chowder

I don't know what Musky looks like in a gown, but I do know what Ray looks like stripping down in the fog! This poll shouldn't even be close!

Some fish! What a slammer to get in a tournament!

I use my super braid slide divers to target fish in the upper part of the water column. I set the reg slide diver w/o ring on 3 and run out 130-170' and have had zero problems w/ my wire mag dipsy divers @ 160-240' out @ 1.5. I also put together a pair of wire slide diver lite bite rigs w/ the large ring, I only use a 4' final leader on these because my goal w/ these rigs was to eliminate the hassle of the long dipsy leader in my small boat. They seem to work fine but the extra hassle of setting the diver/leader has made me favor my traditional wire dipsy combos for the most part since it's much quicker to get them back working after boating a fish or changing out.

Huntfrisco and others have their Simrad's hooked up to the GPS, I have stayed the heck away from doing it. At this point can't see the advantage in it, pick a heading- AP on and away you go.

Good deal Chris!, hoping to get back up there myself asap!

This is a really good point. Under Monday's conditions off Port Bay(N/S troll) it seemed like I had to let out 140' of coated depth raider cable to target Kings at 100' w/ a 13# pancake + probe @ 2.3-2.4 down w/ 40# spoon rod on the rigger. The blowback was extreme enough that I couldn't see the weights on the graph after they were in place.

Go Musky, Go Musky!

Keep on trucking Musky!

Gonna want the 65#. I wound up using 8'6" rods so I could run them outside my 7' wire dipsy rods.

Gambler, do you run them on that high tension setting? Seems like they might be hard to trip down at 100' if you want to change out?

At down speeds over 2.2 spoon and flasher rigs spooled w/ 30# Ande kept popping out of my Scotty power grips, I had one rig spooled w/ 40# that held fine, tried 2 different new this year releases w/ same results? One thing I am wondering about is I use pancake 13# weights w/ the release clipped to the big tail fin which I am thinking is another problem because I can't imagine that weight can pivot very good once the rigger rod is cranked down. Should I attach the release to the same eye that the cable is attached to? Still doesn't explain why the 30# doesn't stay in @ higher speeds though!

I'm praying for you Musky and hoping to see you out and about soon. -Andy

Had this problem some last year some too; I see quite a bit of line twist in the leader from my wire mag dipsy to the flasher, today I lost a real good king when this leader broke in the middle. I retied these leaders one trip ago w/ 30# P-line flouro, what should I be doing different besides fishing for smaller fish? Spinny had the proper snap swivel on the front and I use the Howie clear snubbers behind the diver. I am wondering if the Howie swivel is the culprit? My drag was set loose enough to click out a bit here and there. Suggestions?

Mower, great to see another promising angler coming along in nephew Tyler! Elliot wishes him all the best out on the east coast and say's he stands ready to duel it out at Barney's.

Don't worry about copper and lead core yet. You want to concentrate on a pair of rigger rod combos and a pair of wire dipsy diver combos. To support this hardware you are gonna need a pair of downriggers and weights (10#+) and pair of heavy duty rod holders for the dipsy rigs, preferably on a track system. You will probably want a combo gps plotter/sonar unit (preferably w/ dual frequency) and a down speed moniter (depth raider is the best buy). It will help a great deal if you can get out and see/ fish w/ somebody who has all ready risked divorce and has all this stuff, that way you get the picture which is worth a 1000 words thus flattening the learning curve. I have gone some part of the way down this road and would be happy to have you on board out on Cayuga some time, pm me if you want.

RR, forgot to mention in my post a few weeks back that the "undisclosed location" we moved your big laker to was my smoker (sorry, I had a pool party coming up and I needed some thing to go along with some of that fine King Ferry wine).

Thanks for the reports guys. Looks like rain for Sat. so I can fish w/o worrying about missing a sunny day of field work. Probably won't get going too early (too much like work!)

I converted the exact boat you are talking about into a trolling rig and I still have it but I wound up getting a Starcraft Islander last fall that I use for most of my FLX and Ontario trolling. I have had my Alumacraft 16.5 out in some very dishy stuff and it took it us back to shore every time but it's just not enough boat for a day that's anything less than mild on the FLX or Ontario. Mine has Merc 40 hp 4 stroke and 65 Minn Kota bow mount, I have gone back to using it for bass/pike fishing and I use it for trolling on mild winter days(the EFI 4 stroke will start at 10 deg like it's a summer day) Send me a pm if you would like to see or talk about how I have the Alumacraft set up-It's got Berts Trax/rod holders, down speed,sonar/gps, down riggers,etc.

Heat up the rod tip over the element on an electric stove, grip the tip guide w/ a pair of needle nose pliers thru the guide end and twist gently. Should come off fine if you have it heated up enough- be careful not to burn it.(Musky; don't follow these instructions for your own equipment!)

Been pretty busy farming, haven't been on Cayuga in almost 3 weeks & so I'm looking for some info from all you guys who have been working it recently. Is the lake set up now and if so where's the t-cline? Are the off-fish happening now and if so do they want it speeded up yet (we were still at 1.9-2.1 down 3 weeks ago)? RR, just spill the beans- I'm no threat to you and Sean,Split,Stinger and Zeke all ready know all this stuff. Also,I have a stash of hot Italian venison sausage patties that I will grill up after the weigh in for those who provide any quality info. Naturally, I will be able to verify the info's worth on Saturday prior to the "pay off".

Troutman, I set copper & core rods on my dog house organizer box pointing straight across the transom and out off the stern and let the leader & colors or copper spool off (I let the line out w/ the clicker off in free spool position,while I tend to other things (with the copper it's best to thumb it till the copper is well started spooling off). Keep an eye on the reel, they will sometimes "catch" and stop spooling, also I have a bungee I hitch around the reel seat because sometimes things "happen". When the copper or the core is out w/ a bit of backing I just clip the power pro backing into the font and rear of the Church Walleye Board and let the board start spooling out w/ the clicker on. After the board has cleared the rigger and dipsies I stick the rod in the holder and let it spool out to the side while I tend to other things. I set my drags to tell me a fish is on, the board will create enough resisitance to set the hook. I don't like to put more than 200' copper out on inlines cause they drag the board in quite a bit, so I prefer to run the longer coppers out on my Otter boards using the big Scotty board releases.

Yes, I run 27#, but fleas were worst on my light rigger rods, had to strip fleas several times before we could get fish close enough to land them.

Fleas were fairly heavy at times.

Chris, I think you want the external in your hard top. I have a Global map 5200, which I like. Depending on what you get you may want to budget in the Navionics Gold (+ fishing chip) or the Navionics FLX chip, the factory bottom map in many units is not much good for the FLX and there is nothing in the Lowrance for Lake O.

Hit Burtis Pt from 40 on out to 105 FOW, got two big small mouths on 4 & 5 colors on rapalas, awesome air show by our best bow of the season 27" on a shallow spoon rigger. Lost 2 good heavy fish on 200' copper and 5 colors- never saw them. Bagged a bunch of lakers on riggers 35-70 down over 100-140 FOW. 1.9-2.2 at the ball. It was a short trip but a good one. No eyes yet!