Chowdaire

2 casting, 2 trolling.

Both casting fish were on the Phantom Softail again. Loving that bait.

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I used to keep my boat covered in the driveway all summer and then pay to put it indoors for the winter. Cost $150 a year and worked out well.

The only downside was having to schedule a time to put it up and get it out. You’re always risking missing time that you could get out early or late season and also having it in the driveway for that first big snow storm.



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Amazing fish. Congrats!

Nice! Thanks. I was mainly running 3.5-4.2 so I guess I'm in the right range. Just couldn't put together the last couple of outings but hopefully I'll get back down there soon.

Casting, I fell in love with the 7.5" Phantom Softail last trip. I put it on and couldn't believe how easy it was to work and how good it looked. A dozen casts later had my first fish on it. Got smacked again a little later. It may never work again but it's got me hooked.

Good luck!

I spend most of my time there trolling but I've done some casting and picked up a couple with some follows and misses. All of mine have been in 6-10fow on a glide or twitch bait.

Do you mind me asking what kind of speed you're trolling at? I have had a couple of really slow trolling days in a row out there and just feel like my speed may be off. Thanks,

Nice! Good luck.

I think identifying bait and structure with it is pretty intuitive but you can shorten the learning curve a lot on ID'ing individual fish by watching a few Youtube videos. There are some great ones on it.

Get the hang of how the screen is shown, with the water column split and flattened out to each side until you hit the bottom. There are some good explanations on it using a piece of paper that helped me. And once you get the hang of identifying the bright (fish) returns and their shadows then identifying fish (vs. rock & logs) and how far they are off the bottom becomes fairly easy.

As long as it has Mega imaging you'll be good. I know from the other musky trolling post that you troll weedlines/breaklines for musky. You'll pick those up with Mega imaging. Mega+ is even better but that's the G2 to G3 price jump.

I was out in 10-20fow fishing musky and kings last week (different places, of course) and the newbie I had with me was picking out fish on the Mega SI. 

Sorry. PSS, I guess.

For anyone living close to the Philipson's in Rome, NY, It's closing and they have a bunch of those Phantom Softails (4, 6 & 7.5") and Freaks for 40% off. Some other bucktails and such that I can't remember, but lots of Phantoms in some good colors.

Also, finally got a decent pic because I had someone with me. Good release after a few quick snaps.


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Took a buddy down to try to get one on Tuesday. On his visit last year we hooked into a good one trolling but lost it behind the boat.

Still couldn’t get him one trolling 5 hours running every bait I had from 5-13” and 5-20’ down.

Tried casting for the last 45min and got one on a 7.5” Phantom Softail. Nothing big but saved the trip.




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I was there on Tuesday. Water was 68 and it was 85deg so I'd guess it'll drop a few degrees by Saturday with this cold snap. 

Only one fish for me but I'll post in another thread. Good luck to all!

Been out 3 times in the last week. Tried the deep water troll twice. One good day, one with nothing.

Shallow water fish seem hungrier.


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Great year. Congrats. I really enjoyed all the info and pics.

Still a lot of eyes out deep, along with shallow.



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Great job, guys! 

I did get out there yesterday but got the skunk. First one of the year but good to know it was just me. Haha

From your reports it sounds like I was running under them and probably too slow. I usually catch stagers slow and near bottom so I was just too stubborn about it even though the marks were mostly up high. Had a lot of fish tracking my baits but none biting, except for one monster cisco.

Again, Great fish and reports!

T Dub stinger was by far my best spoon this year.


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Great info, Low Baller. Thanks

I'm still trying to decide where to head in the morning.

I catch quite a few casting plugs and they generally destroy it. Just bone jarring hits. But a couple of times I've felt little ticks as I'm bringing it back to the boat and once it gets in sight range I can see a king following it just nipping at it. Strange to see and haven't hooked either of the fish I saw doing it.

How about this one from a couple of Septembers ago. Looks like braided rope.




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3.5 maglip is my best salmon plug
I use 3.0 for Browns in the spring

It seems the bigger ones would work for kings but I’ve yet to get one on 4-5 sizes.


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I haven't fished it much this year but in terms of general patterns and what I've heard from a couple of friends we're into the fall transition so the bait is concentrating and getting pushed shallow. This means you should be able to find fish on shallow structure, especially morning and evening (and real shallow at night). Any decent weeds will still hold fish too. During the days as we get later into fall the eyes will stack up in certain deep locations and you can crush them jigging blades, raps, etc. Don't think we're close to that yet though so I'd concentrate on structure. 

One thing on Oneida. Unless it's night time work your baits aggressively. Being aggressive with your presentation can be the difference between putting a couple fish in the boat or 20+.

I like the microlead too. Couldn’t get the leader in to tie a Willis so just took 6” of lead out and tied a uni-to-uni just like any other leader to braid. Been going strong for 3 years now.

I’m sure any of the standard leader knots would work.


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I only cheat spoons after reading a lot about it on here. Solo I run 1 rigger with spoons cheated. One rigger with meat. And a FF off a dipsy.

I run the meat on the rigger, again, for netting solo. The dipsy with leader plus twinkie/meat rig puts it into hand-lining range for netting. I can run a dipsy with ff and just barely get the net under the fish solo. Same with meat behind a 13" flasher off the rigger.

Congrats on your fish, AP!

A shame the fish didn't make it but at least it's going on the wall instead of floating away for the birds to pick on. I'm hoping to get back after them soon and you can see why I haven't even taken any out of the water yet. They're mean looking fish but very fragile.

3 minutes ago, greenhornet73 said:

With salmon or something smaller like walleyes?? I can’t imagine having 2 salmon hit one rod.  Double header perch on an ice rod are fun but 2 Kings is another level

Kings. My assumption is it's like when you catch a smallie and the others in the school are chasing it trying to take the lure out of it's mouth and grabbing the bait it's puking up. I kinda picture the one fish ripping on the spoon and others following it while the cheater swings around and they slam it. Can't say that's for sure what's happening but I've had it 4 or 5 times in the past few seasons, and I don't fish 'em that much, so it can't be that uncommon.