J Francho

I concur, based on what I've seen in the smaller ponds. Bigger bodies, not sure. The situation in Lake O. is a little different, but really the same. Cool water, and abundance of food, and the fish are stacked DEEEP. The weekend before last, I found fish suspended at about 20-30' in 75 FOW. I caught one smallie. Not the way I'd like to fish. We need a heat wave. Yesterday, found multitudes of LMB in 2-5 FOW.

Paul, you quite plainly know what is up. nice report, and nice job!

Try CXX in Crystal Clear.

Yep, little chubby guys. The fish still look thin, in that post spawn way, but their bellies are full to the brim. There has been an alewife EXPLOSION up here. I've seen what seems to be mile long bait balls, well trains really, moving through the points and flats. Its incredible. I'd like to hear your theory, Paul. BTW, did well at Keuka yesterday. Made the run from Penn Yan to Branchport for a solid bag of largemouth for 3rd place.

No, that's not a typo, I renamed it "Spud" - us bay for all the spuds my friend Roger and I caught today..... I was trying to figure out a way to prefish Kueka Lake today for our team TX tomorrow, but everything I heard was it sucks, fish are really deep.... So, I called Roger up to see what he was up to, and we chatted a while, and finally decided to hit Sodus. Sodus was hot and cold early in the year, but I was usually able to come up with fish. I think Roger mentioned he hadn't fished it yet this year. We got to the water shortly after daybreak. I started with a spinnerbait, and I think Roger threw a buzzbait. We had a couple small fish in the boat about ten casts in. I was getting a ton of short strikes, and finally settled on bait with downsized blades - a sure fire summer bait for me. We found small fish mostly shallow, so we decided to hit deeper weeds with ribbon worms, jigs, and creatures. I caught nothing on jigs, and a few on worms and creatures. Roger humped away with that buzzbait,picking up fish here and there. Later, we hit another cove, off a main lake point, and found fish VERY shallow. Aimless, long casts over and past the weeds and reeds into 6" of water with a t-rig worm produced. Pretty dramatic way to fish. We moved along this way,mixing up what worked with the cover present, for a few more fish,but nothing big. We decided to make a run up to the rocky flat by the outlet,and rip some tubes through there. Its a hit or miss game, and with only one largemouth to show, we ran around, looking for decent weeds to fish that were out of the wind, that was blowing pretty hard out of the south. We saw Fred (Once Bitten) running around by then, and waved. Not sure he recognized us or not, but he waved back at us. Wonder how he did. The day went on like this, and we added skipping docks to our repertoire for more numbers type fishing. We had a cool moment, boating the largest fish of the day which was a true team effort. A miss, and a heads up to toss in that spot, and BAM! Best fish of the day. Teamwork fishing is cool like that we both get credit for the catch. It counts +1 for each of us. So, no pics (nothing truly noteworthy, unless a tree growing out of a buoy is noteworthy, LOL) but a great day, and some great fishing. Water temps were up (good news!) into the mid to high 70°s and there were some areas with nice, new coontail growth. A couple of stable, warm days, and I reallythink things will pick up. Wind was out of the S to SSE ranging from 10 to 20 mph. Only moderate boat traffic, but still quite a few wakes by mid morning. Wellover 30 fish in the boat, and Angry Whoppers for dinner. Thanks for a great trip, Roger.

The Beast only comes in even hook sizes, from 4/0 to 10/0. http://www.ownerhooks.com/pages/products/hooks/basshooks.htm#5130W

No, but it was good with a little Tabasco on it

Yeah, I'm there. That's awesome. A wedding should only happen once, why not make it a one of a kind? Anyway, I've shot more than a few weddings, and about the only thing I have that's close is a giant macaroni loaf...

The trollers are there because they couldn't get any walleye, or can't find them, so in order to get their clients a few bites, they troll for SMALLIES. They tell the client that the walleyes must be inactive, but they could probably get a bunch of smallies shallow, and the clients jump. Planer boards, and cranks are deadly on smallies. I know. I used to do it myself.

Yes, but I don't use them. The reel up/just add pressure "hookset" just doesn't jive with me. I use these (1/0) with a flick hookset: http://www.ownerhooks.com/pages/products/hooks/allpurposebaithooks.htm

LOL, no sweat. I was banging my head against the wall trying to explain it. ;D

Glen Lason? You mean Gary Larson, LOL.

Don't mess with a gabba-goo!

Last time I shipped a rod, it was about $12.

Put it on a flick shake hook....

Frogs and toads.

Not an ideal setup. First, you have to count on that Palomar being pulled and twisted through the hook holding up to the hookset and ensuing fight. I can't tell you how many DS weights I've lost, but caught the fish. The other issue is the hookset itself; how do you know whether to cross its eyes, or sweep set, depending on what bait it hit.

It works better with two barrel swivels. You will hook two fish eventually, and you don't want two fish pulling each other with you pulling on the other end. Plus, the following rig gives way better action. Slide a small plastic bead on, and then slide one of the swivels on the line, and tie the other on end. Then tie two leaders on the other end of each, the one on the sliding swivel should be a little shorter than the terminal swivel. 18" is plenty. The bead is part of the presentation, and protects you tip top. 12# CXX or comparable line works fine.

Spawn.

Unless you are in the excavation process of building a lake, or can dump tons of rocks, you can't really change the or add to the structure. All of the examples posted here, some BRILLIANT ones I might add, are cover. I take that back, the Hoffa Hump is structure, LOL.

I use moss green already, and still do the marker thing. After a while, the color wears off. See above, the KVD L&L slows this process. :

LOL, I must not be getting through here. What do you think happens when you color one half of the line on your reel black? Try it, and you'll see its exactly your definition of camo. Reel all your line in. Take a marker, and color one half of your spool, while its on the reel. That simple guys!

The main upgrade you want to do to the Pixy is the Carbontex drag. Its $18 for the parts, and money WELL SPENT.

You guys are making it way too complicated. Just color one half of the spool on your reel with black marker. That's it. Lasts for a few trips, and then you have to do it again.

I'm guilty of this. But I'm a mile or so, off shore, on Lake Ontario. I drop the buoy, then drop a waypoint. Then I drift to where the I'm a 100 yards or so away, and drop another buoy and waypoint. I might have 4 or five buoys out there. Its never been an issue. When you are out in a vast expanse of nothing, the markers give you real, visual conformation of what you are seeing on your GPS. My buoys all have my name and cell# on them. I would imagine the unwritten rules on Ontario are a little different than the 4 mile long lake I fish on. I have no doubt you are courteous on the water. Definitely a different deal, as I said before, the dude M Starr describes sounds like a wack-o. I'm generally pretty courteous, until one of the binocular fisherman spots my bent rod, and suddenly there are ten boats parked in my drift. You'd be surprised how quickly your smallie spot gets known, LOL. I don't mind them fishing, Its cool if we're all catching, but it just cracks me up that I'm in a kayak, and they're following me around. The trollers tick me off though. Once they show up, I leave.