JJBat150

Sorry for coming to the kayak trolling party late. I spend a lot of time trolling the finger lakes in kayak. Started out years ago with couple of paddle-only yaks, and eventually upgraded to a Hobie peddle drive so here's my $.02 One of the biggest challenges you'll have is getting the right depth depending on what species you're targeting and what time of year it is; rather than try to cover all that, I'd suggest searching the site - based on people's reports, you can get a pretty good idea of what depth you'll need to be at and what lures / colors are producing action. I can pretty much cover any part of the water column from the surface down to 160-180 ft depending on how I'm rigged for the day. Starting from the surface working down, here's my set-ups: For flat lining, I run either mono or braid, and add split shots for added weight. I have rods with 4 & 5 colors of 15 Lb. Sufix Performance Lead Core with 20-30 Ft of a Fluro top shot. With this set-up I get approximately 7 ft of depth per color, and can use a deeper diving lure to get additional depth. Torpedo divers attached with OR-16 snap weight clips to braid (with Fluro leader). Full disclosure, I've donated a few of them to the lake bottom, because they are easy to lose when trying to disconnect. Down rigger - run either a 2 or 4 lb. ball with 150 Lb. braid line. Can get down to 180 ft with the 4 lb., but do get enough blow back that I can't see the ball on sonar. I can run 2 rods off the down rigger, with 1 release attached to the ball and 2nd on the rigger cable attached with a OR-16 snap weight clip. Have a rod with 10 colors of lead and a shorter 7 ft leader. In the earlier days, ran a 3-way swivel with different weights and lures to get down there. Have tried a variety of dipsy divers / slide divers / jet divers, but never really got consistency with the depth they run, so don't use them anymore. A few quick pointers: Lead core in a kayak takes patience - it's slow deploying until the first color or so are out and it gets enough drag to pull itself off the rod - keeping the rod pointed straight back also helps. Running multiple lines helps to vary your presentation and (hopefully) get more fish. It can be a challenge to keep from getting tangled up when hooked up. I try to keep the yak moving forward instead of stopping to land the fish. I also only use trolling reels for trolling- When I got into kayaking, I was running 40-year-old Penn Peerless 9's that I used as a kid with my father & grandfather. I've since upgraded to mostly line counters, but still use a couple of the Penn’s from time to time. Spinning reels are used for jigging or casting. I run a lot of 40+ year old Spoons from my grandfather. Sutton, Pine Valley & Miller are some of the brands I still have. Have a bunch of different stick baits – Berkley / Rapala / Kabooms / all shapes sizes and colors. Can't say that any one specific lure is a 100% catch-all, so I switch things up if not getting hits. One of the advantages with the yak is that if you find a spot holding fish or bait pods with fish under them, it's pretty easy to get turned around and keep running through them . Like others said – vertical jigging is a blast in a yak. Lots of you tube videos on kayak fishing. Lots of us have posted in this site about kayak fishing - use the search function to find the posts. PM if you have other questions.

https://www.lakeontariounited.com/fishing-hunting/topic/68269-canadice-action/?do=findComment&comment=506453 Try this link instead.

@Lakertaker187 - here's a post from a few years ago with some details on how I mounted the downrigger.

I use the 8 oz torpedoes from the yak if I'm not going any deeper than 60-70 feet. I did some testing with the Fish Hawk TD, and if I remember right with 15 lb braid it was like 280 feet of line to get 100 ft @ 1.5-2.0 MPH on the GPS. I run a 2 lb or 4 llb ball off a Scotty Laketroller down rigger, and the drag is pretty manageable.

Betcha a dollar that there's lakers down under the sawbellies. Year ago used to do this with my grandfather on Canandaigua - after we started getting sawbellies, we'd drop a Seth Green rig over the side and put the sawbellies on 5-6 ft leaders and wait for the lakers to start smashing em.

@Sk8man - Generally I use the Fish Hawk once per trip to give myself a general indication of where the thermocline is set-up ; Realize that what I'm doing isn't 100% accurate, but it gets me down to the general vicinity pretty quickly. Also, if I fished yesterday, I won't always take a reading today unless there was major weather event that may have caused a change. Also find it useful to check on lead cores and determine their actual sink rates. @trouthunter24 - Yes 48 degrees at 50 ft deep. One thing I've seen with Canadice and Hemlock is that you don't necessary need to be dragging the bottom to find temps that lakers prefer or catch 'em for that matter. One thing that I was told years ago is that the water is oxygen deficit in the deepest parts of the lake, and supposedly it pushes them into a narrow band of water just below the thermocline. Temp results from the past few years

Been having pretty good luck the past month on Cayuga (Sheldrake) and Canandaigua (Woodville), figured I would change things up and hit Canadice yesterday morning and try jigging lakers. Hit the water ~6:15 with a slight SW wind; as the morning went on the wind died down so that the lake was almost glass-smooth. Got off the water around 11:30 just as the recreational kaykers were starting to show up in full force. Dropped the Fish hawk TD and got the following temps: Depth 05 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 Temp 80 80 80 79 72 63 58 54 50 48 47 46 45 45 45 Started around 40-45 FOW looking for bait and marks and worked my way around the lake down to 80 FOW. Had a ton of followers that I couldn't get to bite, just a few quick grabs that didn't stay hooked - never landed a fish all morning. Mixed up my offerings with all kinds of jigging spoons and jigs with paddle tails in assorted colors. I even changed up my cadence a bunch of different ways , including dragging a stand-up jig across the bottom to simulate pulling copper for awhile. An enjoyable morning on the water, but man, Canadice fish sure can humble you in a hurry.

New place in Honeoye - Doc's Tackle 8960 Main Street Honeoye, NY 14471

Last few times out I've had issues with the action cam - finally got some good footage this AM. Launched from Sheldrake @ 6:30 AM Wind out of the S-SE, so I headed north of the point to stay in smoother water. 30-50 FOW was where I was finding marks & bait. Had a bunch of followers - a lot seemed to come into the sonar view when the jig was at 15 ft. then follow all the way up to the surface where I could see them break off the chase. Ended up landing 2 - first one was 25" and the second 28". Both released. Off the water by 9:30. Video 1 Video 2

New bait shop in Honeoye opening tomorrow. Located on Main Street (20A) near CR # 37 - Think it's the old Aquasoruce store. From Facebook : We open Saturday 6/27 at 6am Please stop back and see us for our grand opening celebration July 4th 6am-6pm. We are a full service locally owned Bait & Tackle store. Worms, mousies, Fatheads, Bass Minnows. Crawdads.. Cook’m or Cast’m.. we don’t judge!! and coming soon Leeches.. We carry a good selection of Rods, Reels, Combos with more coming in each week. Lures and tackle from many manufactures. Strong focus on Local and American made goods wherever possible. We are the North East’s largest stocking dealer of Flintstone trolling spoons, flashers, trolling flies and harnesses. 100’s in stock and ready to troll. Huge Selection of Maki Plastics, over 1000 in stock of 120+ different varieties . Vast selection of Big Chinook stick baits spinners, spoons etc. 1000+/- in stock and ready to fish. 98 different types of TCS jigs ready to cast. Shimano, Shakespeare, Daiwa, Fish 13, Zebco, Eagle Claw, Chubby, Blue Fox, and many many more. We have numerous give-a-ways / door prizes from all the businesses at the Honeoye Emporium and other great Honeoye Businesses. First 100 Kids 16 and under will receive gifts compliments of Doc’s Tackle and Maki Plastics. Door prizes every hour starting at 7am. Donated by Doc’s Tackle, Maki Plastics, Flintstone Lures, Big Chinook Fishing, TCS Jigs, Chrisman Insurance, D&D Creations, Helling Real Estate, Pop’s Place, Papa Joes Pizza, Trident Marina, Birdhouse Brewery, Nobel Shepard, Twisted Rail Brewing, Kraft Real Estate. Donuts and coffee will be provided in the morning. Pizza compliments of Papa Joe’s Pizzeria and Hot dogs in the afternoon. Hope to see y’all next Saturday if not before. Open 6/27 at 6am for business. Best for now The Staff at Doc’s

Looks like you've got yourself dialed into fish pretty good. I used to use WIllis knots, but the past few years either the lead core sheathing has gotten smaller, or my eye sight is falling, and I've had a hard time getting the flouro into the sheathing. I've been stripping 3-4 inches of lead out, and using an albright knot recently.

Biggest bow I've gotten in hemlock was 24". I would say average fish for me is 18-19" range.

Nice report and congrates on a sucessful trip. Hemlock is one of my favoriates - the tranquility makes it worth the time even if the fish don't bite. What's your secret for getting browns ? They never cooperate when I'm targeting them. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Lake Ontario United mobile app

No permit required anymore. Permit was a requirement back before ~2010 when the City of Rochester still owned the land; it's now State Forest. I'll echo what the others say - Canadice for lakers, Hemlock for Rainbows.

Sorry for the late post - I went out of Sheldrake yesterday (Wednesday 17th) - hit the water @ 6AM, and the wind from the S/SE forced me fish north of the point in 30-80 FOW. Also saw lots of bait with marks underneath; trolled 4 and 5 colors with a mix of stick baits, trolling files, and mixed spoons with only a 19" salmon brought to the net to be released. Wind died down around 11AM, and on the way in, I spent about 30 minutes messing around jigging white flukes over marks - brought up a 23" laker. @egcuth - Weekdays are a bit tough for me to schedule in, I generally get out more on weekends; but send me a PM if you're looking for a partner next time out.