tbromund

How could you not love hardtops, I don't think I'll ever own another boat that isn't. The perch are just starting. I'm guessing another 2 weeks and they'll be in the harbor thick. Tim

We hit the harbor saturday morning to see if the perch were in. Got a couple but the run isn't in very heavy yet, we put a dozen or so in the bucket. They were a nice class of fish, most were 11-13". I would guess were a couple of weeks away from the perch action really taking off. Sundy we went offshore to fish for silvers. I set down at the 22 line right in front of Olcott and we started trollling North. hit our first around the 25 line a nice 15 lb teenage king. fishing got better as we wnt north, 27-29 lines were smoking. We ended up 17/21 with a mix of steelhead to 10 lbs and juvenile/teenage kings. Everything was working. chrome green Spindoctor/mirage atommik took a couple, but it was mostly a spoon bite. NK watermelon in both mag and 28 took multiple fish, gold back kevorkian, stingray NBK, R&R spook. We even went old school and had hits on both a chart fire dot luhr jensen flutterspoon and a green/chart black dot alpena diamond (both on sliders). Doubled up 3 times, in fact one was technically a triple because the rigger rod ended up having steelies on both the main line and the slider (10 lb on the main line and about a 4-5 lb on the slider). getting both in the net was a challenge. both riggers, wire diver, power pro diver and 200' copper all took multiple hits. Oh yeah, the fleas were still out there in force. Great day out there and we were all alone. beautiful 1' salmon chop on the water the 15 lb teenager we boxed out with 7 steelies and 2 kings kept. probably have 1 last trip this year when I drag the trailer down to pull the boat out for the season. Tim

Got out sunday morning, just me and dad, had a pretty good day on the stagers. We ended up 6/8 with 4 matures between 18 and 26 lbs. We were fishing in 70-80 fow both east and west of the harbor. Lots of bait balls and hooks tight to bottom. Our best rig was the familiar bite whole alewife on a familair bite chartreuse daisy chain (their name for a twinkie rig) behind a black fish shaped blade with double pearl glow tape (I got it from the Familiar Bite guy at Great Lakes Tackle Supplies) about 50' lead on the rigger down 70. That took 5 of out 8 bites. The other 3 came on mountain dew SD green crinkle fly off the 60 foot rigger (2 bites) and the smallest september shaker I've ever seen on the chrome/green SD and mirage fly off the wire diver 180 back. This baby king was only 7" or so, I can't believe that there are any still that small this time of year. What a difference a day makes, sunday was nice and calm, monday morning greeted us with 1-3 footers first thing in the morning and built to 4-5's by 10:30 when we called it quits. Tough fishing as well, we went 0/2, one bite on a mag blue dolphin stinger on the wire diver. this fish hit as I was letting the diver creep out from 100-130 ft of wire. The other came on the familiar bite rig. It is amazing that with 1 large single embedded right in the alewife and a second treble dangling just behind that a fish could bite it and not get a hook in its mouth. Not nearly as good a picture as sunday. Sorry, no pics. Tim

16 miles to the Office, I may end up 150+ miles away after that though Tim

The last two seasons, a mountain dew spin doctor with a green crinkle fly, on a short lead (typically 8-10 feet) off my probe rigger has been my single hottest rod. Tim

Took some friends out saturday, had a decent morning out in front of the microwave again. We were marking a ton of bait and high hooks inside in 40-60 fow but couldn't ghet anything to go, so we headed north. Ended up 6/11 with 3 steelies to 10 lbs and 3 kings to 18 lbs boated. We dropped the first three bites so the average definitely picked up after that. most of our action came between 200 and 240 fow. SW troll was the best, it seemed like every time we hit 230 on the SW troll another rod would fire. Gold blade kevorkian on the 50' rigger went 4 times, R&R Frog on a wire diver went 3 times, silver and red evil eye mag went twice on the 200' copper, green glow SD/Atommik TG Fly on the rigger went once and the green pro chip green hypnotist Siggs went once on the wire diver. Divers were firing at 150 and 180 back on a 2. The lake got a bit bumpy by 11:00 and just as the last steelie was netted we had a bit of drama when the engine died. A bow line somehow came undone and got wrapped in the prop. Luckily I was able to get it loose by popping it into reverse, wasn't really looking forward to climbing over board and trying to untangle it hanging onto the swim platform in 3 footers. Had 3 fish come aboard with large lampreys on em. Here's a couple of pics of the kings my buddy's son boated: Tim

Fished out of Olcott on the 4th and put the boat back in the slip for the rest of the summer. We haven't fished Ontario since the pro am so it took a bit to get our feet wet again. ended up haveing a pretty good day, going 14/19. Dad is heading out to visit the family in Wisconsin in a couple of days and was looking to get some fish for the smoker to bring with him, so we were in harvest mode. We ended up with 8 fish in the box (the other six landed were undersize steelies and skipper kings), 2 kings to 18 lbs, 3 steelhead to 10 lbs and 3 browns including one 14+ lb slob. We fished in front of the microwave early and had somewhat steady action on the kings and steellies in 120-170 fow. 40-70 down. Had a hard time hanging on to the bigger mature kings today. One of the fish we lost was on the copper and was screaming out drag and broke the 20 lb flouro leader (must have had a nick) another big king was well over 100 yds into his first big run (mountain dew SD and greek crinkle Howie , short lead off the probe rigger, still a hot setup for us) when he came undone. Around 12:30 or so we decided to head inshore to see if we could find some browns and there were huge stacks of bait in 40-50 fow with browns in the mix. we ended up the day with a triple header on browns, only boating 1 which was the 14 pounder off the rigger. Another of the triple was a similar sized brown on the wire diver that dropped off 8 feet behind the boat. The big brown would have been a derby board fish, except we had my brother in law on board today and forgot to get him a derby ticket (stupid, my fault, grrrrrrr) oh well All rigs were working. both riggers, both wire divers, 200' copper 10, 5 and 3 color cores all took hits. (we pulled the copper and 10 color and put out the 5 and 3 color cores when we went inside for browns. spoons were more active than doctors/flies today, mostly green spoons with white backs (R&R Frog and yellowtail stinger were the two best in the water). A gold blade kevorkian took the big brown on the rigger. Here's dad with the big brown: and heres the catch on the Marina Bragging Board: Weather could have been better, but the fishing is just fine out there. Tim p.s. the flea season has started, big time

That is because sonar doesn't actually measure depth, it measures distance from the transducer. With the blowback and 80 feet of cable out, the sonar is still going to show the ball at approximately 80 feet (because that is the distance from the transducer) even though the ball is, in reality, significantly shallower than that. The same thing is true about the fish we mark. If the fish is directly under the boat in the center of the transducer cone, it will be at the depth shown on the graph, if it is off to the side it is actually shallower than what is shown. Tim

13 Lb Torpedo on the probe rigger. Tim

copper is soft, no need for the roller rod or to change the tip. A regular rod works just fine. Tim

I've got my 200' of 45 lb copper on an Okuma Catalina 45 LC with 300 yds of 30 lb power pro backing. My 400' copper is on an Okuma Titus T20L lever drag reel. That big honker of a reel has almost 400 yds of power pro backing behind it They are big saltwater reels and reasonably priced. I got mine for $115 from East Coast Tackle. http://www.eastcoasttackle.com/index.html?token=1289394630-268649358-2031988562&A=2&B=Reels Something to look at anyways. Tim

I just finished pre fishing and fishing the Niagara Pro-Am here on Ontario. My first pro-am (Am division), finished 16 in a 44 boat field which I was happy with. My only real goal in this one was just to not suck and embarrass myself. I would say in 3 days of pre fishing and 2 days of tournament fishing that 90% of my bites came on spindoctors and flies, of them, 2 rigs took the majority of the fish, a mountain dew/CG doctor with a crinkle green howie, short lead (8-10 ft) on the probe rigger was far and away the hot rig, taking the majority of the bites overall, 2nd was a chrome/green doctor with a mirage Atommik off the wire diver. The mountain dew/green crinkle short lead off the probe rigger was also my hottest rig all of last season. Tim

On Thursday June 14th at 7pm the Lake Ontario Trout & Salmon Association (LOTSA) will be sponsoring a seminar on Walleye fishing from the Buffalo Harbor. Captain Doug Stein will be presenting this Seminar and focus on the techniques he uses to consistently take limit catches of Walleye during the months of June and July from around the Buffalo Harbor area. A round table debrief of the Niagara Pro Am will also be held for those only interested in Trout & Salmon. LOTSA is a group of mainly weekend recreational fishermen who are dedicated to the enhancement of the Lake Ontario Sport-Fishery including the pen rearing project at Olcott. Each meeting also features a sharing of information the current fishing conditions. So come join us and become more successful at fishing Lake Ontario! The seminar will be held at the Cornell Cooperative Extension, 4487 Lake Avenue (Route 78 two miles north of Lockport), Lockport, NY 14094. The seminar is open to the public with a $5 charge for non-members. Call 636-0519 with any questions.

On Thursday May 10th at 7pm the Lake Ontario Trout & Salmon Association (LOTSA) will be sponsoring a seminar on Spring Niagara Bar Kings. Captain Bob Songin of Reel Excitement Charters will be presenting this Seminar and focus on the techniques he uses to consistently take limit catches of Spring Kings from the Niagara Bar area. Captain Bob will also cover the current fishing conditions in the Lake which should be extremely helpful as this seminar will take place during the 8 day LOC Spring Derby. LOTSA is a group of mainly weekend recreational fishermen who are dedicated to the enhancement of the Lake Ontario Sport-Fishery including the pen rearing project at Olcott. Each meeting also features a sharing of information the current fishing conditions. So come join us and become more successful at fishing Lake Ontario! The seminar will be held at the Cornell Cooperative Extension, 4487 Lake Avenue (Route 78 two miles north of Lockport), Lockport, NY 14094. The seminar is open to the public with a $5 charge for non-members. Call 636-0519 with any questions.

R&R's out of New York. Good action throughout the entire trolling speed range. Tim

I'm in the same boat, so to speak. Check out hughesnet. They claim to be available pretty much everywhere. try this link: http://www.buyhughesnet4u.com Tim

On Thursday April 12th at 7pm the Lake Ontario Trout & Salmon Association (LOTSA) will be sponsoring a seminar on Trout & Salmon Fishing from Wilson Harbor. Captain Mike Johannes has many years of experience fishing out of Wilson, which he will share in this seminar. The timing of this seminar is excellent as the area between Wilson and the Niagara Bar without a doubt is the best area in the Great Lakes to catch King Salmon in the spring. LOTSA is a group of mainly weekend recreational fishermen who are dedicated to the enhancement of the Lake Ontario Sport-Fishery including the pen rearing project at Olcott. Each meeting also features a sharing of information the current fishing conditions. So come join us and become more successful at fishing Lake Ontario! The seminar will be held at the Cornell Cooperative Extension, 4487 Lake Avenue (Route 78 two miles north of Lockport), Lockport, NY 14094. The seminar is open to the public with a $5 charge for non-members. Call 636-0519 with any questions.

It works, I use a big jon diver disk. I typically only use it on the rare occasion I stack a rigger to increase separation between the two lines. It also helps get your baits away from the boat when the browns are spooky. Tim

I use mostly R&R's (NY) these days. The magenta shad has been my single best spring king spoon on Lake O for several years now. Tim

saw it in skeiner's profile on spoonpullers. Tim

Ray, what do you want for the probe? I have my complete Fishhawk 840 that I took off the boat last year, minus probe. If I can get a complete unit, it'll probably sell better. THanks, Tim Bromund

Rich, some interesting news I came across recently, as a fellow Thompson enthusiast, I thought you might be intersted in hearing. I was on the Thompson Dockside website (Thompson enthusiast website, mostly the old wooden ones, but a good site nonetheless) and read that Yar-Craft (which was a 1969 spin off of Thompson) bought the Thompson molds and rights in Dec of 2005 and plan on bringing back the 240 Fisheman at some point in the future. Here is a link to the thread on that message board. http://www.thompsondockside.com/views/viewtopic.php?t=50 I have been in occasional contact with Andreas, who runs the site and he had a bunch of Thompson records from when they had the Bankruptcy auction in 1997 and he actually had the build order from August 1985 for my 1986 252 hardtop (listed by the HIN) in his records and he sent me a copy. Tim

Just in case you all think Billy was exaggerating, here are some pics from Oswego County that have been floating around the past couple of weeks Tim

Guys, Guys, we have plenty of browns along the Niagara County shoreline as well, you just gotta fish for em. No one does once the kings show up, but they're there. Tim

I haven't used the sharks, mostly I've used the 12 lb black tru-trac finned balls. Last year I got a pair of the 13 lb torpedos from ATOMMIK and those worked fine, significantly less blowback on the probe rigger than with the balls. I hear the same comments from people about the sharks as I do about the Ridgeback Rattlers, some times they help, some times they hurt, it depends on the mood of the fish. On aggressive fish I believe they will help pull fish in, on neutral/passive fish they may be a negative. Regarding the black box, I got one a couple of years ago after I used the multi meter and found my boat has a grounding problem somewhere and was throwing (according to the pro-troll documentation) a repelling chage around the boat. I had never given the notion much credence since I didn't believe that non-mineralized fresh water would carry enough charge to make a difference, however, when I first got my current boat, I had a heck of a time taking a fish on the riggers. Divers and cores accounted for 90%+ of my catch, which was absolutely not the case on my previous boat. I decided it was worth the 100 scoots to give it a shot and guess what, my riggers the past two seasons have once again become my hottest setups, espcially with short leads. Since I retired the Fish Hawk and added the Depth Raider this past season (and also took off the old Mag 10s and are just running my 2 Scotty elecs) with the coated cable on my probe rigger, I now only have the BB hooked up to one rigger, but that rigger consistently fires for me. I think it depends on the boat. If there are no electrical issues on the boat to begin with, a BB or positive ion control will probably have no significant impact, for boats like mine that have grounding gremlins, they are a big asset and are a lot simpler fix than trying to find the ground problem, especially for those of us that are not electrically inclined. Tim Tim