Ric66

I had one of my old boat. I can't say for sure if it helped but I at least felt more confident using it. An older boat is more likely to have some electrical problems. If you've got it, it can't hurt using it as long as you've got the charge in the ball park.

Has a four stroke engine, good shape. Seems like a reasonable price to me given that I paid over 20 grand for a brand new boat.

Thanks, guys!

Cayuga-Saturday Took my wife's friend's husband out with me on Saturday. Launched out of Dean's and set up going south. 2 dipsy rods with flasher/fly set at 200 and 175 on 2 setting. 3 rigger rods set from 50 to 80. Dipsy at 200 goes off, give rod to Jin (orange shirt), coach him on how to reel him in. Lose fish, bad coach. Same rod goes off again and I just keep reeling in, not giving any slack and able to land the salmon. I've been losing a number of fish on the dipsy/flasher rig this year. Have been trying to coax them in and I think it's been giving the fish too much slack with the extra drag of the flasher. Set the other dipsy rod at 200 and it goes off. Nice rainbow reeled in by Jin. We're learning. Then caught a dink salmon. Dispy rods go dead but rigger rod goes off. I figure with 12lb test I don't need to be too careful. Wrong again. Breaks my line at back of boat. Didn't get a look at it but must have been a salmon or rainbow. Getting rough now the more south we go. Started to take in lines to head up north but got into a nice tangle with one of the dipsy rods and a rigger. But as I'm trying to reel in both rods, rigger rod seems like something's on it. Nice laker. Didn't feel like untangling the mess in the rough water so decided to end the day after a couple productive hours of fishing. Will have my wife's Korean church friends over this weekend for a nice grilled fish dinner.

Yes, the only bait I use for perch

Try fishing over the points, especially on the east side. Let your weight touch bottom then move out to deeper water. Someone at the DEC gave me this advice years ago and it worked for me although I used downriggers too. Bob

Glad I didn't let the weather forecast keep me from taking the boat out today. It was a beautiful day for fishing in the early morning, overcast and a light wind. Went out about 6:30am and pulled out about 11. Had a great time catching about 40+ perch, a few smallies and a couple nice sunfish. It was a little unnerving motoring through the channel in pitch dark, with some of the reports of low water but I didn't have any problem. Nice to see quite a few boats out there today. Most of the perch were average size but a few could be mistaken for ones you get at Seneca. The only bad thing today that happened to me is one of my rods went swimming. Wouldn't mind it so much but it had a perch on it. Blame it on clumsy hands and trying to fish with three rods at once in the dark. This was going to be my last boat trip of the season but maybe I'll try to get one more in before Old Man winter sets in.

Thanks, guys. I used to fish around Sampson for lakers. I thought about hitting that area hard or going further north to Belhurst. I think I need to concentrate on one species instead of trying to go for everything at once. When I get a chance I'll give those suggestions a try. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and we'll get a chance again. It's hard when you have friends and family- can't spend all our time fishing. I'll keep you updated on our progress.

We rented a cottage on Seneca for the week. Weather has been an issue so far. We fished off the dock and one of our friends ended up catching a seagull with the minnow he was fishing. While he grabbed the seagull I attempted to get the hook off his wing. Lucky this seagull wasn't too accurate with his mouth and missed the minnow but got the line wrapped around it's wing. My friend didn't have a good hold on the seagulls head and it turned and bit me on my index finger. Surprising it didn't hurt. Happy to say both the seagull and I survived. On with the fishing report. We fished about 3 hours in late afternoon but didn't move a rod. Had two Spin doctors out with flies and a protroll flasher and fly, three other rods with Finger lake spoons.Marked very little bait or fish about two miles north of Sampson and two south of the park. A bit difficult to fish with the constant wind out of the north west. Hopefully will get some more opportunities if the weather calms down. Any info or hints would be appreciated. Have some friends from NYC and would like to get them into some fish before the week is done. PS- just haven't done very well on Seneca the last few years. Don't know if its me or the lake.

Thanks, Ed. Like I said to Les, you and other guys on this site have helped me be a better fisherman. In turn, I hope my son will be part of the next generation to take up the sport.

Thanks for the suggestion Dave! Here is a pic of the LT Sorry its sideways

Thanks Guys. Fishing IS a great way to bond with our children. And probably a way a lot of us got started in fishing learning from our dads. I'm going to try and post a pic of the lake trout. My son will get a kick out of seeing a fish he caught being posted here.

My 9 year old son never liked fishing but very recently he's shown an interest. Brought him out for his first full day's of fishing although we were only out for about 2-3 hours, but for a kid, that's a full day! Launched out of Dean's and the wind was worse than I expected but started to let a wire rod with a dipsey and Spin Doctor and fly out. Got it to about 80 on the counter when something hit it, gave the rod to my son but by then he got off. Anyway, a good start. Felt a little pressure to catch fish to make sure my son stays interested. Set up that rod again and sent a second rod with same set up- 3 minutes later that rod fires and he brings in his first salmon, little over 18 inches but gave him a good fight. Set up both rods again and sent probe with temp on a downrigger. 55 degrees down about 45 feet which seemed shallow to me but I guess with the north wind it was bringing up cooler water closer to surface. Didn't get anything more until we decided to leave around 8pm and again one of the wire rods has a fish- another 18inch salmon, and the other wire rod has a fish on it which I thought was small because it lacked any fight to it, but as I reeled felt some weight to it, gave the rod to my son and we brought in a nice laker, I'm guessing about 6-7 pounds. My son was very happy and I was relieved that it turned into a successful trip. Now I have to convince my wife to let me clean the fish in our new house's kitchen . Thanks to all the people on this site who share as I've read many posts which helped me know a little about what to do. If it wasn't for this site I would not know how to fish with wire and dipseys, and that was the only rods that produced today. Wanted to get some pics of my son with the fish but he fell asleep on the car ride home. Anyway, sweet dreams.

atlantic= slightly forked tail, caudal area just above tail is slimmer than on brown, jaw does not pass eye as it does on brown. That's how I differentiate between the two. But it can be tricky

Trouble is my big motor is 2 stroke so I hope I don't mix up the gas tanks