  Ask your child-self how you would describe a day where you caught a 10 pound fish.  For most of us, the response would be something like "THE BEST DAY EVER!!!"  I always think of that when things are slow on Lake Ontario.  My motto is, you are always one 10 pound fish away from having a great day.  

After a week of unsettled weather, and a big full moon last night, I wondered how good the laker jigging would be today.  Wanting to try something new, I spent the night at Ron Bierstine's "garage lodge" so I wouldn't have to get up so early to drive an hour and a half to thelaunch.  It was nice hanging out with Ron, getting caught up.  But the best laid plans - I woke up at 3:45 AM anyway because I was so excited to fish.  

There were plenty of marks down there - much deeper than last week, but following a consistent contour.  And the wind and waves were great for a small boat.  The marks weren't moving towards my jig very often.  All I could do was stick it out and hope things changed.  First bite came at 8:30.  Nice heavy head-shaker and netted up a thirty inch laker.  A ten pounder showed up to make my day suddenly awesome.  An hour later, a second heavy fish tapped.  At the hookset, I knew I would be busy for a while.  Sometimes you feel their weight right when you tighten up.  That one became a 32 incher after a long heave and crank.  Plenty of marks on the graph for the rest of the morning, but no more strikes.

But the day had one last highlight.  The lake turned totally flat calm.  I was able to see my Hopkins spoon coming up from down deep.  On one drop, I "saw some color" while reeling up.  "Why am I seeing that?  I'm not playing a fish!"  Well a roly-poly fish that I think was a salmon followed it right up to boatside!  I tried to jiggle the spoon to seal the deal, but he zipped around it and then dove.  Man!  Turns out there was a mussel on the treble hook that, had it not been there, might have made all the difference.  Wonder how many times that has happened when the surface chop kept me from noticing?

Back at the launch, I met a young guy named Brian that had some luck out deep.  He is a member of this message board, and we had a nice chat after pulling our boats out, comparing notes.

It's been so nice being able to make some trips out, feeling like I am getting back into the swing of things!

Pete Collin

www.pcforestry.com

2 hours ago, LakerTracker said:

Nice meeting you today Pete!


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Always fun meeting folks from the board!

8 hours ago, whaler1 said:

C’mon Pete, fair question. Can’t spotburn lakers off Sandy.


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Well, Whaler, on this very forum I have read guys pledging to purposely cut the gills of any laker they catch because they believe that this native, naturally reproducing species outcompetes their alien, hatchery raised chinooks.  So, yeah, forgive me for feeling protective towards them.

I accidentally caught a landlocked salmon once.  In the video, you can see a blip up high.  I was seeing those all day and figure they were salmon or steelhead.  They'd look at my jig but not hit.  I think those guys on Lake Michigan jig with spoons.  Will have to try that.

Filming yourself fishing is tough in a power boat - can't imagine having to worry about the camera while kick-paddling a kayak!

3 minutes ago, dremarquis said:

great video Pete!

were you fishing out of Sandy?

thanks for sharing!

andre

I get asked that all the time.  But I don't think that matters.  I get the feeling that lakers are very plentiful in LO.  I have caught them everywhere from the Niagara Bar to Irondequoit.  And they aren't always in the same places.  In general, when the thermocline sets up, go looking in about 100 FOW.  They might be in 80 or 120, look around until you find them.  I often troll as part of the search.  Target fish on the shallower side because it's easier to get those.

35 minutes ago, joelagreca said:

The only thing missing was the equipment what kind of Rod and Reel and of course what kind of jig was that it looked like a white tube jig but we couldn't tell how heavy it was to stay down in that 90 ft great video what kind of camera?

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I did a separate video where I describe all that.   If you know how to search my old posts or my YouTube channel, you will find them.

Hello All,

Filming a fishing video by yourself is not easy.  But I finally managed to get a movie of myself catching a nice big one!

I think I saw you guys and heard your glad shouts. I was the only other guy out there. 

38 minutes ago, chugbug said:

Hey Pete neat video , do you ever jig vertically over them or drift most of the time , when fishing vertically its fun seeing them come up after the jig  chasing from 80 ' all the way to 20'  !!! and then hitting it .

I jig vertically while drifting.  I got a long anchor line for windy days that I haven't gotten to try yet.  Lake Ontario fish really don't chase hase very far at all, and a fast crank is useless.

49 minutes ago, idn713 said:

 Been out jigging twice this year and both times on an east wind. Only one laker to show for it. I have to say, east wind and jigging do not mix out there. You’ll get a 1000 lookers, but they will not touch the jig.

Glad you're still getting out there Isaac!  Does that mean you bought a boat?

36 minutes ago, jk1 said:

Where do we click to see you fishing u-tube film???

14 minutes ago, Copperliner said:

Hi Pete, 

 

Glad that you're back on the water jigging, sounds like a blast - would be honored to be your cameraman anytime!

 

Keep after 'em,  Mike

 

Thanks Mike!  It's so hard to make plans, my trips are always last minute!

1 1/2 oz round heads with plastic bodies.  I give a rundown of equipment on a youtube video tht I posted here once.

Hello All,

I had been away from doing much boating or fishing for a couple of years.  I bought the neighboring house, tore it down, and built a garage.  That left me with little time on the water.  Now that that project is done, I can get back to a normal life that includes fishing!

It was an interesting day.  The boating conditions were perfect for my little 16 footer.  The plan was to troll for browns in the early morning, then search for lakers later.  No browns wanted to play, so when I saw some marks in 80-90 feet, I set up to start jigging.  And caught a nice laker right away.  The funny thing was that I always depend on a big concentration of fish for jigging to work, but I didn't find that.  There was just the odd fish here and there, but when I found fish, they often bit right away!  Bites would come on a blank screen, and each fish was bigger than the one before it.  Ended the day with 6 fish, the last one being a whopping 38 incher that must have weighed more than 20 pounds!  I had a movie camera with me.  When it was running, they wouldn't bite.  I turned it on to show that last big one, but was so excited I forgot to hit record!  Fishing by yourself just seems to make eerything more difficult.  Especially since I lost my landing net.  Don't know if it fell out of my boat somewhere or if somebody helped themselves to it when my boat was unattended.  But at least I ddint' lose any fish because of it.  I also got smart and added a stinger hook to my jig.  Can't imagine how better my numbers would have been over my previous trips had I been doing so!  Hope work and weather allows me to get out much more this summer.  I missed that electric tug!

Placeboat. 

Thanks everybody for your advice.

12 minutes ago, bandrus1 said:

I would call $1000 for 8 years a net win

More like six years. I haven't been out much the last couple. 

Hello All,

Back in 2010 I bought a new Coleman 5 hp outboard to be used as a trolling motor.  "A thousand bucks!  Free shipping!  What a bargain!"  Well here I am 8 years later and I am told it is toast.  It gets 75 pounds of compression, I am told it should be 130 or something like that.  Silver Lake Marine refused to even look at it, not a good sign.

So I am wondering if you gearheads can tell me - what makes a motor not worth doing a cylinder bore/piston ring job on?  Is it that the engine block is so light that it will inevitably warp again?  One thing makes me wonder about this defect - when I first bought the motor, it didn't seem to have good flow of cooling water at slow speeds.  It would make sneezing sounds out of the water exhaust- telling me taht it was reaching boiling point.  So I called the company and they sent me a new water pump impeller.  Thing is, the new impeller was shaped differently than the original one.  Which tells me that they necessarily changed the design, or they put the wrong one in the first time around.  Not a good sign.  Either way I wondered if the cooling water running hot that first season contributed to my cylinder blowing so quickly.  So if I did rebore the cylinder, at least the water pump is working correctly now.  Would I get twice as much life out of it this time?  My last kicker was a 1975 Johnson 6 hp Seahorse that I wish I had rebored.  That was a nice little motor.

Pete

On 4/19/2018 at 11:41 PM, 180ccf said:

I have tried this 4x now. Last year I watch a few YouTube videos of a guy off of Sodus jigging for lakers (I setup the same way). He did well. My problem, even with 1oz ocean jigs I can't get to the bottom with 8lb line. The current in the lake is moving fast. I drop the jig in 50 - 100 feet of water, only after I locate fish on the bottom, on the graph. Drop the jig and I watch it drop on the graph. At about 60 feet, it just takes off and never hits the bottom near your boat. If you don't let out enough line it will never touch the bottom. That makes it impossible to jig for them. The current catches the jig and it just moves horizontal. Does anyone have a fix for that.

If you are having trouble getting down, try big 2 oz hopkins-style spoons.  They'll get you down there.  1 oz is too light most of the time.  I run 1 1/2 oz roundheads.

A couple of years ago I did a tutorial on lake trout jigging.  It was filmed on Lake Ontario but the technique is the same.   The only difference is that a fast crank works on the finger lakes, rarely does on LO.