Has Been

Do not be intimidated.Be respectful but You have as much right to the lake as anyone. I might have to make a point of being his shadow for a while. But thats just who I am. I have played chicken with a few captains in my day while combat fishing. Cut off a dipsey once. All part of the fun of fishin in the pack.

It is my experience that every day that goes by now ,the fish become more & more finniky to catch, Try not to "Crowd the zone or put to much stuff in the strike zone. Also I don't like to mix what I have down to much. I stay for the most part with what is proven for me in the past this time of year. My best setup the last few weeks is A flasher fly or meat on one out & down & A spoon ten feet below & one ten feet above the flasher on the other side. I will run one or two dipseys w/ flasher fly or meat & that is it for the most part. Hart to beat a silver & black green glo spoon in 28 or mag size. Glo frog or Lazer spook. Flashers for me are a white crush glo /mirage fly or white mtn dew & glo or hypnotist fly. leads of 25-40 ' for me Fish the marks & below them. Good luck & be patient. If you see bait & fish and they don't hit turn & attack them from a different angle & do slow turns over them .

Put them on a bait head & Troll them behind a flasher. Might be the latest & greatest.

I love to use J from about a week from now till the end. I like the # 4's in glo green flo w/ ladderback( looks like you have few & silver bullets , Also pearl w/ black dots first thing in the morn . I like to change out the cadmium pltd hooks to a 1/0 eagle claw l 374. I tie direct w/ no swivel so if I snag bottom & break off I can retrive the plug, Done that many times. I like run them on riggers when I see fish on bottom over 40' ft. 35' back & 8'-10' off the bottom. Caught an awfull lot of kings that way. I also like to run them 125-250 ft back on my outdown riggers and do a lot of lazy turns. I use to put dodgers /squids on the inside riggers 15-20' below. Did not get many on the dodgers but when I took them off , I got less hits on the Js . I think they would come up & look at the dodger, veer away & see the J plug & hit it. This works great for me when combat fishing outside of the pack when the fish get driven out by the traffic. Misnomer that you have to go fast when using them. I get a lot of my hits on the inside of the turn rigger as it stalls the plug & is floating back to the surface. Good luck.

Surface temp helps me a lot in certain situations. Early inshore brown bite, look for warmer temps . Summer when lake sets up , I use it mostly when the lake turns over , I head north till I hit 65 degrees & keep going till I hook up. I fish marks & bait. I use my handheld GPS for SOG , my home port so I can get back in in the fog, & man overboard to mark a hookup & stay on that spot. Mu attitude about why I fish has change for my over the last few years. I want it to be about my knowledge instead of the equipment I use. I am living proof you don't need the best of everything to catch fish.

I have an Eagle Ultra ( 1995 Version) w/surface speed & temp, I also have a hand held Magelan GPS. Also a permanant VHF Radio on my 21' 'hardtop . No down speed & temp,although I must admit, There are times I wish I had it. I feel I do as well as most on the lake & better than most . The Electronics are tools to help you catch fish, but nothing beats angler expertise. Knowing What to use when , and most importantly,WHERE. Location is the most important piece of the fishing equation IMO. I learned long ago it's not the tools, but the guy using them.

I use to go up there quite a bit about 20 years ago. Did pretty well up there. Fished the Kemptville area. Kind of looks to me like that is where you are holding that Tiger. About halfway between the two big bridges & the single before the river gets narower. Won a trip from Joe & fished the Ottawa river. Went across the TI bridge 2 hrs after Bush bombed Iraq . That was an adventure. He sure likes those big Spoonplugs.

The best knife is a razor sharp one. And A diamond hone or good steel to keep it that way.