Sea Eagle

I'm looking to up grade to electric down riggers this next year. I currently have a couple of big jon manual DRs that I picked up for $50.00 several years ago that I like a lot, but I want to be able to run bigger balls to get down deeper if the fish are out in deeper water like they were this year out of South Haven when the water temp in close hit 80 degrees. I was wondering who likes what brand and why?

Fished out of South Haven on Saturday morning. Went 11-12 with two knock offs (too slow-too bad). Took my brother-in-law out on his first salmon fishing trip. He had a blast and as far as he knows we do this good all of the time. Set lines around 6:30 AM NW of pier head in 70ft of water. Trolled N – NW and S – SE all day between 70ft to 90ft of water. First three fish came off of the downriggers set down to 40ft -50ft. (1 small king & 1 small coho) on SS Glow George spoons & a medium sized king off of a double pearl glow spin doctor with a blue bubble fly. We had two medium sized kings off of #3 dipseys set down at 40ft with a mnt dew pearl glow spin doctor with a seaweed fly on one & a mnt dew/chrome NBK spin doctor with a yogurt orange crush fly on the other. Our largest king of the day came off of a #3 dipsey set down at 60ft with the mnt dew pearl glow spin doctor & seaweed fly just as we were pulling lines. We had five fish (4 kings all medium to large & 1 medium coho) all of off 10 colors of ledcore running mnt dew/chrome NBK spin doctor with a yogurt NBK colored fly. The SS Glow George spoons off of downriggers have worked very well for us first thing in the AM lately, but spin doctor/fly combos have produced best as the day wears on. On Saturday, mid-morning, we could not keep our lone leadcore rig in the water – it was smoking. #1 dipseys with spoons have not produced any fish in the past few weeks and will likely get put up for a while. I’m sure that #1 dipseys would work fine running the spin doctor/fly combos, but we do not like to run spin doctors on both #1 & # 3 dipsey settings next to each other for fear of “making rope†out of our fishing lines. Rumor has it that my fishing partner Rich is going to purchase us another leadcore rig when he gets his bonus check in a couple of weeks.

North west was best, but that was also the direction we were going first thing in the AM. We took several fish going south as well.

Went 10 for 11 today out of South Haven. First three fish all came between 6:30 and 7:00 AM off of the down riggers set at 60 ft down, back 50 ft from the ball - all on glow wonderbread. Four fish came on white spin doctors with either green or blue flies off of #3 dipsey divers set out 142 ft. Two fish came off of a full core with caramel dolphin. One shaker later in the day off of #1 dipsey set back 142 ft. with NBK. Total seven kings, three steelhead (including the shaker). Four kings between 12 - 15 lbs and three "good eaters." Started out in 80ft of water and went out to 120 ft. Most fish came between 80 to 90ft. Stayed north west of pier all day. Wish I had more details - I'm going on memory - had a couple of new guys in the boat and I was too busy to make the log entries.