Ray4852

I used one of those lights connect off the big motor. my other 2 bench lights clamped off the sides of boat. we didn't have lithium batteries back in those days. I never use the main battery from the boat. I used a heavy duty wet cell battery I used for a spare. I could go all night with 3 lights. I have a lithium battle born battery now for the camper. the price for one of these batteries will scare the birds away. I paid 950 dollars for it. it will be a long time before we see more of these batteries come down in price. I see more coming to market but don't match up with the battle born. I use now AGM in the boat one Vmaxx 100 AH, one 65 amp optima. I need another battle born for the camper. they have them now for 900 dollars. but waiting for them to come down a little more. I could build one for 600 dollars 200 amp lifepol4 to risky playing that game. if I got tired I just sit back and rest my eyes with the clicker set on the reel. when I here the clicker fish on. just hope I didn't have a rainbow on. I had no problem seeing in the dark. my eyes adjusted to darkness pretty fast. my flash light had a red plastic cover over it.

Sk8man you had balls to fish with a 13 footer on Seneca at night. did you launch from Sampson to fish Dresden. I stayed on the east side and fished off willard a lot. as you know nice drop off in this area . I never used a Coleman lantern. to dangerous to use in a boat at night. lantern got to hot and brought in to many bugs. I used a 12 volt system with 20 watt bulbs connected to a 100 amp hour battery with bench shop lights. I clamped them to each side of boat and I tied off a floating light off the motor. I had bait all over the place front and back. could not catch a sawbelly with that net. I never went over to clarks marina. it was a big click. I stayed at the DEC launch site. I stayed overnight there too with my truck camper. only and hour and half ride from Arcade. back in those days. fishing was different. a generation of different fisherman. today its all geared up to see who can equipped their boat with all the fancy high tech toys that catch fisherman not fish. If I had the fish finder we use today and went out and Jig under the stars with the jig tipped with dead bait. we could catch fish this way. I know it will work. all you need is the 12 volt lighting system with 400 hundred feet of anchor rope. you could put that jig in the fish zone and see it on your fish finder. we had to use mini Seth green bait rigs to find the trout. I had 3 sowbellies tide to one pole. one pole on each side of boat. Lake trout were down about 70 feet. rainbows I tried to stay away from them. they made a mess out of everything. as you know. when you went out by yourself its was dangerous. when we were younger we didn't think about it.

when I first saw you photo these fish didn't come out of Canandaigua. they had to come out of Lake Ontario. I read your post and I was right. I tried night fishing once off golden hill state park Lake Ontario. I got the bait up but the weather changed. I went in. those smaller finger lakes were much better fishing at night. how did you do with your speed net. if you caught fish with it you were pretty good. those guys had a system when they went out at night. they went up to Seneca point early during the season and moved south later in the summer. I never went up that far to find trout. I fished the drop off, off vine valley or fished off whiskey point in the middle of lake. always caught fish. that little bay around black point was good too. to far to travel at night with a smaller boat. Canandaigua sucked on weekends. the guy on the left side of photo was John R.

I remember him too. John Oravec did some night fishing also. these two guys moved up to Lake Ontario once that fishery got started. later 70s Don Swann did some night fishing. he sold spoons. Swann spoons. I bought a lot from him. he moved out later. The only one left when all these guys stopped fishing Canandaigua was Ron Irean spelling is wrong. happy hooker up on the north end did a little night fishing too. by the later 80s only ones doing it was guys like me and the others who could stay up all night. this night life is not for everyone. I can write a book about night life fishing. by 1130 pm. most guys got off the lake. about midnight fishing got better. lasted till 3 am. started trolling once the sun came up. fished till 11am. slept in the camper till 5. got ready and went out at 8 pm to fish another night. those were the good old days. I took guys out with me but they only lasted one night. my best fishing buddy my black lab. this night fishing was very popular with the old timers. night fishing was a way of life for most of them. once the hight tech fishing got started it all died out. you people that read these post think night fishing is easy. your wrong. try setting up in 150 ft of water with 400 ft of anchor rope. sit there for two hours and wait for the bait to come up. then the wind comes up around midnight. all you see out there is white water. by the time I got back to shore my heart was racing. tough fishing. Seneca lake bad lake at night when the wind kicked up. but that lake produce fish at night. new moon best fishing. full moon stay in and sleep. if I got 3 good nights during a month with no moon and good weather it was a lot.

I remember the smelt runs on these fingers lakes. what was the limit. a quart. On a good nigh I could go down to the Buffalo small boat harbor and fill up a 5 gallon bucked full of lake Erie smelt fishing at night Ice fishing with lights. smelt 8 inches long. boy this was good eating.

old finger lakes antique we used on canandaigua and Keuka lakes for night fishing. I still have mine. I bought mine at sutton spoon company for 40 dollars back in the early 1970. these nets were made by an old woman from Pen Yan. the purpose of the speed net, catch sawbellies under the lights. The net didn't work for me. I couldn't catch one fish with the net. by the time the net hit the water. the bait moved away. I ended up using a ice fishing rod with 6 ft of line with 5 tiny cold hooks. I snagged my bait. its was an art trying to bring bait up at night. I had to work around the moon. it was best from early June through July. by august the bait was to deep to draw up with lights. this night fishing was different fishing all together. I fished Seneca a lot at night. when I fished it. I was the only guy out there. I was on my own. these fingers lakes like to kick up at night around midnight. The smaller lakes were very popular on weekend nights. it looked like a lit up city out there. I fished on week day nights. I loved being out there by my self. very relaxing. Today I would do something different. The hell with the bait. I caught fish. worst fish to catch was a rainbow. that sucker made a mess out of everything. canandaigua south end marina clarks had 2 good guides to go out with at night.

I think the life cycle of the lamprey is 5 years. they live in the stream for 3 years. once they get out. the adult ones do the damage. one lamprey can kill about 100 trout. all we do is treat and stock more trout. we have to do something different controlling them. audio books has 3 nice books. the death and life of the Great Lakes by dan Egan. the living Great Lakes by jerry Dennis. lake invaders by William rapal. I have all 3 of them. man created this problem. you think the lamprey is bad wait till we get the asian carp in the Great Lakes.

the lamprey is the most destructive thing to come to the Great Lakes. it cost a lot of money to treat them. this problem started back around 1820 when we put in the barge canal. by 1830 they were in our Great Lakes in our state. it got worse when the welland canal went through. all the Great Lakes got infected with them. we have never got a handle on them yet. all we do is treat. if we miss a few treatments we have a set back. man created this problem. you think man would use his brain a little to come up with a better solution to control them. why can't we put In some kind of barrier to block them from getting into the Seneca and cayuga lake system. do some work on the keuka outlet and put in some kind of barrier with the stream at the south end of Seneca.

We need help from Mother Nature. If we continue to get heavy rainy weather during spring we won’t be able to treat for lamprey.

If the dec wanted to do something good for New York State. Why don’t they try and get a no sale pan fish law here.

I heard these Seneca lakers spawn out in 400 feet of water on the bottom of lake.

Lake Ontario is different We have Canada helping us out with lamprey control. Those big lake trout you catch out there Came from the Seneca strain. All the years I have fished Seneca. The dec has done a good job trying to control the lamprey but never really got a good handle on them. The treatment they use now is old And very expensive. We have to do something different to control lamprey. It’s takes money. Our state dollars only go so far.

I still camp at Sampson with my truck camper but haven’t fished the lake the last two years. I plan to start fishing next spring again. Drop me your email. We can talk politics. Good to here from you. Trump 2020.

We need a better lamprey treatment. the treatment we have now is to sensitive to heavy rain. the heavy rain we had the last couple of springs have set us back. I think we should roll back some of our fishing regulations. 3 trout per day with a slot of 25 inches to 30 inches released back to the lake. 2 fishing rods per man. if we do this we might see a big improvement in 10 years from now. I think Seneca trout can come back thru natural reproduction with some limited stocking. the good old days of 30 fish days are gone. most of us won't see it again during our lifetime. it takes a long time to re build a lake trout fishery. I still remember what the lampreys did to this lake back in the later 60s. the problem today is not as bad. one more problem and its a big problem. this state is broke. we have no moneys trees left to pick money off the trees. if we want more expect to reach into your pocket to pay for it.

Nice looking fish Joe.

try mason lake. plenty of bass. another good lake indian lake. mason lake is 7 miles north of speculator on route 30. indian lake is next to Lewey lake. if you go up I hope you know about the camping restrictions. I just got back from a 2 week camping trip at Lewey lake. there's some limited camping at mason lake. no charge. the bugs are bad right now.