zach

nitro- fishing is fun, family is serious. we all wish her the best. as for larry and nitro not being there, wow- i may actually have a chance! i'll drag perchbaits for larry since he wont make it. larry what color do you want me to fish for you? looks like rain this weekend.

my father and i used blakes wilderness outposts for 8 straight years- i am not sure if he is still runnung the camp or not. pike, wallies, lakers, smallies and whitefish. no meal plan- no swivel seats. had like a dozen lakes to decide from. you were roughing it though- no meal plans. excellent fishing and we got to see many moose, eagles and we went to sleep almost everynight listening to the timberwolves howling. made some amazing memories with my ole man up there.

i am so impressed. way big! way to go boys, i have never seen one like that in person. congrats. maybe someday and if i do everyone will know. it would be the fish heard round the world, boy. i would then retire that plug forever and tell war stories about the monster that ate it to whomever would listen. awesome job!!! with my luck this monster was probally caught on the new plastic tuff shad that i was talking crap about.

just in.... i was looking at one of the many zach baker fan-club websites and it said that zach's partner most likely will not make it for the fishing tournament, something about responsibilities that came up or some garbage excuse like that. it also said that zach won't let this get him down and he will keep moving forward even if its alone. zach himself plans on attending to make his many, many fans and followers around the world happy and may even break out his casting equipment for this special event. we can only wait and see what happens. i was told he was forcefully fed a huge piece of humble pie last time down to see his woman waneta. zach doesn't like his humble pie to be shoved down his throat by his woman waneta from the times i have spoke with him. doesn't it seem that he has had trouble keeping a partner lately. i have heard that it may have something to do with him never shutting up while in the boat, even during 12 hour marathon days. he just keeps blabbing away all day, never shutting up. always saying something like- if they can catch 'em why can't i... what are they doing differant than me? wah, wah, waaah. look for zach to be there alone. you will probally hear him complaining before you actually see him fishing. this time down to see his ole lady he has a seceret home made weapon (he doesn't want to get skunked again). if you do see him ask him about the new 10" zach shad which he is messing around with and will show his woman waneta to see what she thinks. i heard that its his first bait (cherry popper) and that there are more to come. the new zach shad aka the colton crusher looks like it may hit 25-30 feet with a violent wobble because of its huge lip and not being over-weighted. most likely won't go over 4mph though, this is not a casting lure unless you like pain; i know some of you do out there. its got a lip the size of a field plow! first color is a basic silver and black. this baby moves more water than rosie o'donnell doing a belly flop off the high dive. other than the trials in the backyard pool this will be its first time out from what i understand. good luck everyone!

has been- my name is zach and i work in the car industry and i can get you a great price on the fuel pump if you want. i live and work in rochester- i sell AC Delco and Carter pumps and i would hook you up @ employee price if you want- 585-414-0138. just cause you are a musky fisherman like myself. i don't make money off those deals so its just a hook up if you want

what is a good tiger from conesus? size? got skunked at waneta last night with 2 rips trolling and saw one caught and conesus is alot closer to me but i never seem to fish it. alot of driving last night for 2 rips and thinking i may try here sooner than later. its only a 30 minute drive for me to conesus compared to 1 1/5hr to waneta. do you throw smaller musky stuff or normal musky lures for the tigers. do tigers like brighter colors than muskies? i thought that somewhere i read this?

got skunked last night at waneta- 2 rips over open water and thats it. i have been doing at least a fish a trip down there this year and got a nice big slice of humble pie to eat last night.

did you go with musky joe charters?

brown pike is the best color in my boat (didn't see it on the color page). white has been good lately, and lex's favorite is orange tiger. we have done multiple fish on each. just when i thought i had enough lures these came out. btw i thought a plastic tuff shad was named the KRUSHER (damn near exact copy of the tuffy). after seeing what happened with joe buchers products after he changed manufactures and outsourced i think i personally will hold off for a while and see what happens with these. bucher had alot of boken lips and quality went staight down the toilet. lets see if that happens here also. i will fish my wooden plugs as long as they are working and still intact before i take a chance on an outsourced china made lure that used to be proudly made in west virginia. lets see- my line and leader come from china- my snaps and splits come from china- my rod was made in china- fishfinder from china- trailer tires from.. u guessed it china. can't i have atleast one american made product on while i fish? will we be fishing muskies in china next also? not a fan. i like the old ones and probally will not purchase any of these. i am tired of wasting my money on chinese made pieces of sh*t. make the wood ones again and i will buy them. 6 of the last 7 muskies i have caught have been on the old style (STILL MADE OF WOOD) tuffs, so i am a fan (they are my #1 fish catcher this year) not just a basher. at the happy hooker they had a good looking wood shad style bait by newman called the triple x. maybe i will buy some of these instead. buyer beware- i wouldn't want his first batch. maybe i am the only one. watch how expensive the old wooden tuffs get on ebay now, if anyone is even getting rid of them. am i the only one disappointed to hear that they are plastic? is dale wiley gonna make a plastic crankbait now, so all of my favorites will now be made of plastic- wait those are call stalkers. 95% of my lures are wood. i am very partial to my wooden lures and very biased so maybe that is what is coming out in this post. thanks for listening to me vent!

then is all white a natural color? looks pretty bright in the water.

not trying to change the system- i have always used a swivel on my leaders and its now that i am wondering about it.

bucktails would be a good idea for the weeds, but there is also a suspended fishery that i think deserves as much attention if not more than the weeds. good luck. if you don't get them on the weed flats or edges you then go to the open water. good luck. mid-october you may see the fish starting to go deep so weed edges may be better than the flats.

i can uni knot 80lb flouro and get it tight ( 4 turns flouro). to me the uni-knot is no problem to tie and i think for live bait this is what you would want for a more natural approach. the uni-knot is perfect for lines of differant diameter. a blood knot isn't, a surgeons knot isn't. i was just wondering about just using the welded split rings instead of a swivel at the connection point for my trolling leaders. i still would use the snap at the lure end. i just dont see the point to have the bearing swivel on the leader if it really isn't needed. i think a ring is 10% of the price and does what is needed to connect the leader to the line. cranks don't spin the line and that is whats i have on 90% of the time trolling. i have had a berkley ball bearing swivel break on me years ago during the cast and lure went 100 miles with no line attached to it. i think putting a ring on the lure side would be horrible changing lures and that isn't for me. snaps on that end, but the line to leader connect i think a ring may be superior. just a thought. and for changing them out while fishing. that may happen to me once every 3-4x time out that i have to change a leader on the water.

when i get tangled crossing lines the swivel doesn't do much. still tangles everywhere. i just don't see why a ring wouldn't do the same job as a connection point b/c swivels can be the weak connection. still could leave a tag end for weeds. back to back uni knots would also be an idea so you could reel all the way up past the leader if you want. if the swivel is dragging the bottom isn't there a chance of it getting hung also? herbie uses the uni-knot system going from braid to floro.

the kawarthas are a great place. i have heard of 20+ a few times on pigeon.

i was wondering about why we all use swivels on our leaders. i can understand if you are using bucktails because they spin but that seems to me, to be the only time they would be needed. i have them on all the leaders and was just thinking why. i think that when using a jerkbait, since the swivel is heavy- sinks and can wrap around the hooks. i was just wondering what you guys think.

i haven't heard too much about the next one. i didn't do last years and just don't know all the details. do we pay at the dock before we go out? will the tourney fisherman be divided up between the two lakes? i just haven't heard much about it and need to make plans. i know that this is sol's home water and i probally don't stand a chance but i'm down anyways. it just seems that 40 or so boats would really get in each others way all day long. any info would be great!

put hooks on your dipsy . i have heard of fish hitting the dipsy no matter what color you make them.

fast over the summer(4.5mph+) i have got them routinely over 6mph this summer- when it gets below 60 degrees start slowing down(3-4mph max). at the end of the season nice and slow. and remember not to troll in straight lines. making turns speeds up one side of the spread up and the other side will slow down. for me they have been hitting the faster outside lures as i turn. lots of turns will get u more fish in my book. last fish at waneta for me was on a big 10" crankbait (perchbait from legend lures) going 5.2 mph making a sharp turn so the lure was actually going close to 6mph. last weekend the slowest we got a fish was 5.1 mph- fastest 5.8mph. i change speeds often. most of the time speeding up instead of slowing down. its just what i do, others may do better slowing down but not me. good luck and mix up speeds often while making lots of turns trolling and your reels should start singing before too long. good luck.

we saw at least 10 muskies caught in the south basin of chautauqua on saturday- 12 to 16 fow. i would try there. tourney was won in the north end casting in mayville. those would be my two recomendations for that lake. smaller 5-6" lures is what got them for us last weekend. all 3 were on the same lure. white- they say that the cassadaga chain has the highest density of all the lakes in NY. only fished it one time and got skunked (several follows). there are 3 smaller lakes all connected and i was told by the fisheries biologist that this is a great lake for people to get their first and alot of action from 30-40 inchers. he said that a 50+" was taken in june so bigger fish are there. alot of casting the weeds from what i understand. i would guess that smaller bucktails and smaller jerkbaits would be the key at thtat lake. waneta does get alot of pressure though. it seems that i see more people fishing for muskies than anything else in that lake. plus the locals seem to know what they are doing.

nice job guys- that fish in the picture looks like it has a nasty scar on it. was it open or healed? 32,31,36. musky lex added 2 more to her total.

nice job- did you get him trolling? bob is good about heading new people in the right direction. he seems to be a good guy. all that we ask is to release the fish and more info will come for you from everyone else. congrats- i still remember every detail about my first even though it was over 16 years ago (i am 30). a fat 42" on a reef hawg (all black) on the french river in ontario in late october. congratulations! making great memories!

everyones getting all excited. i sharpened all the hooks on all the baits. replaced hooks when needed and added some color to some plugs. good luck everyone! keep an eye open for the newly famous musky lex!