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Mine's a 332c and requires an external gps antenna - any chance that's the same as yours?

I do a little of both, depending on where I'm fishing. In a fast moving tail-out, I'll put on enough weight to tap the bottom on each drift - no float. When I'm working the seams at the top of a deeper pool, I'll cut back on the weight and clip on a foam float. I use a 9' rod to give a bit of reach to keep the line off the water and let the float help to hold the bait right along the seam. There are days when I can't buy a bite on eggs, so I usually have a couple backup baits... the little Exude Trout worms (pink and white seem to work best for me), and a couple tiny bucktail jigs (1/32 oz). I fish these pretty much the same way. Good luck!

I tie mine in spawn sacks - about the same diameter as a dime (give or take). Generally, I buy multiple colors (yellow, pink, blue, orange, red, and white) of the mesh so that I can change up the color of my offering. I play around with the styrofoam floater pellets too, mixing and matching colors. Best color for me this year so far, is blue mesh with pink floater pellets. Second best is yellow/yellow.

I have a Lowrance x67c on my 14' jonboat. it's a very nice model with a great display and pretty much all the bells and whistles.

On the question of depth and settings.... a good starting point is the LJ depth chart for dipsy divers http://www.luhrjensen.com/downloads/tec ... yDiver.pdf

Shower curtain hooks with a rubber band is what I saw one guy use for copper off his boards.

Thanks Dave - good stuff to learn. I'll be de-winterizing the boat this weekend and will get the trailer inspected/registered early next week - then I'll be ready to hit the water the next couple weekends. It's going to take a bit for me to start learning to troll with rod & reel for trout and salmon. I grew up trolling for lakers the old fashioned way - pulling copper hand lines with the old Pflueger Record spoons on Keuka. I appreciate the tips and help that everybody here at LOU provides. A great community!

Thanks Gill, I've got bags, just needed to know if I should use them. Sounds like I'll need one on calm or down-wind trolls, but can probably pull it in when I'm going into the wind.

So stretch seems to be the biggest "pro" for making a switch to wite, then fleas seem to be number 2 on the list. fleas aside, what are your thoughts on braid (power pro, fireline, etc) Those have the smaller diameter (less drag) and no stretch, but don't require special rods. Where I'm coming from here, is that Lake O trolling is a small part of my overall fishing each year (3-4 outings) so any way I can maximize the gear I've got (7 trolling rods mix-n-match brands with mix-n-match reels) without a ton of additional investment is worth looking at. When, during the season, do I need to be wary of fleas? So far, I've been lucky and haven't had any problems with them, but have heard that they can get bad.

I use Atlas Mikes egg cure - comes with dyes to change up the colors, no water required. an hour in the cure then a half hour drying on paper towels, they keep a looooonnnnngggg time. I usually tie mine into spawn sacks, a few dozen each evening while watching TV until they're all used up, then I freeze them a dozen to a ziplock, sorted by color. I did up eggs from a salmon two years ago and froze the spawn sacks - caught my first steelie of the year with those same eggs (was down to my last dozen). Fortunately that first steelie was a female loaded with eggs, so I've got spawn sacks to finish out the spring and to take me into the fall run (and the fillets came out of the smoker tasting awesome). To rocketmans point however, most any of the cures you can buy are nothing more than borax and dye, so the quickest, easiest way to go, especially if you want natural colored eggs, is good old 20 mule team borax. It's also good to have borax on hand in case you catch that trophy fish that you want a skin mount of - coat it with borax and wrap in wet towels to preserve until you can get it to the taxidermist.

without a bag in the water, my boat does a little over 2.5 at idle on calm water, what is the ideal speed for spring browns in the shallows? I'll be running flat lines off boards.

I know most everyone uses wire with dipsies, but am wondering if anyone uses dipsies with Mono. I pulled the depth chart from the Luhr-Jensen site, and it is based on 20# mono, which is what all my trolling rods are rigged with. Do I really need to go the extra expense of wire and the specialized rods needed for wire, or can I get away with running mono?

ABSOLUTELY!!!!! Saturday morning was up at the dam and the water was like bathwater!! There were a few fish caught around the island at the base of the dam, mostly browns and a couple jack kings... really slow, even though the river was flowing above 3000. Seemed to me like the water level was down a bit, even with the halfway decent flow. I guess a decent pod of fish moved in Friday night, but didn't go any farther than the power plant. Saw a few nice ones that folks caught off the wall when I was walking out.

SWEET!!!!! Not a lot of fields open around here yet. Doubt I'll get in any early season hunting. First-regular season isn't too far off, then we'll get after the migrating birds.

did some snow goose breasts on the smoker last spring with a mild rub and applewood smoke - they were FAN-Freaking-TASTIC!!!!!! Like fillet-mignon. The Canadas mostly end up becoming jerky - and they make really good jerky!

We did harbor patrol on the 11th too - nada. Went out in the lake as deep as 80fow and worked our way back in - nada. I don't have downriggers, and 80fow is about as deep as I can get my dipsies. We marked a small pod on the east side of the river by the green barges that were tied up just down from the gas dock - the only fish we marked in the four hours we were out. I've been hearing that there are some fish up at the dam - thinking this coming weekend is time to break out the waders.

I have a bucket of releases for my boards, and when working shallow they do a great job. I have enough that after a release I let it slide on down to the board and put on another one - they're not all that expensive. When out in deeper water, though if I'm running copper or have in-line weights on, regular releases don't do the trick (way too many false releases), but rubber bands do.

A lot of times, if we're driving past a field that we have permission to hunt and see snows - we'll go home, get our guns and park near the field and sneak up on them. Last time, hadn't unplugged the shotgun yet, but they were so thick that three shots took 11 birds!!!! I haven't decoyed ANY snows, ever. Worst part is, snows taste much better than canada's.

We got canned by the weather on the 23rd! Being late in the season, Joe (TSI Charters) didn't have any more available dates, but being the good guy he is, gave us some options on what to do. Ended up, we took him up on his offer to put us on another boat... So September 1, we hit the lake with Capt. Pete Lahosky (LOU Member) aboard the Prime Time for four hours. We put 7 kings and a coho in the box and had a great time!!!! A big thank you goes out to Capt. Pete and First Mate Cy for putting us on the fish and providing a great experience for all of us - another thank you goes out to Joe Orsen, for taking care of us and setting us up with a fellow charter captain who knows his stuff!!!! As an extra thank you, both Charter Services now have permanent links on my Upstate NY Fishing forum. Thanks guys! We had decided we were more interested in fishing than taking our chances in the LOC derby, and as it turned out, we chose right. Big fish for our crew for the day was right around 30 lbs, and at that point the leaderboard already had a 39.5lber on it.

LOL! Our charter is Monday the 23rd... It didn't hit me until late this afternoon that I'm so freaking psyched to go that I pretty much made myself skip a weeK!!!!! Been several years since the act of chasing salmonids didn't involve wading up to the Varick Dam in the fall!!!!!

it sure does - thank you! I've got a call in to the Capt. for datails.

OK, So we've got a crew of us headed out Monday morning with Capt. Joe of TSI Charters in Oswego, and I'm trying to figure out how this LOC Derby works and where are the weigh stations, etc? Here's what I understand so far... Everyone on the boat must be registered $30 for the whole Fall Derby or $15 for one day How exactly does the "witness" thing work? Where do you go to get fish weighed? Can the charter captains sell registration cards? I read through the rules on the site, but am looking for the normal english version instead of "legalese". Someone want to chime in and give the low-down?

Looks like a bowfin to me too - all the pictures I've seen of snakeheads, none of them were green, always brown or black, while every bowfin I've caught was green

Yep... Esox are not picky at all - if it moves past them and it's anything less than half their size, they'll try to eat it. I've caught them on 2" crappie tubes, soft plastic stick baits (think Senko), spinnerbaits, Thunder Sticks, Red-eyes, Daredevils, rooster tails, 4" bass tubes, Wiggle-Warts, Rat-L-Traps, Rapala floating minnows, you name it. The biggest challenge is to locate them and get your bait in their face. I like finding weed beds near a drop-off and working the outside edge first, then if that's not productive, working the inside edge.

Yep... if it moves past them, they'll try to eat it. I've caught them on 2" crappie tubes, soft plastic stick baits (think Senko), spinnerbaits, Thunder Sticks, Red-eyes, Daredevils, rooster tails, 4" bass tubes, Wiggle-Warts, Rat-L-Traps, Rapala floating minnows, you name it. The biggest challenge is to locate them and get your bait in their face. I like finding weed beds near a drop-off and working the outside edge first, then if that's not productive, working the inside edge.