J Francho

Grammar is important. Let's eat Grampa! Leat's eat, Grampa!

Crap! I forgot a VERY important word. They're harder than lead, but NOT indestructible like tungsten.

You probably don't need to venture too far from the harbor. Never fished that end.

Sounds like they're defective. I've messed up steel weights bouncing them off rocks. They're harder than lead, but indestructible like tungsten.

I only fish Canandaigua late fall/early winter, and haven't been there in years. The south end is the right place to be, though.

Erie is a bit different, but basically the same. There are way more interesting "super structure" on Erie. You could spend a lifetime dissecting areas. Are you going out Cleveland? There's a ton of good fishing right now, as soon as you leave the harbor.

This is my experience on Ontario. Start looking at a contour map for the area you want to fish. Ignore everything shallower than 25', and imagine that is your shoreline. Section it off into football field size areas. Get the way points for the boundaries, and enter them into your GPS. Then start scanning on the water. You're looking for bait fish carpeting the bottom. Weeds would be another key feature. If you find carpets of bait, start fishing, and stay on them. The smallies will be there. The bait being present is the one thing I know will hold groups of smallies. Otherwise it's a needle in a haystack deal, with the fish being well fed and scattered.

In spring, we cast from the piers on Lake Ontario for brown trout. The charter captains will run planer boards shallow as well. Usually, they stay out of shore bound angler casting range, but once this guy kept getting closer and closer, presumably because the action was really hot close to shore. He got so close, his planer board was so close, it bumping the pier. Some older man yells, "get my big knife out of the box, son!" He snags the planer board line, and cuts it off! Wraps up the bait spread, and tosses it into the trash. That was an expensive etiquette mistake for that charter.

I hope your friend is not you, and I hope it all goes well. Take it easy, and ask the docs. They'll know best what can be done.

For the first, I never understood. Figure what they're biting, and catch them on that. For the second, not all tourney guys are sponsored.

When you go to check out, they won't ship lead to an address where it's banned. Bass Pro Shops, Cabela's, and TackleWarehouse does the same thing.

You are 100% correct. In the 80s and 90s, you anchored up in 17'-20', dropped a softshell over the side, and had 100+ fish days. You could walk across the boats in front of most harbors and bays. Now it's a ghost town. Gobies, the resurgence of Cisco, and the increased water clarity due to zebra mussels have totally changed the game. Bass no longer travel the depth alleys in wolf packs. They're scattered, and deeper, well fed on fatty bait fish, and bigger. Also, more difficult to find. I know that when I find carpets of bait, I will find bass. Often it's in 30'+, and it takes some driving around.

Steel. Lead is illegal in NY, and Dick's only stocks steel from Bullet Weights in NY.

Probably not. There's always a risk of infection from bacteria, parasite, or fungus from a hook wound, rusty or not, but a healthy fish can fight that off. Underutilized gear is on the angler that purchased it. Not using it? Sell it off on our Flea Market. Turn that $$$ into stuff you will use, or pocket it for a rainy day. \ Side note: thread drift will happen, and despite going off track a bit due to not understanding your question (honestly, you've got to understand this, since you've had to tell us several times we aren't getting it), but there's been a ton of useful advice. Like it or not, it's a good, useful read.

The Bullet Weights sold at Dick's in NY for $2.70 are steel.

Get these, and rust problems are history: http://www.planomolding.com/fishing/stowawayr-utility-boxes/hydro-flo Been using them for around six years now. No Rust.

I've use the Strike King Tour Tungsten weights. They're quality. The Bullet Weights are probably steel, if you got them in NY state.

It definitely works, Tom. Especially a high actin craw like a Ragetail Craw. Sometimes smallies are keyed in on craws, but more and more, they are keyed in on baitfish. This is often true on our glacial Finger Lakes, which I'm guessing is a similar to the OP's waters.

If there are several tournaments out of tat launch, and fish are released there, a good percentage of those released fish stay, and fishing not far from the ramps is well known pattern. So well known, they are usually off limits for many tournaments.

Are those lead weights? Lead is soft enough, it wont damage your line. If that steel, or tungsten, ditch them, since they will mess up your line.

We use open hook football heads for this exact same bait and technique up here. The FB head gives the bait a nice kick when it hits a rock.

Sometimes they're panfish eating bugs. They swim in a fast, tight circle to create a vortex that sucks the bug under so they can gobble it up. It creates quite a commotion.

I have a break-barrel spring .177 that gets 1200 fps. Had a friend that worked for Crossman, and modded these things. With the carbon tipped tactical pellets, death is as sure as your aim.

Yeah, I try not to be distracted, and abandon my plan. I will do a side scan of the area to see if there are large predators, but usually it's either carp, or something else.

YUM Dinger 30 packs are available: https://www.yumbaits.com/yum-bulk-dinger This day is brought to you by black 5" Dingers: From the anual Take a Soldier Fishing day on Lake Oneida. Note the camera boat in the background. Pretty cool that we got this shot cast to catch on the TV show.