Dan M

11 minutes ago, Lucky13 said:

I have a Canon mini troll, and it works fine if you don't mind all the cranking.  And it is limited to 100' of cable, so likely 75 to 80 max depth. 

For me it's more of how little room I have on my boat already, it's pretty narrow I think.

10 hours ago, Sk8man said:

Probably remove the cleats from the corners and locate the cleats on the gunwale near the corner (i.e. in front of it) and beef up the corners underneath with aluminum plate.  and brace if necessary. Then probably another triangular shaped 1/4 inch thickplate across the corner wide enough to support a rigger base and then mount a swivel base on each through bolted and mount the riggers (I'd get the extendable booms both to give you some options and for later on if you decide to go to a larger craft and the swivel bases will help when docking etc.) to them at both corners of the transom.With the swivel bases you'd be able to choose the angle preferred as well as avoid the possibility of getting into your motor with the wire on a real steep turn. That's pretty much "off the cuff from just the pics" It is always wise before permanently mounting anything to actually get inside the boat with the equipment you intend to run and check out out all the spacing and angles to make sure you don't have conflicts. If you need more height with the riggers locate them on pedestals but I wouldn't go too high as the center of gravity will possibly change.

Thanks for the advice. I really just want to upgrade to a bigger boat in a couple years. Hard to justify pouring more money into this thing that I'll never see back. Probably just make due with the dispy setups for now and work on the wife to get a different boat

10 minutes ago, Sk8man said:

They can be anywhere out there but often this time of year they can be out deep suspended in the middle portion of the lake. One of the difficulties here is that the recreational boaters are out in force during the weekend especially and this is the height of the tourist season. I don't even bother messing around here until after Labor Day or even into October/November. If you only have the dipsys for equipment you still may be able to use long leaders of fluoro say about 30 ft long or so but you will have to hand line in the fish which takes a bit of experience to do successfully consistently especially if you are fishing solo. Run them up high in that 40-50 ft range. If you have spinning rods with 10 lb test of so you could long line for rainbows with heavier weight spoons with weight attached to get you down  (even if you had to load up a bunch of big  split shot about 3 or 4 foot up the line from the lure but inline trolling weights would be better). The thermocline should be about 40-70 ft right now (haven't been out in many weeks now here) so you probably need to get down to about 40 ft or so but they will come up for something if they are hungry and interested. Need to troll 2.5 - 3.2 or so most of the time with a lot of turns and increases and decreases in speed.

Thanks. I might just stick with the lakers for now until the salmon start on the pier. Don’t really want to run a huge leader just for rainbows - that sounds awful. I’ll try and make my dipsy leader from 6’ to 12’ and see if that helps at all. 

Side note - this is my boat - how would you run downriggers on this? 

1 minute ago, Roys Boys said:

Should look into some leadcores then you could run one down the middle .. looks like a 10 color will do the trick.. just gotta battle the weeds

Next year I might add a few things - maybe downriggers over the winter. Literally just bought the 2 dipsy setups (tekotas with talora rods) and rod holders, trolling bags, etc. Money has been flying out of my wallet. It's a small boat, and usually just me, or me and my brother, so I'm trying to keep it simple and not have 4 rods out at a time. 2 is plenty for us honestly.

12 minutes ago, Sk8man said:

Dan you may have trouble getting rainbows or browns on this lake using just dipsy set-ups. although the bigger fish may grab them occasionally they are most consistent for lakers on Canandaigua. Most of the rainbows and browns are caught on riggers or leadcore/coppers out here where the lures are running farther away from the boat and turbulence. If you really want to catch them you'll probably have to diversify your spread. Trouthunters advice is on the mark.

Don't down riggers run straight down? How is that away from the boat? I don't think I could fit riggers on my boat - it's pretty tight as it is being a small 16' aluminum.

So if I'm targeting rainbows and browns, it's right in the middle of the lake? How far down? 40-50 where the lakers have been?

1 minute ago, Trouthunter said:

cheaters are a extra lure that runs down half the distance of your downrigger set usually about the length of your rod 8 to 10 feet

Not running downriggers, just 2 dipsy rods.

Just now, Trouthunter said:

Kick-up your speed some for the rainbows out over middle of the lake for them run cheaters with very bright colors with orange or pink

 

Tried that through the middle at around 2.8-3mph bright colors , nothing both times. What are cheaters?

I've had some on my wire lines, not unfishable

Last 3 times out we've hit Canandaigua twice and Cayuga once.  Trolling dipsys at both lakes, Canandaigua has produced 7 lake trout in both trips, almost all on copper backed michigan stingers in 40-50' down. Cayuga only produced one laker with a flasher fly.

Still very new to trolling, so it's a learning in progress.

I tried running one line at 45' down and another at 100' down ( deeper with a spin doctor and lake trout fly ) - bumped bottom and lost my spin doctor and fly. Damnit. Higher one up caught a laker. Go figure.

Can't seem to find any rainbows, and as far as I can tell all my lake trout have seemed to be random pickups. I'll mark a huge school of bait, run up , down, around it several times/speeds, and not a single pickup, ever. What gives?!

Launching in the South end of Canandaigua - speeds around 2.2-2.5.

Anyone that fishes here regularly, is there a certain are that is better than others? Right now I'm just driving everywhere hoping to get bit.

Look at this bait pod - how did I not get any action from that?!

We fished it from 6am to 2pm. Got one on a green / white fly, lost one on a michigan stinger. Other than that - no action what so ever. So tons of bait heading south from the launch hovering around 30-50' but couldn't get anything to produce. Speed ranged from 2.2 - 2.8.

Not sure what FOW I was even supposed to be trolling at so I tried pretty much everything. Both bites were at about 170 FOW and 50' down on the dipsy.

28 minutes ago, Reel Doc said:

Behind a dipsey try a Dreamweaver spin doctor attractor in white or green/white pattern and pair it with A-tom-ick flies in green/white patterns.  That will set you up to catch lake trout.

What size dreamweaver? 6”, 8”?

Hey all - plan to hit Cayuga next week sometime - just started trolling with dipsys - hooked into 4 on Canadaguia today - finally broke our skunk!

Anyhow, I have spoons already - as I said new to trolling - flasher / flies - any suggestions on what to bring to Cayuga? Salmon would be fun or lakers, or really anything - would be running them behind dipsys.

Something I could pick up at field and stream would be great - I don't know all the trolling lingo - so links or pics would be great. Thanks!

Looking for rod/reels

Open to trades

8 minutes ago, FishingFool34 said:

You can prolly figure out where the temp is for them by the other boats out there. We had a tough time finding salmon Sat so we moved in shallow looking for browns. Saw a couple boats in 80fow and figured that was where the temp was for them. Dropped my probe in 75fow and sure enough 60* right on bottom. Anyone inside of 100fow right now is most likely looking for browns.

thanks - I'll probably have to wait til they get a bit closer then, 80 fow was still a little rough for my boat, doable, but I didn't feel great about it.

29 minutes ago, HB2 said:

If you can get one manual downrigger and mount it where you can deploy and get at it safely and easily it will be a big addition . 

 

Get a few J plugs and come up to LO 3 rd week in Sept to middle of Oct for shallow kings . 

 

There are a lot of nice flat mornings you can fish . 

 

Go to the Oak and bring bass tackle if it's rough . 

 

Two rods out , are all you need . 

 

I will apologize in advance for giving you your first taste of crack . 

Last year I was casting spoons off the pier for kings at that time, maybe I'll give it a shot on the boat instead.

11 minutes ago, Gill-T said:

You have worthy rod holders already. Hopefully they are bolted (not scewed) in place with proper backing with stainless plating or large fender washers. You can catch a lot of fish with 1000’ of wire on a Tekota line counter with a 10’ ugly stick dipsy rod. 

You'd go with wire? I've never used it before

I've got a couple threads around asking questions (great community!) - anyhow, all of my gear is bass/pike/musky, and I want to start trolling for trout/salmon as well on my boat.

I have the rod holders, electronics, dipsy divers and lures, but my rods and reels - I go from bass and pike to musky gear.

Lake O might be a bit too big for my boat judging from today, so I might try and focus on Canandaguia lake trolling for now - maybe Cayuga sometime as well.

For Canandguia, what rods and reels are you guys using to troll for the trout there? Would my 13 fishing Concept C and A3 be fine for now until I got 2 trolling setups? 30# and 50# braid on those two , rods are MH and H.

I was thinking of purchasing two Shimano Tekota HG500's and Shimano Talora rods to troll with on Lake O - is that overkill for the finger lakes?

Ugly boat pic attached for reference.

Hey all , I have been wanting to start trolling a bit - tried going to Ontario this morning, but the water was a bit too rough for me at 100 FOW in my 16' Aluminum. Bummer, I wanted to try for salmon and trout.

I fish Conesus alot for bass/pike/tigers, but have never tried Canandaigua.

If I wanted to troll for trout, I assume I could use my size 1 dipsys?

What kind of gear are you using out there as far as rods and reels? Besides my spinning setups (3000s and 4000s) the only bait casters that I could be trolling with right now are my 13Fishing Concept C with 30# braid on a 7'3 MH (pike and bass )and 13Fishing A3 with 50# braid on a 8' St Croix musky rod (H) - would those 2 setups work for that lake trolling for now? Overkill? Underkill?

I wanted to see how I liked trolling before buying 2 setups just for trolling.

Thanks in advance for the info!

Pic below of my ugly ass boat

Well, we took the boat out this morning as the marine forecast looked good and I wanted to try trolling dipsys. Got out to 100 FOW and it was a bit too rough out there for my little boat. Going out was fine, running along the coast, or going back against the wind, not great. Water seemed fine around 40 -50 FOW, its getting out farther the wind seemed to pick up, didn't feel too comfortable. For anyone that was out today, how was that condition of the water to you guys? I think my boat should be a bit bigger before going that far out again. What I didn't even think about was how much gas I ended up going through out there, went out to 100 FOW, spent maybe 45 min out on the lake, and then tooled around in Bradocks for some bass for a bit and ended up using 3/4 of a 6gallon tank.

Switching up some of my gear so I have a couple setups for sale.

First up

Shimano Stradic Ci4+ 3000 on a 7' M St Croix Avid Inshore rod $250

Great condition combo - always well taken care of. Either looking to sell outright or trade for a higher end trolling setup (Dipsy Diver). No low ball. I don't need to sell. Lots of years left on the rod warranty. Reel has a power knob as installed, as well as 20# suffix 832 Ghost line. 

Second Combo

Daiwa Certate 2004CH on a 6'8" St Croix Legend Tournament rod. $400

This is a very high end reel, completely mag sealed 11 ball bearings. I have two of them, smoothest reel I've ever used (read about it here - http://www.indepthangler.com.au/uncategorized/review-daiwa-16-certate-2004-spinning-reel/ )

The rod is super nice as well as well as a long warranty with St. Croix. . Both in mint condition.

Just looking to sell to buy a couple Shimano Tekota setups for trolling.

I am open to trades, but not to lowballs - as I stated above, looking to sell to fund a couple Dipsy Diver setups.

10 minutes ago, GAMBLER said:

Find the area where 62* water meets the bottom and fish inside and outside of that zone. Black and silver spoons in stingray and smaller sizes ( mags do have their days). Riggers, divers and lead cores are best. Skim the bottom with a rigger or two. Cheaters take a lot of browns especially the later in the summer you get.


Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United mobile app

Unfortunately I don't have a FishHawk for the temp - I am going to try with a couple dipsys this week with my musky setup(s) - bought a few spoons from F&S today to give it a shot

Just now, Hawkeye50 said:

You can usually find browns this time of the year where the thermocline intersects the bottom,approx 60'-80' fow.Find bait on your locator and troll just off the bottom,we have had luck trolling medium sized Michigan stinger spoons in natural alewives 

( black silver) uv black tuxedo,among others.Hope this helps.

Thanks - I have a mini, and size 0 diver now - the setups I was going to use (since I dont have a designated trolling setup yet) was my 13fishing A3 and 8' Musky H 1-8oz rod, and 13fishing Concept C with an 7'3 1oz MH rod. Not sure how that will be with dipsys. I think the smaller rod could handle the mini diver fine, and the bigger rod, probably ok with the size 0 (50# braid on the larger one - 30 on the smaller) - but I don't know if I should push it with a larger dipsy to get deeper. Thoughts?

After my 3rd skunk in a row on Conesus, I'm ready to switch it for a bit!

Last year around this time we took the boat (16' Duranatic ) and casted for a bit just to see what was out there and to my surprise found a bunch of browns and landed one.

I have never fished Lake ontario on my boat besides that one time, and it's not setup for kings out deep - I can run two dipsys on my musky/pike rods for now though.

For anyone that fishes for them, what depths should I be looking for them?

Any suggestions on what to use? I know we caught the last one on a RatlTrap and had lots of follows on spinners. - I've yet to use my Dipsys seriously though - only tried it once on Conesus to check it out.

Attended the meeting this Monday, seemed like a good group of people so I joined up.

Spent the last 10 years fishing saltwater in SC and FL - moved back to NY for family. I helped run a non for profit shark tagging group in SC as well www.facebook.com/coastalsharktagging/ - retired since I moved back.

I get out on the water at least once a week - sold my Hobie and bought an old 16' Duranatic with a 50hp Johnson - mostly fish Conesus and Sodus Bay at the moment.

Looking forward to catching some pures this year, got my first tiger a couple weeks ago!