chowder

I was talking with guys icefishing at SBH today and there was some mention of some guys on wheelers who got cut off out on the ice by Sturgeon point. Anybody know anything about that? I am hoping to make a go of it Friday.

I'm new to Niagara county. Lived on our farm in central NY for 30 years prior. I found hunting public land out here very different than hunting my farm with all the treestands set up , etc. I saw less deer than I'm used to but hunting pressure on the public land was greater. After snow fell it was obvious the areas I was hunting had more deer than I thought. I put in a lot of time starting in September early season, through archery and on through the special late muzzle loader season and was able to fill all 5 tags in large part due to 1 lucky day w/ 2 deer taken but mostly due to doggedly putting in time and being careful about all the usual stuff. Probably get skunked next year LOL.

What Gambler said. Also, go with the weighted steel, way easier to work with than copper, though you do really need to go to super braid before you can attach a flouro leader.

1 hour ago, Gill-T said:

What do you guys do to remove the ice from your boat decks and rod guides?

Not usually a huge problem. usually try to do days >30 but even on the real cold ones the lines are usually moving enough in the guides when trolling so that's not a big issue. Not stepping on ice that's formed on deck usually a good idea but have never had much in any critical spot. Very important to drain motors and give a quick start/shutoff. Personally, I keep a bilge pump with leads and hose in a gym bag, stays in house between trips, and never leave tackle, or gear wet and exposed after a trip. Frankly, I think trailering creates more challenges than fishing in the winter

I've forced my way into T-falls/Cayuga, Lewiston/Niagara River and Bear Creek/Lake Ontario more times than I can count. Finally got a little smarter about transducer casualties and Hank Searles (L&M) installed a sliding transducer mount on the outboard Crestliner last January. It's a pretty slick way of getting transducers out of harm's way when launching thru ice.

17 hours ago, Reel Doc said:

That guy in the green coat looks familiar......

Yeah, me too, I know him from somewhere!

Never give up

Like most things-The devil is in the details. A hull is not just a hull, dead rise characteristics and how weight distribution is or isn't taken into account, overall length and freeboard make all the difference and so obviously does weight . I have a 245 Crestliner Eagle hardtop IO/kicker that I consider the equal of most glass boats in her class and most days she's more than enough boat- when it's too rough for that boat I am not gonna beat myself to hell in something else. I also have a 2105 Sabre 200 outboard/9.9 kicker that I use on the Niagara, early spring on the Bar and for browns and for walleye on Erie. It's obviously not quite the heavy sea tamer that the 245 hardtop is but it too is more than enough boat for most days( I don't have to pick really carefully). I think you will find there is a big difference between what I will call the late model 'tracker' style of boat and boats with a long standing tradition of structurally superior hull design, significant weight, and high freeboard like Crestliner, Starcraft, Lund , Alumacraft, etc. Not trying to badmouth anybody's boat but look at what guides and charter guys run. Our boats have to be safe and reliable every day.

Check Dean's landing, maybe Reel Doc will chime in.

22 hours ago, McWally said:

At least it’s not today. 

True but weather lately is increasingly favorable for freezing at least the eastern portion of Erie and that's the key!

On 1/6/2022 at 5:26 PM, whaler1 said:

I personally would only make the run to the hole with an experienced guide, even then it’s pretty spooky. I’ve been there dozens of times but there are plenty of great drifts that are below. 
Some days, when below the power plants the water is stained, the hole is a nice option. 
One weird thing yesterday was that we didn’t catch a single lake trout. 

Well said! I haven't been over in a week, and now I'm coyote hunting for a bit, but when I was last there, the bite was tough due to Erie has not frozen and the water clarity isn't where it needs to be so the steel are negative and very finicky. It's getting colder now and conditions will likely improve. If/when this occurs the steel and bonus fish will be more active and targeting them where there is less pressure is going to pay dividends. This should enable guys and gals to work slower drifts where they can get a handle on boat control and tapping bottom carefully without risking life, limb, vessel and the safety of others. So, before you go: make yourself familiar with tying sacks with different colors and floats, rig a rod with a bead, and have some other bead colors, get your minnow hooking technique down, and get and learn rigging maglips and other plugs. It's an adventure, but it's not a joke!

On 1/6/2022 at 5:02 PM, wallyandre said:

Yes it can be done between a 3 and a 2 by nmea 2000 and if you want to share more you will need a ethernet cable. 
The problem is if you want to use more then 1 transducer and share those between the 2 units. 
But if you can fine a Gen3 it will makes things smoother. Gen2 are quite old and you can find some good deals on Gen3

Yes. As it turns out you were right about HDS Gen 3 prices. I found a lightly used HDS Gen 3 9" that came with a total scan transducer (not sure what I'm going to do with that yet). So, my plan now is to leave the HDS Gen 2 9" with the outboard crestliner . The gen 3 9" I will link to the big Gen 3 unit in the wheelhouse of the hardtop crestliner will be connected via ethernet and nmea 2000. The big HDS in the wheelhouse is linked to the autopliot unit and a Airmar TM-260, so I was planning to share that transducer with this new to me HDS 9" in the back of the boat. Since the other component of all this is the addition of a Garmin PanOptix Live setup side by side with the Lowrance HDS, I'm not thinking past the issues I might encounter with TM-260 and the Garmin PS30 sending pulses simultaneously to 2 separate screens (Iam hoping that a huge difference in the frequency of the 2 different transducers will minimize problems)

That last posting was utterly unnecessary. If I wanted to hear uneducated drivel I know where to go to get it. This is a fishing forum not a soap box for your right wing bs. Please focus your thoughts on those of us who actually live here here where the LOTSA event takes place and understand I can't afford to transmit COVID to my 92 year old mother in an assisted living facility because I went to a fishing Expo with people from all over. We, all of us, bear a huge responsibility to everyone else on this- Remember- It's like driving drunk. Just because you want to do it, doesn't make it a good idea or mean it's your right to do it.

Last year I had contemplated the idea of 'cloning'  my HDS gen3 display thats in the wheelhouse of my larger Crestliner with a iPad untill it was pointed out to me by another LOU member that the AP functions were not amoung those that can be controlled by a cloned iPad. So, now I'm wondering if I can network the HDS gen3 in the wheelhouse to a HDS gen2 unit I could make available from my outboard Crestliner. Does anybody know if a HDS gen2 can network with a HDS gen3 to the extent it could run the Lowrance AP from the back of the boat? 

I did just get a great tip about a movable transducer strategy from Shannon Littlefield, who, if you don't know is the regional rep for iTroll iTroll Precision Throttle Controller. His suggestion is to level and mount a piece of Cannon or Bert's track on either boat transom and make up a plate for the transducer so it can be moved like some people move rod holders and trees on the tracks up on the gunnels. I thought this was hell of a good idea!

I have gotten comfortable enough with my rig (22' Sabre/ 200 Optimax) to go up there but only after help from Vince Periloni (Thrillseeker charters) and others. That's truly treacherous water and there have been fatal accidents. Minimum boat requirements from them that know (not me) is 18'/90Hp. Do not go up there without going there first with an experienced guide. One thing people don't realize about the fast drifts on the lower Niagara is that boat control and being completely organized in terms of your gear are not just a good idea but flat out essential. When you start a fast drift you have to be really ready because seconds later you are either out too deep, oriented wrong, snagged, broken off your sinker or all of the above. Don't try fishing the river green, it's dangerous and frankly pretty complicated.

2 minutes ago, Sk8man said:

May have been bowfins. They aren't good to eat and are very bony. The ling or ling cod (Burbot) are good eating as they are a member of the Cod family.

Burbot are excellent eating! I picked up 1 trolling off Oswego , wondered if if came from Oneida. We got them there icefishing on and off.

On 1/4/2022 at 12:15 PM, Sk8man said:

I the old days I had one with the suction cups .....you definitely want to have a safety line attached especially with a valuable PanOptics transducer

OMG , I guess so!

13 hours ago, lrg355 said:

Just buy another transducer.  If you have the cable routed properly it will probably not be easily removed.  If you plan to route the cable for easy removal it probably.will not be proper for good protection.  Best thing to do is get another transducer. 

I'm guessing you aren't familiar with the PanOptix technology. The PS30 Transducer is over $1400 alone. I'm a cheap bastard and that's enough to get thinking very 'creatively'.

11 hours ago, Smat64 said:

I use a c clamp and mount the ducers on aluminum angle iron.
 

This only works with certain types of transoms. 

That's a very clever and interesting approach, do you deploy that aluminum angle iron when you start fishing or do you have it like that when yer steaming out/in.?

I'm trying to figure out how to make a Garmin PanOptix system composed of a PS30 transducer and a Echomap 943 XSV into a setup I can transfer from my one boat to the other. The main thing required to accomplish this ,or so it seems, will be to make the transducer movable. Anyway, I saw this thing Transducer Mount – SeaSucker . anybody with experience something like this, or anything like it, I'd like to hear it.

I have one on my 245 Eagle Hardtop (so the windows are much taller than on your boat). It's on the starboard side not the other, but it may have been installed aftermkt. Actually it needs replacing (stops and goes irregularly) and I'd like one for port glass too so please let me know what works for you and I'll do the same . That boat is  totally covered now so nuttin happening there . Very easy to stand up and reach over to wipe my 2105 SST Sabre's windows with a squegee which is good cuz they get really funky hauling it this time of year.

On 12/30/2021 at 1:33 PM, Gill-T said:

Wow! This explains a lot. We have fished over some crazy graphs on Erie without catching and we thought they might be whitefish or Gizzards 

This is tantalizing! We have caught a pile of whitefish on the reefs on Sturgeon Bay near Green Bay icefishing. The whitefish we target are caught on slider rigs, usually a single small snelled hook on the bottom baited with a minnow, then 12" to a swivel . Above the swivel a 2nd presentation is allowed to slide on the line. typically this is baited with a gulp maggot or similiar profile bait. Alternatives to this arrangement is a meegs jig on the bottom, a rapala jig on the bottom, a small jigging spoon, etc. Sometimes a sabiki rig is used as the slider. Whitefish have a notoriously light pickup on either the main or slider bait and one must be very diligent to get hookups, main line is light Nano. It seems like targeting them in Erie should be more common but despite looking into it, I've heard very little real precise intel. I am going to reacj out to the study noted above and see if I can get some bathymetric information. Oh- another thing ; Whitefish appear to be sensitive to sonar, the hard core guys in Wisconsin discourage using vexilars especially and quite frankly I did at leat as well and usually better when I didnt evn run my Lowrance ice setup.

As I said in my post, we went to Simcoe twice and were unsuccessful using the Meegs jigs . After talking with folks there it seems like the whitefish bite can be rather fickle on Simcoe. Consequently we shifted our efforts to Sturgeon Bay on Lake Michigan. There is a local operation that has a fish processing line he uses during the fall to process his own catch that is sold commercially. During the ice season he uses the equipment to custom pack icefisherman's catches. He does a brisk business.

22 hours ago, Jomat said:

I can tell you the commercial perch fisherman in Barcelona also sells smoked whitefish out of his processing shop.  I don’t know if he catches them there as bycatch or purchases from the Canadians, might be worth and inquiry.

I've been there before, he get's his whitefish from Canada.