T-Rok

I have fished silver lake for pike in the summer a few times and found out the best presentation..at least the best that worked for me. I tried all of the standard pike stuff. They mostly would not touch any stick baits or spinner baits. I took my kids pan fishing using real small jigs tipped with a small piece of worm and started catching pike. I went back by myself with the small jigs and started crushing pike.. I nailed 7 or 8 pike in just a few hours, biggest was 37in. There were 100 boats around. I had people coming over to watch me catch them. Pike didnt seem to care. They like real small stuff in the summer. They were mostly concentrated at the end where the launch was around the edges of the weed line.

offshore sells clamp down style clips that keep the planer boards from popping off. I swapped them out on mine. never have them pop off now.

I am pretty sure that there are also still lakes that alewives are allowed to be used as bait. Not sure about Keuka, but I am pretty sure that Skaneateles is one. Probably several others. Alewives are not good for a lot of reasons. Disease, toxins that they produce, overtaking native baitfish populations.. etc. I dont know how dec comes up with stocking numbers, but I think the answer could be just as easy as stocking more rainbows, browns, and salmon in some of the smaller lakes. Owasco where I live gets way more lakers than anything and some of the larger Fingerlakes (esp. cayuga) seem to get an exorbitant amount more of silver fish than Owasco and other lakes. if it were up to me, I would just stock more silver fish, and add some walleyes to the mix. Dec really seems to hate walleyes, and I think some of th FLTA members are probably the people who complained about walleyes in owasco.. now they are almost gone.

I think that the dec might disagree with moving invasive species around to different waterways. lol.

makes some sense... seeing as kayaks dont have livewells yet I think lol. I have still never been a fan of people catching spawning game fish, but the dec made exceptions for bass. I dont really have any special feelings for bass either. so I guess as long as they are letting them go right after catching them I have no qualms about it. ny state dec seems to love the bass tournaments too.

I know you can catch and release bass. that is ok. idk about the tournament part. that would require putting them in a live well and bringing them to shore. I dont see in any way how that part is legal. even if you let them go afterward. they were still kept in a live well. at the very least it is unethical. the bass are nesting now. it's one thing to take them off of a nest and them go immediately. another to take them away from their nest entirely.

What is a smelt again? Lol... oh yeah that's right. small tasty fish that went extinct years ago I think. Seriously though, not sure on the smelt, but seen a lot of dead and dying alewives floating around the shallows last weekend. so I know they are in.

We call them mooneyes on Owasco. lol. We have 2 places in Moravia that sell them in the summer, but if you buy them here and then go to Seneca, they will probably be dead by the time you get there. Alewives die so easy, it almost defies logic how they became so invasive in the lakes.

We call em mooneyes on owasco. Lol. Yeah they work the best, but they are also the best at dying. Buy them in the morning and put them in the livewell as soon as your on the water. Best way to try and keep them alive.

I use sticks on lead core a lot with success. That being said, sometimes it works better than spoons. ..sometimes spoons work better than sticks. Gotta run some of each and then modify to the hottest lure/depth.

Fished owasco today. Got plenty o lakers. Mostly under 50fow. Got some other nice fish too. Downriggers got hit most. 15-20ft down.

I've tried it a few times. Never done well.. and it's harder than you think. Seems like a good idea. But if it was more people would be doing it. I've only tried trolling. Not live bait.