Back on the pond. 1st trip of Oct
Posted: Sun Oct 24, 2021 2:03 am
After having the boat in the shop getting hydraulic steering install, it was great to launch from Converse at 1st light Sat and enjoy a calm fall day with Dreamcatcher. It was time to shake down the new system and also the autopilot conversion to hydraulic needed to be tested prior to the shootout.
We launched behind 3 boats, 2 that were here from NH. Good to talk to Brimstone troller today and his partner boat. We started north and they started south and we swapped areas after lunch.
Ken and I ran to the delta in front of the Boquette 1st. We found a crappy thermocline down around 90 ft. With the deep water as warm or warmer than the 60 deg surface down to that number:( the lake is warm and it will take a while to dissipate the summers buildup… I have switched back to 14lb flourocarbon, so fleas were there… but very manageable and collected on only barrel swivels and line terminations.
The bite for us was slow, we averaged about a landed fish every hr of our trip. One alarming thing to note was the large lamprey on almost all fish. Right now the 8-12” lamprey are Very active on the NY side beteen the Boquette and Willsborough:( we killed all we could get to…
The menu consisted of bacon wrapped scallops followed by cheese, salami and ritz crackers. I was so out of routine this morning…… I left the hot dogs in the refrigerator at home and we missed our 2nd lunch!
The interesting fight of the day came from a 20” BLACK smallMouth that took a crazy Ivan from 75ft down, over 160 fow… crazy fish was hungry suspended in the lake… what he was doing there was obimvious looking at the bait profile on the he graph.
The new steering shook down perfectly. One finger steering control with no cable feedback or sluggishness… I should have done this years ago:) the new integration with my autopilot also was excellent. There was not even a reteach required and it spins more gradual patterns without even a whisper of background noise. Frostbite here we come…. No more wasting my thermos of coffee at the launch thawing my cable steering system at the motor this year.
Good to be back out, but still need time to locate the salmon. We only hit 2 areas today and did not locate them in either spot.
Hope the guys from NH found em later in afternoon, they were headed to a good area to check… so stay tuned;)
Fish on!
We launched behind 3 boats, 2 that were here from NH. Good to talk to Brimstone troller today and his partner boat. We started north and they started south and we swapped areas after lunch.
Ken and I ran to the delta in front of the Boquette 1st. We found a crappy thermocline down around 90 ft. With the deep water as warm or warmer than the 60 deg surface down to that number:( the lake is warm and it will take a while to dissipate the summers buildup… I have switched back to 14lb flourocarbon, so fleas were there… but very manageable and collected on only barrel swivels and line terminations.
The bite for us was slow, we averaged about a landed fish every hr of our trip. One alarming thing to note was the large lamprey on almost all fish. Right now the 8-12” lamprey are Very active on the NY side beteen the Boquette and Willsborough:( we killed all we could get to…
The menu consisted of bacon wrapped scallops followed by cheese, salami and ritz crackers. I was so out of routine this morning…… I left the hot dogs in the refrigerator at home and we missed our 2nd lunch!
The interesting fight of the day came from a 20” BLACK smallMouth that took a crazy Ivan from 75ft down, over 160 fow… crazy fish was hungry suspended in the lake… what he was doing there was obimvious looking at the bait profile on the he graph.
The new steering shook down perfectly. One finger steering control with no cable feedback or sluggishness… I should have done this years ago:) the new integration with my autopilot also was excellent. There was not even a reteach required and it spins more gradual patterns without even a whisper of background noise. Frostbite here we come…. No more wasting my thermos of coffee at the launch thawing my cable steering system at the motor this year.
Good to be back out, but still need time to locate the salmon. We only hit 2 areas today and did not locate them in either spot.
Hope the guys from NH found em later in afternoon, they were headed to a good area to check… so stay tuned;)
Fish on!