Billy V

Thanks for the report Bro. Hope it gets better out there soon.

Today LevelGreener and I got out after a derby fish or two. We banged the beach for a couple of hours and managed to hook up quite a few times. Our biggest fish of the day was a healthy 6 lb brown, and we boated several other smaller browns. We dumped a big one first thing that we both felt was a potential derby fish. All of the fish were released. Hot spoons today were all Dreamweavers. Their 42nd spoon and Glow Frog all took multiple rips. The top producing stick bait (actually, the only stickbait to fire) was once again a Dave's KA-BOOM Shiner in Firetiger. We were trolling in 10-18 FOW for most of the morning. Best bite was at first light. If you're going...get on the water EARLY!!! Once the morning bite began to slow down, we took a troll out as far as 200 FOW looking for Kings. We didn't find any that wanted to cooperate, but we did find a few nice hooks on the sonar that made me think that there are a few out there. If I was going out tomorrow morning, I'd probably opt to skip the inshore fishing and head straight out to 120FOW and give it a whirl with the silvers just to see if they'd cooperate at first light. All in all, it was a great day on the water.

The Mobil down the street from here is at $3.25/gal for regular unleaded! OUCH!!!!!!!!!

Mike, I'll snap a pic for you of the dance floor next time I'm up. Engines are beneath the seats, so the dance floor is wiiiiiiddddeeee open! Gunnels come up above your knees or thereabouts. Here's two shots that illustrate it well. Actually, here's a pic of the dance floor of the 288 I was going to buy....the 295 is the same hull and layout, just with a hard-top, so this'll give you a good idea of how much room there is: I'll snap some more pics and post them here soon. Here she is on the water this past weekend:

The deal that I had on the 288 Predator ended up falling through, so the pics I posted over the winter aren't of my new boat after all. As luck would have it, the day after we parted ways on the 288 I was talking to a local tackle shop owner and he told me about a Penn Yan 295 Prowler for sale over in Sodus. For me it was a Penn Yan or nothing. There's just something about those boats that I love. I went and looked at it two weeks ago and knew that this was the boat. We sea-trialed it last weekend and brought it home to Fair Haven yesterday. This is my third Penn Yan, and I'm really looking forward to running it this season. It has an 11'beam, twin Mercruiser 350's, Furuno radar & sonar, Raymarine GPS/Chartplotter and autopilot, Fish Hawk probe, VHF, etc. About the only thing I plan to change are the riggers. I'm going to be putting new Cannon's on it soon.

We had a GREAT weekend of brown trout fishing out of Fair Haven this weekend. Every boat that entered had more fish on than they could have ever asked for. Most fish were in the 3-6lb range. The three biggest fish were boated by the following teams: 1st: Fish Finder 11.05# Brown 2nd: Jenna Rae 9.15# Brown 3rd: El Lobo 9.08# Brown There were several browns over 9# weighed in. I'd have to say that this was one of the best weekends of brown fishing that I can ever remember. A big THANK YOU goes out to our sponsors for the event: Sigg's Rigs, Dave's KA-BOOM, Raider Spoons, Dreamweaver Spoons, and Northern King Lures. And of course I have to thank Shawn's Marina for hosting the event. Thanks to everyone who entered the derby. I'm sorry I couldn't make it on Sunday, but I had family obligations to tend to. I hope you all enjoyed yourselves, and I look forward to seeing you again next spring.

If it doesn't smell like fish after today, it never will!! :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

We got out for a couple of hours on Friday night and boated about a dozen browns. We fished both east and west of the chute in anywhere from 5-15 FOW. Dave's KA-BOOM shiners in black/silver and firetiger were the best sticks for us, and Dreamweaver glo frogs and a prototype NK watermelon w/grape dots were the best spoons. On Saturday, we fished for about 5 hours and just murdered the browns. We had a few coho's mixed in too. From the moment we put the first rod in the water until the time we called it a day we couldn't keep all of our rods in the water. It was a total Chinese firedrill all day long. Dave's KA-BOOM shiners ruled the sticks and just about every color we put out took fish. The same NK & DW, plus an orange R&R bleeding belly were the best spoons for us. The water had a nice color to it and we found temps around 43-46 degrees. I barely had time to snap any pics, but here a the three I snapped..unfortunttely of some of the smaller fish we took. Bigggest brown for us was just about 6lbs today. We had coho's in the 3-4lb range. Best brown trout fishing I've seen in years...better get up here if you can!

Rich, Thanks for the offer. I may just take you up on it sometime.

Way to go guys!! Glad to see the little guy having a ball!!

Picked up the new ride in Sodus today and ran it back to Fair Haven. All went well. Spent most of the afternoon getting the boat in it's slip with new dock lines, etc. I was surprised how much stuff came off the old boat and how long it took to get things situated. Here's a shot of the boat at rest in it's slip. Of course, we couldn't spend all that time working on the boat without taking it out fishing for a bit. We spent about 90 minutes on the lake and boated 4 nice browns. Fish came on Black/Silver, and firetiger Dave's Ka-boom shiners, and on some orange bleeding belly R&R spoons. Water has warmed up a bit. We found 48-52 degree water in 9-13 FOW. Still some color in the water too. Here's Dad and Jay with the first fish we took on the new boat: I'm really glad to have the boat in the water and ready to go. I was going nuts the past couple of weeks being boat-less.

Beauty Tom!!! WTG. Keep the great reports and pics coming.

Al, Most of the guys could only keep 4 rods in the water. Of course I had business to tend to so I couldn't fish, but I did get to see some mighty nice catches coming in to the docks! I heard about one guy who boated an 18lb king on Saturday while trolling for browns, so they're beginning to show up out our way too. Should have the new boat back in Fair Haven next week and can't wait to get out fishing!!

wasn't able to get out on the water this weekend as I was delivering the old boat to its new owners, and sea-trialing the new one, but I spent the whole weekend in Fair Haven & Sodus and heard some very nice reports. On Friday, my dockmate went East out of the chute and ended his day at "48 or 49 fish". All on the standard sticks and spoons in 7-10 FOW. Firetiger, GFR, Chartreuse sticks in J7 & J9 size. On Saturday, two other guys I know went West beyond the pack and had the same 40+ fish day using pretty much the same baits. I also heard from a couple of guys who went East and fished with the pack and barely hit any fish. A charter from town went farther East and boated 15 on Sat. On Sunday my buddy Gump went East away from the pack and had his three man limit by 10am. He fished with the pack West on Saturday and had a tough day. Sounded to me like there were lots of fish to be had if you stayed away from all the traffic and stayed on the fish once you found them. It sounds like the whole southern shore of the lake has some of the hottest brown trout action we've had in a few years.

Nice report Caz!! Wish I was going to get out this weekend.......

Northern Kings have always been my favorite, but I've been incorporating more R&R's and Dreamweavers into the spread the past few years.

Sigg's Rigs for me!

The derby is right around the corner and the brown trout fishing has been OFF THE HOOK! Let me know if you need an application! [email protected]

Sporty start to the morning with some healthy waves, some sea-sickness on board, but we stuck it out. Glad we did, becasue we hit the browns real hard for a couple of hours. At one point we had 5 on at once! After our slow start, it ended up being an insane brown trout day. Hot sticks were Dave's Kaboom shiners in firetiger, and J-9 Chartreuse Rapalas. Fish ranged from 3-8 lbs. Glad we could get out before this storm hits. It sure was nice to finally be able to break the ice and get fishing!!

Sorry to hear about your loss Caznik. I'm going to be in the same boat in a few days, as I'll be taking my best buddy and bird-dog Jessie to the vet's for the same thing. She's been with us for 17 years....I'm not sure I remember what life was like without her.

I'm as excited as a kid on Christmas to show this to you guys. I've been working with Matt at Sigg's Rigs on developing some new flasher/fly combos, and the latest one he's introducing is a Die Hard Flasher with a Habanero Fly. The blade is a glow Pro-Chip blank with a prism taped back painted up as a Die Hard, and the fly has green, black, glow and chartreuse in it. I can't wait to get this puppy in the water! Matt has them listed on his site at www.siggsrigs.com.

I was in Fair Haven yesterday with Yankee Troller and my Dad getting my boat and camp ready to go for the season. Awesome mudline out in the lake, but the weather just wasn't cooperating...still too cold at night for my liking, so we'll hope to get out later this week one afternoon and then again next weekend. It's definitely looking very fishy out there!!!

Wire Dipsy's and downriggers were far and away my most productive deployment devices. We fish really deep out my way, and leadcore just doesn't get deep enough.

I didn't take any of the fillets as I didn't have a way to get them back home. The guide we fished with said that the fillets had a consistency similar to a Swordfish with a taste like a Halibut. I would've liked to have tasted one. Next time.... Sure was a fun way to cure my fishing itch!

Wait till you guys see some of the new custom combos that Matt has come out with...hold on tight!! I should have a sneak peak available sometime soon.