ddubs3

I had one for 5 years. Handles rough water great and the tracks make customizing easy. Ihad endless trouble with my trailer. I would not buy one again due to the platform in back. It makes fishing a pain. Id rather have an open back. 

I had a 2011 Targa V18.  Through bolt the riggers with a backing plate after taking off the side panels, which is easy.  I bought these rod holders that go in the track system.  They are super sturdy and you can still access the rod lockers.  I dont have the boat anymore but still have 2 of the rod holders if you are interested.

Launched at TFalls. Water was mostly 38 degrees on main lake. Wasnt expecting that. Right where creek came in there was a narrow band up to 50 but no fish. Only fish we marked were 200+' down over deep water. Skunked. Should have gone to south end. There were hundreds of trout 4-6" in the marina area. I assume just stocked. Looked like rainbows.

Thanks for all the replies. Heading to the west coast in February to pick out a Hewescraft or Kingfisher.

So I just totaled the Tracker Targa 18WT that we had for the past four years and it is time for a new boat. I don't want another Tracker because I feel the platform in back really cuts down on fishing room and makes it hard for older guys to work the rods and fight fish. We also had a terrible experience with the marina we bought the boat from and had nothing but problems with the trailer....which led to the ultimate demise of the boat when the axle broke.

Right now we are considering three different manufacturers and are looking for input and experiences. Will probably bought something in the 20-22' range. We will need cover from the elements and I don't want an inboard. My wife and I almost exclusively troll for walleye, salmon, and trout on Erie and Ontario.

Lund

I've always considered these the "Cadillacs" of aluminum fishing boats. They seem to have a lot of available features, but are pricey. I've seen quite a few while trolling. The Sport Angler looks appropriate for what we want to do.

Smoker Craft

I've seen a few of these trolling and really like the design, but they seem to be bare bones without many features. The Phantoms look nice.

Hewescraft

I've never seen one of these while trolling, but a guy I know keeps one on Ontario. He loves it and the design and features look really nice. This is probably our front runner right now, although there are no dealers remotely close. They are very popular on the West Coast and Alaska.

I've also looked at Crestliners, Alumacraft, Starcraft, and a few other brands but haven't been overly impressed.

Not the Finger Lakes, but have caught lakers on it on some other inland lakes.

The unknown super glow magnum spoon is a luhr jensen shoehorn in everglo hot banana.

I used two clamp on Walkers when I first started with 4# weights. They worked fine down to about 50'. I could part with them for a decent price since I dont use them anymore now that I have electric Cannons.

I used a Hummingbird fishin buddy model 110 for years on my canoe, kayak, and small v bottom for years and loved it. Very durable and reliable. Just have extra batteries!

Been out the past two days. Besides the 3' waves both days, the fleas are terrible, and we havent found any kings. Made a living off browns and steelhead. Didnt go out past 140' today because of the south wind making it rough farther out.

Looks dead calm. A rare day for Erie. You go out of Dunkirk? We have still been getting some deep out of North East.

I used them all last year on my riggers. My one complaint is that they tend to continue to spool out a few times after you flip the clutch. I previously used the regular cabelas and okuma convectors for riggers. They are definitely better than the regular cabelas reels. Im trying okuma coldwaters this year for riggers.

That river monsters episode was actually on Champlain, but same deal.

We went out in the rain this morning and didnt do much. Two matures yesterday. All 100-200' of water

That is a great major! Yeah, too bad that we didn't have that weather for the Pro Am. Let me guess....your not in the Summer LOC?

the guy fishing with us wasnt in the derby. Anyway we revived it and it swam off. It didnt fight like you would expect a king that big to fight.

Nice fish! Im taking my 9 year old out tomorrow for his birthday. Deep as in 300? I have had some luck with spoons this year as well. Fun to catch on!

Nice fish! Im taking my 9 year old out tomorrow for his birthday. Deep as in 300? I have had some luck with spoons this year as well. Fun to catch on!

We were in 200-300 fow all day

Fished out of Sodus with my wife and a friend from work. Morning started out really bad. Our motor wasnt circulating water so we pulled the boat and headed back to the house to flush it out. Got that fixed and put the boat back in. First lines werent in until about 8 am. Lots of warm water in shallow so we headed deeper. Action was good all morning on everything. We messed up our one copper so we ended up putting out a 10 color core. I couldnt believe our biggest king was caught on it with aspoon. It was bumpy out there. Ended up catching 3 browns 3 steelies and 3 mature kings. 34# beast pictured below

70' down. but we just got 20# er on ten color core.

We just go set up and pulled a 25 lber in less than 100'

My Dad and took out my sister and her boyfriend this morning. Setup in 70' and headed north. Didnt have the 10 color core in long when the board started motoring backwards. My sister started fighting that fish and the 150 dipsy started ripping. That fish came off. Reeled it in to see the hook bent on the fly. Never had that happen before. My sister eventually got her fish in and it was a 22# king. We ended up getting another rip on the dipsy and two rips on the 300 copper without hooking up before calling it a day.

My first trip ever on the Finger Lakes was with him. That is not how I like to fish now that i know more, but he does catch fish and is a really nice guy.

Were you trying to catch lakers? Generally if you are catching lakers then you are trolling too slow for kings.

I think my Dads new boat is a big fish magnet. Two weekends ago we got a 30# king on our first trip. This morning we set up in 60' and headed north. We got to 140' when the wire diver set at 150' with a custom SD and fly started ripping. It ran out to 350' but eventually my Dad got it to the boat. 40" & 27#. We ended up catching a skippy king and a decent laker before calling it a day when we saw the rain coming.

Got to TFalls around 8 am. Launched and tried our normal spots on the west both north and south of the point. Not many marks and lots of weeds. Decided to troll across the lake and try the east side. Wife wanted to pull lines and run across but I convinced her to troll and glad we did. Ended up having lots of action in the middle of the lake 40-60' down and picked up the grand slam. No huge fish, except a huge laker lost on a dipsy. My biggest laker ever at 17 lbs came from that area on a dipsy out 100' and this was deja vu. Would have liked to have boated this one.

Trolled from about 60' out to 210' and didnt really mark anything exciting. ended up catching 3 lakers all 9-13# and a skippy king. Trolled all the way in toward the end. Lots of fish and bait in 30-50'. Couldnt get them to bite but snagged a big alewife in there. Might be worth a shot for anyone going out tomorrow.