stoutner

At the Cayuga victory party Sent from my SCH-I535 using Lake Ontario United mobile app

Pretty funny that the guys on Seneca got tired of getting beat up by the guys on Cayuga. Now you have to start a Seneca North vs South rivalry. That is pretty sweet. Sent from my SCH-I535 using Lake Ontario United mobile app

Reel Turner will be fishing with most of Team Green Dolphin out of Stivers Marina on a 22' Starcraft Islander. We will stop by and visit at Sampson. Sent from my SCH-I535 using Lake Ontario United mobile app

Reading this thread makes me want to call in sick and hop on one of you guys' boat I'll stop down at the weigh in Friday night and say hello. Sent from my SCH-I535 using Lake Ontario United mobile app

Going bigger already

I think most of us are on here to talk about fishing and maybe learn a little bit too. I try to keep an open mind but am pretty stubborn most of the time. I would still be fishing Evil Eye spoons and Dodgers / rubber squids if I hadn't been told a dozen times that there are better options out there.

Very good points Kayaker. I forgot about the "arc" created and that also is a huge factor in how much your ball rises as you increase either speed and/or depth. I remember it being about 25% off when running a 12 lb weight at about 100 down doing about 2.6 mph. My actual depth probe was saying I was only about 75 down and my sonar might have been reading something like 90 down due to the arc in the rigger line when it should have stayed at 100 down. In either case, that probe taught me a lot about where my downriggers were fishing. Taught me to make sure I buy really heavy weights to help alleviate some of that. It also showed me that speed makes a HUGE difference. You go from 2.2 to 2.8 and your weight blows way back and rises much more than you would think especially if you are running 12 lbs or less. You can really tell a lot if you can understand your sonar better. That Doctor Sonar article is great.

That is a really good read. Thanks for that link. ...and that was a really good "Google Search" I also like this last sentence in critical concept #2 "This does not mean the suspended fish was 16 feet deep. Only that at the closest point it was 16 feet from the transducer, while the boat was in 31 feet of water." This would apply to the downrigger ball as well....

Hey - No worries. You and I are a lot alike. We both run Raymarine, both run heavy downrigger weights, and both think we are right all of the time!!!! I have Raymarine autopilot and a separate C127 plotter with all of my stuff networked together including my Raymarine Radar. I am very happy with all of it. You should buy a Fishhawk X4D or one of those new smart troll units. That would settle it once and for all. http://smarttroll.com/

I thought so. That post was for Hobbit

That's a nice Atlantic Pretty fish.

You are correct. Just go really slow are stop completely to check to see if they match. You see the mmmm when you are rocking from one side of the boat because your transducer is near the pivot point and the weights are actually getting a little closer or further away as you boat is rocking side to side. My Raymarine C125 is a very good fish finder. It displays in color like most units do. I can tell (somewhat) if I pass directly over the fish or not based on the color of the mark. If the "tails" on the mark are blue/black and the top of the mark is bright red, I am pretty sure that fish passed very close to directly under my boat. When it is bright red you can pretty much be assured that the depth you are seeing that fish at is accurate. If I see a mark that is all light blue with no red in it I am pretty sure that fish was off to the side a fair distance and therefore probably higher in the water than what is displaying on my screen. That may not always be the case but that is my experience. I was amazed when I first started using that Fishhawk X4D that measures depth. I have 12 lb weights that I use for depths to about 60 feet. I have 16 lb torpedos on my outer riggers and a 20 lb Shark on my probe rigger. I can tell you that it is nearly impossible to get down to 125 feet with 12 lb weights. I would have to let out 175 - 200 feet of downrigger to get to 125 feet when running about 2.6 mph. That is exactly why I spent the money on the heavier weights. Most of what i am talking about becomes a little irrelevant if you are using good heavy weights.

Per Google Sound travels through fresh water at a speed approximately 4920 feet per second. What a sonar device (depth finder / fish finder) does is to measure the amount of time for a burst of energy to travel to bottom and return to surface. This time variation is then displayed on the readout of your sonar device by means of flashing lights, Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), or Cathode Ray Tube (TV screen). When the depth gets deeper, the time of travel for the sound increases. An electronic “power pack†generates very short bursts of electrical energy which are sent to a transducer, which operates as a “loudspeaker†to convert those short bursts, or pulses, of electrical energy into very short bursts of high frequency sound energy. After sending out a single burst of this high frequency sound, the transducer is switched over so that it now acts as a “microphone†to pick up the sounds of the returning echoes created when that pulse of sound hits the bottom of the lake (river, ocean, etc.) and possibly other objects (fish) which lie between the transducer and the bottom. The returning echoes of this short pulse of high frequency sound are received back by the transducer (operating as a microphone) which converts sound energy into electrical energy. These tiny bursts of electrical energy, now much weaker than the original signal, are then put through an amplifier which increases their strength to the point that they can be used to light a neon bulb, Light Emitting Diode, or to activate a pixel on an LCD. Thelocation of the flashes on a dial or the location of the pixels on the display can then be used to indicate the RANGE, or distance, from the transducer of the object (bottom) or objects (fish) which have bounced back the echoes. And the last sentence says it all Sent from my SCH-I535 using Lake Ontario United mobile app

As of today, Sodus is ice free North of the Point and out to the lake. Coast Guard launch can be used. South of the point is still pretty thick with Ice. Arney's Marina is ice free but you can't go anywhere because the rest of the bay is a foot thick. Sodus Marina is still 75% iced in and so is Katlynns. I walked out to my slip in Sodus Marina and it was a foot or more thick at my slip. Here is Sodus Marina this afternoon.

I run a Raymarine C125. How do you think those humps or upside down U's are created on your screen? If what you are saying is true, your marks would be straight lines that would look like short dashes and would not look like humps. Look at this mark in the lower left corner of this pic. As you can see, the bottom of the mark is at 110 feet and the top of the mark is at about 90 feet. Is this a 30' tall fish? If this fish shaped like some kind of weird hump? Probably not but who knows. What is happening is the fish is suspended in about 90 feet of water. As your sonar first picks it up, the fish is about 110 feet away from the transducer. As your transducer travels over top of it your sonar shows the true depth of the fish which is 90 feet. As the fish fades back behind your boat the the sonar shows it as being deeper and deeper all the way to 110 feet before the signal is lost. THAT is how the hump shape mark is created on your Fish Finder. That same scenario plays out when your downrigger weight blows back and naturally rises. The distance to the transducer remains the same and therefore it does not show your actual depth....it just shows how far it is from the transducer. P.S. I am just trying to share some information. If you disagree that is O.K. Just think about it a little and test it out on the water. It makes a huge difference when fishing deep and fishing fast. At 50 or 60 feet and 2.2 mph it doesn't matter much. at 100 feet and 2.5 mph it makes a huge difference.

Agree or not.... your sonar measures a straight line from your transducer to your downright ball. If your d ownrigger counter reads 100 down, your sonar should also read 100 down. Problem is that with blowback your ball is probably only 80 down. I have a fishhawk X4D which measures actual depth and it proves this every time I fish. Prove it yourself. Just run at 1.5 mph and check your sonar. Then speed up to 2.5 and your sonar will read the same depth. Common sense will tell you that your ball is blowing back and therefore up in the water column. Your sonar reading will read the same. Sent from my SCH-I535 using Lake Ontario United mobile app

Sodus isn't exactly clear. The chute is open and the very North end of the bay is open behind Capt. Jacks and that area. The rest of the bay is about a foot thick from what I hear from a couple of ice fisherman. It does change every day though so who knows. You cold in theory get out with a small trailer-able boat but if the ice starts to break up and the wind blows some of it out of the bay you would have to beach the boat on the lake side to get out. ...or go to another port. I'd be very surprised if the bay is 100% ice free by April 5th. I know some of the guys who have charters booked that weekend have cancelled. Maybe by the weekend of April 12th it will be all clear? I don't plan on putting in until April 20th or so.