Sk8man

I think that your last sentence answered the question and they may be eating at night or in the early hours of AM. Always harder when there is a lot of bait available.

Outriggers have their place and time. One major advantage is that other folks can see them from a distance and the smart ones will say away from you and folks often don't see the boards until too late. You can run multiple lines from them too just not out as far as boards. I've used mine since the seventies and yet quit using the big boards long ago for that reason. At least with the inlines you can make adjustments quicker.

Good one!

Stiffness is real important in some things....that's why all the Viagra commercials I think it may be a bit over rated in this instance as well as the invisibility issue with fluoro....I wonder how many fish they interviewed to determine that they can't see it vs. mono. I think sometimes we take ourselves too seriously and I'm not really disputing what you guys are saying...just that there are different ways of looking at it.

The fly was a popular commercial one often seen on this site and it was just taken out of the package that day and it wasn't the only occurance I haven't had any problems since tying my own and I guess that is what it is about....having faith in your equipment which to me is more important than the potential stiffness issue. I use fluoro for many other applications but not this particular one.

The reason I changed to 50 lb mono (which is pretty stiff) and now tie my own is because I had breakage with 30 plus pound kings with commercially tied flies. Fluoro is stiff but it is also brittle and with some knots can even cut itself and the stretch in the mono helps absorb shock. It is a matter of preference I guess in the final analysis but losing those really nice fish (and flies) did it for me.

The mono spool filler. One of the reasons I use it is because it is very durable and strong as well. I started out using the previous version of it in salt water many many years ago when it was called Hombre and I still have the remainder of a 3,000 yd spool and the line is actually still good on it after about 30 years believe it or not

Vicious doesn't have great breaking strength at the knot. Seguar is really good stuff and I use both the regular red label stuff (line type) but the blue label may be a bit stiffer as well as abrasion resistant. They now offer some more specialized fluros to but I haven't tried them. For flies I tie my own and use 50 lb MONO as it has a bit of shock absorption and stretch and I don't use snubbers on any of my rigs. Teh 50 lb Big Game mono is also pretty abrasion resistant.

I think you'll probably encounter opinions about Lowrance just as you would with the Birds. I can tell you that after years of Lowrance's (and currently have the Elite 7 HDI) the owner manuals and website "resources" totally suck and are a sad joke and the techies at Navico ( they now own Lowrance) have not been all that great or helpful from my perspective. The units themselves are acceptable. If you can afford it I'd say get a Furuno together with an Airmar transducer as they are a higher quality unit than most of the others and are highly reliable over time. They are by far the major choice of the commercial fishermen and that in itself says something.

Geez Mark.....and I had a hell of a time with Algebra

If you do send it for repairs take the opportunity to have some carbon fiber drags put in. You won't be sorry.

Thanks for the report Gerry. Hope to be over that way soon after the perch.

Andy if you decide to do Honeoye it may be advisable to do it early in the season rather than later because it becomes VERY congested with weeds in the warmer water and often there is a corresponding Blue -Green Algae/Coliform problem and swimming is prohibited then (for good reason)

Actually this sort of makes my point about not all water current being the same and a reason why they are fished differently. The currents in streams are a good example of a very different type of water current then that of the lakes because the water flow is restricted and concentrated laterally without the same cross current influences as present in a lake environment. The current is channeled mainly in one direction whereas the lake currents are more diffuse and have more lateral expanse and because the water is also deeper it has a very different verticality as well (i.e. path of travel in the water column) whereas streams are relatively shallow with ocassionally deeper "holes" but mostly shallow water constantly running in pretty much one direction in alignment with the land features (downward). Lake currents run more horizontally and even can run upward in the water column to a much greater degree and their directionality may be more significantly influenced by factors such as water temperature and wind direction and speed..