ifishy

that paint board would make an awesome lure hanger for the boat

seth greens are not a great bet for lake O they would get hits but lead to a lot of tangles or break offs lot more current in the big lake so down speed and surface can be very different. vary your speed going in one direction till you hit a fish. if you change directions repeat the process

keep a close eye on the weather. finger lakes can turn bad quick but your always close to shore lake O you can creep a lot farther away from safety a lot faster than you think. that said dipsey's deeper and riggers up higher look for fish on your graph and target that depth. go faster than you would on the fingers. small boat with a big king is a blast

swivel is ideal but I have used an arbor know with success.

if you have to store them broken down a 12-15 foot section of mono lets you reel all the wire onto the reel. Its an extra knot in the set up but if you use mono heavier than the wire its not usually an issue. mono is cheap so its no biggie to change it out often. Makes it real easy to store the rods and even keeps newbies from getting in trouble when helping to set up.

use the pool noodle you can cut it shorter and put the leader wrapped noodle in a small plastic coffee can stores anywhare and you dont have to worry about things banging up agianst it and nicking the line. I have multiple cans seperated by lb test.

after a weekend of multiple graduation ceremonies finally had a chance to go out sunday afternoon weather report was iffy but the itch was to strong. launched at about 3:30 and it was a touch rough on the way out. good test for the boat seemed to handel it well set up and 200 and trolled north east for a while. no bites nothing on the graph. turned west and started to see some bait up high got a pair of short hits. turned back south as it was getting late dropped a couple spin doctors deep to see if we could get something to go and picked up a decent laker in 180 fow. about 15lbs to my finger lakes eyes it looked like a monster but at the weigh in just wasnt as big as we wanted. Well at least we weren't skunked and got to be on the board for a day. hopefully the weather is better for the next trip and i'll get to not fish after a front or an east wind for the first time in a month. Hope others did better. Just getting back into Lake O guess i have to start at the bottom of the learning curve

two words alpha alewife any color

i had a 14ft starcraft but with a steering wheel. I rigged up a tiller motor to use the wheel and it gave the advantage of steering with the tiller while fighting fish if needed. fishing solo still led to some fun though. With a boat that small you dont want to reach to far over the side to grab a rod or set a rigger it causes the boat to turn and can be unsafe. mounting the riggers on the bench seat is a great way to avoid this. it also puts the torque more center line so it wont pull the boat to the side as much. for dipseys more options is better you may want one set of holders in back for when fishing along and one set in front for when you have company. You can rig a holder to the middle of the center bench that goes from the floor to just below the level of the bench and it can be a net holder to make it easy to grab and out of the way or if you put it in securly enough a great place for a homemade planer mast. I am planning on selling my little boat (bought a new to me one) so at some point I will take a bunch of pics there is a lot of homemade rigging on it and its funny i have had similar issues as sk8. i have had people come up to me at gas stations and ask to take pics i had a guy U-turn on culver and follow me to the bait shop just for a closer look. I even had a guy who re-furbishes older boats offer to buy it many years ago (where is he now right).

our first laker came in like a boot the others fought bigger than there size the big one was the hardest hit i've ever had on a dipsey on seneca. the new boat is 100 times more comfortable on the aging bones. still getting used to the size though came in to the dock a little hard on saturday and broke off a dipsey rod holder. gonna replace it with a cannon single axis and track from the winnings.

man it always takes me a couple days to get back online after the derby but sometimes i have to share. was a slow weekend for us fish hard for not a lot of fish. On saturday the motor wouldnt start so we ended up going out on the kicker out of sampson. had trouble with the graph and after getting it all sorted out didnt get a line in the water till after 8. it wasnt down 5 minuets and we had a solid 7 pounder in the boat. re-set and had a small LL almost right away. thought it might be a good day after all but that was it didnt get another fish all day. went in fustrated as heck and on the way in got the main motor fixed, Well at least some good news. day two launched in geneva early fought the waves and fish the west side going south had one hit from belhurst all the way to sampson. crossed the lake picked up an 8 pounder than back to slow. saw the reel stories boat net a nice one right next to us and start hooting and hollering. made it all the way back to the drop at the north and were making a turn when something hit the dipsey hard enough to actully pull drag. pulled in a big laker made a turn hit another 8 lber and at that point it was 2:30 so we decided to run to the weigh in. Glad we did the big fish ended up hitting at 12.5lbs and any more time in the cooler could have cost us a place. so overall we 6 hits in two days but had that one big one that make a difference monday we went right to where we caught the big one and immediatly got into a bit of a LL bite nothing big but at least some action. get to the tent around 11:30 and our name isnt on the board? so we sat around waiting for the guy to show up at noon to see what was up and he told us nothing from the second half of saturday and been entered or updated so dont worry. Well she held so on our 6th year in the derby we managed a 3rd place on what otherwise would have been a very slow fishing weekend. shows how one fish can make the difference. Glad to see lots of Lou members fishing out there good luck with the rest of the season. sorry i dont have any good pics to post.the phones camera is just not that good

i dont disagree with this at all the longest lead core i own is a 5 color I have a copper but never run it unless i'm derby fishing because I cant stand reeling it in. i love fresh fish and what i dont eat the people at work will take in a second so if a fish wont make it I keep it. I guess the better statement is I'm in it for the fight I use 18lb test lead core and with the shorter segments big fish still fight and small fish come in quick enough to release. the next time i go to change out the line I will be trying the micro-lead. my fishing time is very limited so i try to maximize the parts I enjoy most.

as the sight gets quite thats when the anticipation starts to build I can barley concentrate at work

i'm in it for the sport I wouldnt want to ware them out faster the less on the line the better a light rod a light leader and nothing else but the fish in my world thats what I want. its not about the numbers landed its about the fun had. However for each person the important parts of the experience are differnet thats why some will always run inlines and some never will. I have tried them they catch fish but not the way i like it so for now i stick to big boards.

use the stingers they will get a fish or two than be destroyed but you'll know which colors to buy from fingerlakes tackle. Great lakes lure company makes a quality product as well both local companys as well which is a plus

I just started doing the same with my leaders this year i than take the swim noodle and put it in a empty coffee canaster. so far it works great

even more fun when your in the 14ft boat and getting pushed into the pier thats why i fish afternoons and evenings now less crowd more room to fish.

so with all the less than great reports decided to fish out of the river and head west today. started out the first pass in close looking for somthing in front of the ponds or braddoks. The water was clear and fish less so we quickly turned out and started trolling north. went though one pocket where we got a 6lb steele and had another one on that pulled the hook in about 55 fow than went 2 hours with out a release. worked out and in hit one decent laker in about 65 working back towards the river and that was it didnt even mark any fish. guess I whould have went far offshore to start. Oh well still nice to be back on the lake this will be my first full lake O season since the mid 90s and i am excited about every minuet of it. good luck and tight lines to all