ifishy

The most you can get with your budget Sent from my XT1080 using Lake Ontario United mobile app

fishing is just as good the only difference is you launch in the light and retrieve in the dark

i bay launch is a headache when the weather is nice (googans) i would avoid it. in between those two places you can also launch from sodus or fairhaven or hughes. personally hughes is one of my favorites nice place to launch for fisherman. you can also get a pass for bear creek but you either have to go later or get it the day before plus if there is any wave action coming in from the north there is no protection there. if you want to stay west the genny is a decent launch but you get some pleasure boaters there as well

So this was our tenth year fishing the derby (maybe ninth). We started out Saturday in front of the Keuka outlet. I know the registration numbers were down but it seemed way more crowded than the last couple years. we had good screens and good temps to start so we set up in the top 30 feet and fished on the drop. We did this for a couple hours before we finally got our first hit. it turned out to be our only hit of the day. We boated what turned out to be a 4.2 lb LL which at the time of weigh in at Sampson was top of the board. It all went downhill from there. Saturday my daughter was not feeling well and wasn't eating or drinking by Sunday AM i told my brother who was on the way to go back home as my girl was dehydrated and getting worse. by 9 am we were in the ER with her which led to her being admitted to strong. Monday the wife felt bad so she sent us fishing but my heart just wasn't in it we made two quick passes at the north end one top water one dragging cowbells and grease traps. not a single hit despite seeing some good marks. As i said i just wasn't into it so after 2 hours we called it and i was back to strong where i ended up staying until late Tuesday. She is home now but still not recovered. i finally looked at the results not expecting a 4lb fish to mean anything and low and behold I'm in 5th. I look a little closer and they posted the fish as 4.02 instead of 4.2 which would have been 2nd instead of 5th. I sent an email inquiring if someone could look at the sheet but I am not expecting anything because i didn't bring it up before the derby ended. I have no qualms with the derby committee i think they are doing an excellent job with trying to grow and improve the event. I just wish I had been paying more attention. the important thing is my girl is showing signs of recovery though its still a little up in the air. so even though I placed i'm kind of jaded on the derby partially because of the fishing but mostly because it was a rough weekend for me personally i was surprised to see the small size of silver fish that placed i think it points towards a possible die off of older fish? I dont have the answers but I hope the lake recovers at this point i dont know if i will fish this next year. that is something i never questioned in the past. congrats to all those who managed to find fish and thanks to the derby committee for running another good event. sorry no pics i really didnt think the fish had any chance PS it had at least 5 sawbelly's in its stomach all different sizes from 2 inch to 6 inch

another option might be warm water fish in sodus bay this time of year there should be rock bass in there looking to spawn may well also find perch smallmouth crappie (might be late) even some walleye around. that way you can shelter around islands if needed. as for trout and salmon hughes is where i launch out of the most for lake O. fishing can be good all through that area its really the weather that dictates. seneca will be crowded its derby weekend its a fun derby to fish but if your not in it I would recomend avoiding seneca. Cayuga is nice because as long as the wind isnt due south or north at least one side of the lake should be calm.

hey now the brown comment was tongue in cheek I have spent many hours chasing them there and have a grand total of 2 in and one lost for it. I am snake bit on that lake for browns. as far as the rest of the lake I have only been fishing it for 10 years or so and recently started doing more on ontario when i got a bigger boat. I have actully met nick (very nice guy) i did a couple of the box derbys last year and enjoyed it as a first foray into derby fishing. last year was tough every time so its good to see the reports i have seen so far and all the pics show healthy well fed fish which may in fact be why the fishing was so tough last year.

straight out the back is fine in the old days thats how a lot of boats ran 4 thats what we did off my dads 24 foot trophy bayliner. try to run the same style weight on each that way they will all be affected similarly you can get seperation with depth as well as side to side. i only run a sea nymph 195 and rigger tangle is not a big problem with 3 down and my side riggers are only 48 inches

must have been a mirage there are no browns in seneca good deal on the silvers nice to see the reports are better than last year so far. hopeing for a better derby this year

depends on your preferences for running as well 3 riggers is nice when running in tighter groups of boats because you can turn a little quicker but its more stuff at the back of the boat and in the way. also if its not a rigger bite day than its better not to run it at all. I have a third on mine and the biggest use it gets is as a probe rigger. its a manuall so i drop it to where i want it but than dont have to crank it up till end of day. i didnt purpose buy it for that but it is how things ended up. when fish are up high i tend to run three rigger lines but when running deep i only run two. I find fewer lines overall can be more effective sometimes especially if it means you can more easily keep them running right in less than ideal conditions.

good advice i would say with no plans for a kicker the open side is the better option that way no worries about the cable and swim platform the only other thought i would have is if you wanted to run the fish hawk on the third rigger you would want it on the same side as the transducer. that way if your only running two riggers the probe can stay down even when your re-setting a line and there is less blowback on the riggers being run I do this but with a sub troll also important is that third rigger is a manual vs the two primary which are electric, i started with the manuals but when i got the electrics kept the one with the probe even though i usually only run two riggers having the probe on the manuall which i than dont have to crank up and down as much works out well for my set up

Do you have any long term plans to add a kicker? Where are your transducers? Do you have a fish hawk or a plan to add one? This could influence the decision o. Side Sent from my XT1080 using Lake Ontario United mobile app

I have the cutco knife it works wonderfully it was a gift it seems pricy but if it lasts a lifetime is it really that much? I have a stepson in cullinariy school if you compare cutco to other high-end knifes they are really not that expensive. We also had one in a previous work setting that we abused the heck out of when we broke a tooth it got replaced even after we told them what we used it for Sent from my XT1080 using Lake Ontario United mobile app

a good welded ring ball bearing swivel is a must in this type of fishing. you can get away with snaps when using sticks up high but once you get into any kind of flasher fly you need a ball bearing. there are several good brands but expect to pay up to a couple bucks per swivel.. I use mostly SPRO with a costlock snap but that is because i like that snap and that is the brand I can typically find around me. I have had good luck with Sampos as well.

i always try to give extra space to shore guys i remember when i didnt have a boat and access is limted so i try to be nice and give extra room. the exception is when they are fishing in the channel of a bay or something and there is just no other option in that case usually everybody knows the score

i have a dragon fly pro on my boat i use the Wi-fish app when perch fishing so i can see the graph when up in the bow with the electric. works very well. I just got an adroid tablet so i can have a bigger screen and have it in the back of the boat when trolling. the app works very well the biggest isssue is depending on the device you are using it can be hard to see in the sun. Thats all in the device though not the app

if your fishing real shallow a split shot or two a couple of feet up the line or just before the leader will keep a spoon under the surface especially at slower speeds depending on the spoon and the speed you might be a couple feet down or you may only be 6 inches under the surface but that is not neccessarily a bad thing.

lifetime I have had enough battery issues to be done with it. main motor has its own battery electronics have their own which is attached to the kicker and gets put on the charger/maintainer after each trip. and i take a spare that is used for the electric motor on multispecies trip and nothing the rest of the time that one gets plugged into the maintainer at least once a month. they are all marine grade listed as deep cycle but are in fact "combo" maybe not perfect for there primary use but they are fully interchangeable if one dies the spare which is the newest gets plugged in and i get a new spare. piece of mind is worth it in this case