Is any body fishing?

[Jonas Pilot]

Gee... It's been 24 days since opening day (for salmon) and nobody has posted anything about their fishing trips, either successful or not. Has anybody been out? I have heard that salmon fishing is fair, smallmouth and largemouth bass are being caught and that the Connecticut River has produced some nice northern pike. Anything happening with white perch? Any body have any news to share?

[Mink Islander]

Fished Friday PM. Things were pretty slow. Caught 1 smallish Salmon - maybe 1-1/2 pds. Released. Caught on a top gun - (copper with orange head) with one color of lead core and 100 ft of mono. Fishing cut short by recue of stranded boater - dead motor. Towed them home to Fay's from Timber Island. After that home to Mink for dinner....Good deed for the day accomplished!

Saturday. Braved the rain. Caught nuthin. Gave up after an hour or so. Cold and wet. Just wanted to try out the new fishfinder, downrigger and trolling plate. Wife thought I was completely nuts. She's only figuring that out now??

Today. Went out again in the rain (a bit warmer and slowly clearing). Landed a nice 2-1/2 pd Salmon (also on a Top Gun) for my trouble. Did a nice dance in the air for me. Filleted, skinned and ready for dinner! Female with mature roe (i.e. large translucent eggs). First time I'd seen that.

Playing around with my new downrigger -- learning how to manage rigging the downrigger by myself in my little Montauk. I'd be curious how far folks run the line behind the ball when trolling for Salmon. I was running it shallow at 10-25 ft, with 100 ft of line out behind it and had no strikes even though the fish finder was seeing plenty of fish at that 25-35 ft depth. Same top guns that were successful on lead core at probably 15 ft. Just seemed odd - or just unlucky.

[codeman671]

Check out www.fishlakewinni.com, you probably will find a lot more experiences there. A friend of mine is an avid salmon fisherman and lives on this site.