Sk8man

In addition to the info I sent as PM.... Ed is right (as much as I hate to admit it ) Fran Barrett is good about Mercs and he and his wife Deb are honest as the day is long...great folks you can trust to give you an honest answer.

You have a PM

Haven't been out since last Saturday's report but hoping to go in next couple days or possibly Saturday if the weather report changes (T storms). Last time out there were quite a few weeds on surface in long narrow patches (or bands) spread out intermittently and some cotton.

Welcome aboard! Best of luck to you this season. Les

I used them on my 10A 's for quite a while without any problems....but I wouldn't go any heavier either...

12lb should work fine.....

And maybe it wasn't such a coincidence that I saw more than a little of myself in that movie "Grumpy Old Men" (especially when I'm ice fishing)

I guess you're right I was a bit grumpy I had just come from Wegman's and it seemed that every damned person in there was talking on the phone or looking at the Internet...then on the way home the woman in front of me was going off the road intermittently because she was texting....it got to me...I'm just getting up to here with the phone stuff, and thinking if the satellite ever gets knocked out somehow people will probably be unable to communicate directly with each other because we've become so dependent on the stuff... I apologize.

Suggestion: throw your phone away and spend your time actually fishing and figuring out the tactics.....all the time spent on gizmos and phone crap is wasted time Folks are getting too wrapped up in the electronics and forgetting (or worse yet not learning) HOW to fish....I know...I'm a dinosaur.....

An additional thing to add is to bleed the fish right after catching it and get rid of the dark lateral line when you filet it. If you freeze the filets do it in water in ziplocks with no visible air in the bag. I have had trout and perch filets three years later and they were delicious....(thaw them naturally in cold water not by microwave)

It is my belief that most of the Lowrance manuals were written by the CEO's secretary while she was on lunch break. Mine didn't even mention how to get the speed impeller recognized by the unit itself....luckily while Bs ing with a techie at Cabela's he indicated that he had figured it out accidentally while messing with the unit....or I'd probably still be messing with it....

True..a lot of folks have never tried smoked fish either (of any variety) and smoked salmon is almost addictive once you've tried it and it has been done right after soaking in a good brine.

It won't be long until the weeds extend to nearly the middle in most parts of the lake and that14 ft is about there in many places. We were doing pretty well from the shoreline at north end at night until the weeds came in. Those largemouths can be a pain sometimes too but are fun in the dark

Nice going and good report also....keep those lines tight!

I second Paul Czarnecki's comments.....those of us who still remember when the salmon weren't the target species (or weren't even introduced into the lake yet for that matter) have an appreciation for each species...they all have their strengths and weaknesses but variety is the spice of life and let's remember the lakers were originally the NATIVE species in the lakes (before they were decimated years ago)...the Pacific salmon are not even truly fresh water fish... they have been forced to adapt to living in it during the major part f their life cycle.

It is also likely that lake trout are more biologically adaptive to this particular environment since the salmon are primarily a saltwater fish forced to adapt to fresh water year round in the Great Lakes rather than being born in fresh water spending your life in salt water and then dying in fresh water after spawning... the extended life span of lakers (30 plus years) would suggest this possibility as well as the fact that they are a true cold freshwater species.

Nice going!

When the lampreys were very prevalent on Seneca and I used to winter fish for trout in my little white Whaler in the dead of winter the lampreys would attach themselves to the back of my boat....the way I discovered it was that they kept messing around under my transducer and showing up on the screen as moving objects. I kept a long very sharp filet knife at the back of the boat just for them....

The numbers of lakers and the size of them being caught is probably a function of many things such as: they may represent strong year classes in the past (many years ago in the case of the big ones) where the survival rate was very good in given years for whatever reason. Lake trout do not spawn in the streams as many trout species do so they may be less susceptible to the various predation forces operating there as well as diseases and chemical contaminants etc.. They also have a varied diet....much more so than some of the other varieties such as salmon and rainbows. I've found small sunfish, perch, and smallmouth bass inside them along with various bugs etc. over the years in addition to alewives and shiners (and in the past smelt). Once they are up to size they can compete with larger predators in the shallows also (especially in the Spring) without fear. They may be stronger genetically. When you add these things to those already mentioned it could add up to greater general populations of them avaailable. The thing I wonder about is are juveniles being caught frequently too? If not it could be a bad omen for the future because these big ones are the spawners....

I always have a sharp pair of scissors in the boat for that very reason I 've always figured 2 halves are better than a whole in that case....