Capt Vince Pierleoni

In the upper left is a common hammer,LOL. The devices are a weight retrievers from 80's or 90's. There is a slotted wheel inside that the downrigger cable has to be threaded on the correct side of the wheel.

It is worn out. The steering cable can break if you don't change it and could be very dangerous if it happens at the wrong time.

Good suggestion Rick. They have supported Lake O events in the past and Mike has been a very good guy to my brother who goes there.

LONG LIVE THE KING! One of the good things about this Springs weather is the Great Lakes are getting a good load of fertilizer.

Great thread guys. One things for sure, "Trophyism" is sucking the fun out of deer hunting for many of the young guys. I had a mother of a twentysomething deer hunter tell me last November that her son was suffering from anxiety and depression. The reason? All the social media posts he had to endure daily, showing others with giant deer while he saw very little. Definitely something to think about. BTW BSmaster, my 25 yr old daughter reminded me at Easter dinner than I never let her or her younger brother watch Bambi. Neither of them hunt but they both understand it's necessity and can certainly put a dent in jerky. Good luck on the water.

The website is extremely user friendly and helps greatly in choosing frames and lenses. For Lady O trolling I strongly suggest Blue mirror lenses. I'm a glass guy, but Nick prefers plastic for lighter weight. They now offer lenses specifically for low light and spot fishing, but for day to day open water glare the Blue mirror is the way to go.

Good advice above. For your rig get a deep cycle for the trolling motor and a dual purpose for the starting/accessories. In my experience the regular flooded dual purpose batteries offered by Napa have held up well. I had one last 8 yrs. Interstate also has earned lots of business with no hassle warranty policy. The key, as HB2 stated is keep them charged and check water levels regularly, at least a couple times a year. Always make sure the batteries are fully charged before long periods of storage.

I can share my experience with them. I have a set of 5's for one of the trailer boats. They have been absolutely trouble free, are very fast and have the finest auto stops in the industry. I have not linked them to my Humminbirds but I think it would work fine.

Run them off the main battery. They are very powerful and draw juice.

Prayers sent for your fathers recovery.

You could mount a transducer mounting block with 3m caulk without putting any holes in transom.

Unless you have existing holes you can use for transom mount transducer, I favor a transom mounting block. This way if any adjustments are made you can move it around easily on the plastic block. The only issue I could think of with that units stock transducer is the 83hrz MAY cause some interference with a Fish Hawk transducer. When I ran that model it was with the 50/200 Airmar. That is a great price on that unit.

Excellent unit, used one on the 24 fter. I did run it on an Airmar transducer though.

The answer is, the cormorant should never have become a "federally protected bird." This needs to change asap.

Good points Tom. I have felt for a long time that the "sharpshooter" cormorants are a huge factor in predation of the young Steelhead. There is no species in our system that feeds higher in the column early in life than the Steelhead and Rainbows. They are easy pickings for the death birds. Special consideration as to where and when the Salmon and Steelhead are released is necessary--whether direct stocked or released from a pen. Often Salmonoids will remain huddled up in, or near the harbor and be decimated by birds. Another factor is the timing of plants/releases. Yearling Steelhead are voracious. If they are planted the same day or the day after the fingerling Chinook are released you will lose a considerable amount to the Steelhead. Also opportunistic anglers(bucket sitters) will often purposely fish for the 8"-10" trout because its an every cast proposition. Our marina does an excellent job shooing them out of stocking site and informing them that they were just stocked and not legal. All in all it takes lots of extra effort to insure better survival of all the species, both fingerliing and yearling. Last Spring we purposely released the Steelhead pen when there were few Cormorants around the harbor and the water was a bit stained. All of the little thing s can add up big and I certainly appreciate everyone who helps out with the pens and deliveries up and down the lakeshore.

AMEN! When they restructured the online/DECALS license issuing system I wanted info inputted as to where and what species were fished for. Did not happen. I feel the understanding of the financials of this fishery coulld be much better understood by NY government.

We always enjoy your contributions UT. We are well aware of the priorities flying in the face of the angling public here in the States as well. Same type of initiatives. I know Ontario province has a history of financial stakes in commercial netting so the Sport fishery that I know so many over there covet should never be taken for granted.

Davy, I'm glad you found a home in the fly fishing community. Being condescending to a very hard working volunteer will get us nowhere. He is well liked and respected by many members of the DEC just as you are. You cannot deny that many of your trib exclusive fly fishing peers have disdain for Chinooks just because of the dregs of society they attract. I fish river Kings but from a boat I realize it isnt as awful as watching some of the circus that you do. From my vantage point our biggest problem is when the laws are enforced the local judges do not treat it as real crime. I'm sure if we could attach the true dollar value of each fish--even a spawned out Chinook, the crimes could be considered felonies because they are stealing from us all. To top it off, new generations of anglers learn to disrespect trib trout and salmon from these criminals. Most of the worst ones are not anglers or hunters in any way, in fact they now stake out tiny trout tribs and pillage them in the middle of a winter night. These violations have more to do with the state of our country than the Chinook Salmon running a river. I would support a ban on egg sacs even though we sometimes use them on the Niagara but I believe Sk8 man is correct, the big market is in human consumption of the eggs, and some of the criminals are not even legally in this country. The fastest way to save thousands of trout in the tribs would be for us all to find a way that the violations and downright felonious activities are truly punished and enforced. We ALL want that. As for the Steelhead issue regarding their diet, perhaps some Lake fishermen should have been included in the meeting you hosted. I saw the notes and yes, it does seem that a whole lot of blame was sent towards lake fishermen. Remember, it can work both ways. There's lots of blame that could sent towards trib anglers but lets be productive for a few minutes. I know that they are not as desired to fly fishermen as the Washington Strain Steelhead, but it appears domestic Rainbows are much less affected by the issue. I can tell you they will hang out where the gobies are, and that is very rarely the case with Washington Strain Steelhead. I feel that the intense winters that caused havoc in the system created some extremely unusual scenarios in the lake. Never have I seen young Cohos behave the way they did--not only the size of the baits they were attacking but WHERE they were found in early Spring. We did not have anywhere near the aquatic insects available and almost no emerald shiners. The good news is the emeralds began to bounce back and I would expect that this storm is just a blip in a very warm winter and emeralds and insects should be back in normal numbers. Both of these are critical and highly sought after to young Steelhead and Coho. Lets hope that the Steelhead situation was an anomaly and the system stops losing fish.