SeaCatMich

I probably have two of them since it is just wrong to only buy one of a new bait... what happens if the first one actually catches a fish? If I have caught more than two fish on a particular lure on a trip, I probably have four of them -- especially if I find it in a discount bin. As for the original post topic, it isn't so much that the "old" stuff won't work as much as a new "hot" lure or presentation is found to work and gets more water time. Sort of like the Top 40 radio stations... they don't play the old music because the new "hot" songs are what are being bought. The new stuff gets more air time. Personally I probably use more old lures than most but have added new one to the arsenal such as UV and flashers over dodgers. While I do much prefer the classic rock stations, I do listen to modern country too (and that's the majority of CDs I have bought recently too).

My answers are below. (1) Lead core knots - I've been using Uni to Uni knots without any problems. I see people talking about the Willis knot. Why would I change anything if I have never had a uni-uni fail? I love the UniKnot but I have had them fail if not tied correctly. Never had a Willis fail (2) Big Weenie Meat rigs - the ones I have come with a bead-chain swivel. If I want to us it on the Spin-Doctor can I just cut it off and hopefully have no line twist problems? I replace the leader barrel swivel on all of my SDs with a pigtail swivel. This allows me to change between different baits easily without a new knot each time (3) Flasher speed w/ meat rigs - Will the 10" Spin-Doctors and Wiener Flashers work at similar speeds? I guess the question is can I run them together and have success on both running the same speed? I run both SD and BW flashers in the same spread a lot of the time. But I rarely run meat off the SDs (4) 00 Dodger & Peanut Fly speed - Do i generally want to go as fast as the dodgers will allow before spinning out? Does setting them up backwards change the movement or tolerable speed? Not a clue (5) Spoon Speeds - I see a lot about how people tend to troll fast with spoons. Which of the following would be fast vs slow types of spoons? Stinger Standard & Stingray ProKing Big Lake Lures (BLL) Dreamweaver SS Dreamweaver Standard Not familiar with the BLL spoons but the others will run at a wide speed range but are better at faster speeds 2 mph+. Slow speed spoons typically have a bigger cup/bend or are wider across (6) If I'm running at slower speeds ( e.g. Dodger & Spin-n-glow), would it make sense to maybe try some casting spoons such as the Moonshine or little cleo or K.O. Wobbler. Might work. I have had success running Loco spoons in the spread with dodgers. Most others also work but Yeck and Northport Nailers run well at slow speeds. (7) Plugs - do they work fast and slow? Like 2 mph up to 3.5 mph. I have caught plenty of fish on regular Jplugs and Silver Hordes from 1.5 to 3 mph. Ace High type plugs run cleanly at higher speeds but I have not run them slower so I can't speak to that.

Yes a larger spoon will generally run higher when on a long line but I don't think it will on a typical downrigger stretch. For a MUP rig to work the stretch on the main line off the downrigger weight needs to be relatively short (15' or less) so that the slider with the larger lure and the main lure are in relatively close proximity to each other. With a slider the line is too short for the lure to ride up much. If it was a free slider, the overall position of the slider in the "belly" of the line could make it higher in the water column. I have heard of others running a small Dipsy or Big Jon mini disc diver off a downrigger to get the lure down and away from the turbulence of the rigger weight. I have not tried it myself but no reason to believe it wouldn't work. I almost always run a slider on my riggers though and adding a small diver to the line would just be asking for trouble in my opinion.

Normark/Rapala's buyout of Storm and subsequent redesign of the Thundersticks, ThinFin, Hot-n-tot and Wiggle Wart was bad news for these classic lures. I can imagine that the new designs are that much easier/cheaper to manufacture so why in the world did they "fixed" them?

The #3 and #4 red head chrome J is my go to for Pere Marquette Lake too. The 5 is great, but I wish that Silver Horde made the Ace-Hi in a smaller size.

I used the Blacks/Dubro/Walker arm release for years and they work well -- actually used the Dubro version because it has the snap to connect to the ball built in. I have never been a fan of the pinch pad releases. Changed to the Chamberlain for the last 4 seasons because of the dual adjustments. While they are great for Erie/Saginaw Bay walleye to prevent dragging small fish around, I also like them to be able to have different strike settings for spoons/plugs verses flashers. Being able to set it lighter for early spring Coho and Browns is also nice.

The original Silver Horde plugs I purchased back in the early '70s were made of a different plastic material and offered colors that Luhr Jensen and Grizzly didn't have -- a clear mylar with prizm colors inside being the one I like (and not made anymore . These original plugs had the same bead chain harness design as Jplugs but the hole was a little smaller so Jplug harnesses cold not be used. There were also subtle differences in the body design of the plugs which I'm sure gives them a little different action. The Ace High is the current "hot" plug from Silver Horde and does not use the bead chain hook harness going through the body. The hook harness is connected to the body with a split ring. The plugs are a thinner design and have a different nose than the standard Silver Horde and Jplugs which I find lets them be trolled at faster speeds. Many of the plugs originating in the Pacific Northwest use this design. The color patterns offered on the Ace High (and now other Silver Horde models) are different than other manufactures too (although now being knocked off by others).

I have heard of running the very small diver discs such as the Mini Dipsy Diver turner out to 1 or 2 and let out 20' or so before connecting to a downrigger release. The theory is that it gets the lure a little and also out of the turbulence of the rigger weight. Never tried it myself.

Actually getting multiple sizes of Dive Bombs will get you a great deal of flexibility. On leadcore each ounce on a Dive Bomb will add 4' to the dive curve. I have not seen any info on what it does on copper, but I'm thinking it would be at least as much. Torpedo Diver weights are even more efficient but they are more expensive.

Here is a link to a PDF on the Blood Run Tackle site that has fill charts for many of the common reels for various copper sizes and backing. Per Gregg at Blood Run you can add 75 yards to the backing number listed if you go with 50# braid instead of 30# mono. http://www.bloodruntackle.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/CopperDiveChart.pdf Not sure how the Offshore boards will do with longer coppers. I had them before going with the Walleye boards and ran up to a full core on them and that was the most I thought they could handle.

It somewhat depends on where and when you fish but I think the 300 copper would be a good addition. The latest diver curves for copper show that it is very speed dependent. Depending on your trolling speed, a 300 in the 32# is going to get the lure into the 60 to 80' range with a stealth presentation the divers don't really provide. The 45# copper gets a little deeper but not much and the 32# gives you more space on the reel for backing (or even a smaller reel). Instead of putting it out the chute though, I'd get a Church Walleye board and put it outside of your divers. I'd do a board with the 7 color too on the opposite side of the boat as well. With this you can run a nice 8 rod spread with a rigger, 2 divers, and a board on each side. With only 2 anglers on board it gives you the option of adjusting the spread to match what the fish want by going to a 4 diver/2 board or 2 rigger/2 diver/2 board setup. If the fish are not in an aggressive mode the boards with weighed lines can be very productive. As SlamDunk suggests adding weights to the board lines gives you the ability to make them get to a variety of depths. I use both Torpedo Diver and Stinger DiveBombs with good success to cover those in between depths.

From what I have observed, location is a year to year thing based on how the season is progressing. I have a number of waypoints on my GPS that have produced yearly. The relative time that the fish are there does change depending on how each year's weather progresses. Early June can be hard because it can be late spring, transition (June dulldrums), or early summer patterns. As others have said, the cottonwood on the water is a good indicator of when the transition period happens. In the spring pattern I generally will target either shallow (60 FOW or less) or out deep in 200-250 FOW and fish marks which are usually deeper (70'+). In the transition I try to find suspended fish but often they will be deep (100'+ and near bottom). If it is after the cottonwood (summer) I usually again try to find marks and mostly suspended. Most often the summer pattern is going to be influenced by winds moving water in and out as the water stratisfies. As for colors there are two basic principles I follow: 1) bright days - bright colors, dark days - dark colors; and 2) light penetration. On bright days (lots of sun) I go with silvers, greens, blues. On dark days (cloudy and early morning) I tend toward darker colors - oranges, blacks, yellows, chartreuse, multi colors (mixed vegies...). Basically if there is light a color that reflects it. If there is less light then a darker lure will show up better against the darker sky. White light is made up of the various colors we can see. Fish eyes are different and have sensitivity to different frequencies of light than humans and other species, but the properties of light penetration physics apply. As water gets deeper the colors with shorter wave lengths are filtered out and turn black or gray (chart below). In the top 20-30' all colors are visible but the hotter colors (reds, oranges, yellows) seem to work better. Green frequencies are good to about 80' and blues & violets to over 100'. So I go with greens, blues, and violets when deeper than 60'. That is not to say that "warmer" colors won't work deeper but it is not likely to be the primary color that the fish is actually seeing. For some reason orange seems to work at depths where it really should only show up as a gray. UV is a different animal and I have grown over the last couple of years to like it a lot as an accent color -- especially in summer for kings. Flasher/fly vs flasher/cutbait vs plugs vs stick lures vs spoons... selection confuses things even more . Early and late in the year I will run larger lures (spoons, plugs) but in June it mainly the regular sizes to try to match the size of the baitfish (alewife) available during the season. Flasher size seems to be a daily pattern for me with both small and large having their moments but until July I generally lean more toward the 7 and 8 inch flashers. I do tend to go with the 10 and 11" flashers on deep presentations even in June. it is by no means anywhere near an exact science. Bottom line to me is to find fish, use the generalities on light & color to select lures and then start varying things until you find something that works. Generally I'll start around 2.4 mph on the downspeed and vary up and down from there. Most of the lures I run work on a variety of speeds. Then if I'm over fish I'll start changing lures -- with two or three rods being my experimentals and getting changed every 15 minutes or so to find a working pattern. Hopefully others chime in with their thoughts and I hope this helped.

It is a good idea to have an idea of what you want to put out as a spread when you go out, but don't get stuck on it. Based on what you described I'd say you might be a little to set on what presentations you are going to use and not changing enough. Listen to what the lures and your electronics are telling you. Sometimes the same presentation that worked yesterday will work today, but just as often it will need to be tweaked. A couple years back we fished the Grand Haven tournament and did pretty well on the first day. The tournament leader was fishing the same area as us too. The next day we went back to the same water and pretty much fished the same water with the same lures. We were seeing fish but couldn't get them to go very well. We scratched out enough fish to weigh in but they were smaller than the day before. The day 1 leader did the same thing and was around us much of the day. Day two's weigh in had a couple boats that really changed from day one and went deep to catch a cooler full of very big kings at 200'+ deep. We never got to 180 FOW let alone put a line down there. Neither us or the day 1 leader finished in the money -- because we didn't listen to what the fish were telling us. I have learned over the years to listen to my electronics. One of the rules when flying a plane is to believe your electronics... same thing applies to fishing. I bought a fish finder and down speed/temp for a reason, it doesn't make any sense to not listen to them. Yes there have been times when I catch fish when I don't see any on the graph - usually on stealthier rigs away from the boat -- but most of the time I fish what I see. Too many times I have moved a line to "chase" a couple of marks on the graph and gotten a hit right away. First thing in the morning I will go to my target area and use the graph to search for fish at 8 mph and don't put lines in until I see some consistent marks. I don't like to spend time and gas washing lures where there aren't any fish. When my downspeed/temp went out on me a couple years ago it made it difficult to consistently get my presentations tuned. The underwater currents as well as the surface winds can really make getting your presentation fine tuned difficult. Even when you catch a fish and know what the GPS or RPMs said, it can be different 1/2 mile along. When I lost my downspeed I went back to reading the diver rods to gauge my speed. To me this is more reliable than GPS speed or RPMs singe the angle of the line relative to the boat will also tell you if you are in a cross current or going with/into the current. I would highly recommend getting a downspeed and it doesn't have to be the newest/latest/greatest -- one that works consistently is better than none. Too often making a speed change and being able to reproduce it has turned a day around -- especially when there are fish on the graph and others around me are catching fish.

Not really. Think of the transducer as a speaker & microphone on a stereo system. The head unit is the stereo amplifier and is of a certain power. The gain on the sounder is the volume control. Any speaker/transducer will get the "sound" from the amp but how good it sounds depends on the speaker/transducer. Same for transducer/speaker placement. It will vary depending on the room (speakers) or hull (transducer) to get the best performance. A good speaker is designed to reproduce a wide range of sound frequencies that the human ear can hear. A transducer only transmits effectively on the specific frequencies that the head unit transmits. So you have to match the transducer to the head unit and its plug type/configuration. While you could pick out a matching transducer for the specs of your sounder, each manufacture will generally offer only certain ones that will work with it and are pre configured to plug in. This varies a little more when you get into very high end units as you can buy the connector separately and really get a transducer that is fine tuned to what you want.

In my opinion and experience 250w is not enough power. Yes it will let you see bottom in 200 FOW but to pickup bait fish, rigger weights, and thermoclines on the Great Lakes you need 500 or 600w. The only potential use I see for the 360* scan would be in spring or offshore for steelhead when the fish are high in the water column. If you fished Erie or Sag Bay for walleye I could see it being used more too. I would spend the money on a better overall unit. Personally I'd go with separate fishfinder and GPS units. While today's electronics are quite reliable, if there is a problem with a combo unit you loose both functions while it is being repaired. My boat is equipped with Raymarine electronics as well -- although a little older. It is the first generation of the DSM technology and I am extremely satisfied with it. My boat has 3 screens (console, stern, bow) that use the Raymarine network to be able to display any of the available functions (sonar, chart plotting, radar...) on any of them. I have a separate Standard Horizon GPS chart plotter but use NMEA to feed the data to the Raymarine system. The bigger the screen, the better. I love my 7" displays. In the price range you have outlined, I would research the new chirp technology units. From what I see it looks very good and pricing is now in the range for recreational anglers.

It was discussed a couple years ago on another site. A device called a "Flea Stripper" was mentioned with good reviews, but the web site referenced for it is no longer up and running. Here is a link to a YouTube video of using the Flea Stripper: http://youtu.be/rcntlDE8K1c Others suggested using a plastic knife -- specifically the ones from McDonald's restaurants and they have no teeth and supposedly don't harm the line. Have not tried it myself. Personally I slap the line against the water using the rod or pluck the line like I'm shooting a bow to remove them. The biggest problem is when they accumulate at the rod tip when fighting a fish. Another method to keep them off is to splice a 100' segment of 30 test mono into the rigger line followed by a leader length you would normally fish as the stretch from the rigger ball to the lure. The 30# line is thicker and the fish-hook water fleas can't latch on to it as easy as thinner line. Only the line from the rod tip to the downriger weight needs to be the thicker line since it is the line running vertical in the water that they hook onto. The best thing about this solution is the anti flea 30# can be added only when the fleas are a big problem without having to completely replace the line on the reel(s) and is easy to remove later.

Looks to me like you already have them on the market.

What are you running for releases? I have gone to the Chamberlain releases for the last 4 years. Basically the same as Blacks/Dubro/Walker. You make a loop in the line and put 5-6 twists in it and then put the loop through the catch arm and lock it into the release. Difference between the Chamberlain and the others is that it has two tension adjustments -- one for the rod and one for the lure. This lets you adjust the lure release tension to match the lure and/or fish species, but also clamp down the tension on the rod adjustment to be able to put a heavy bend in the rod. Others will use a rubber band half hitched to the line with multiple wraps and the tag end through the arm on a Blacks/Dubro/Walker or Chamberlain release. Here is a video of the Chamberlain: http://youtu.be/WsgUj7fIi50 Here is a video of the release with a rubber band: http://youtu.be/B-qTqZOFLnU

The only thing that I run off the stern are the two stern downriggers. Everything else (outdown riggers, divers, boards) are off the sides. I don't do it, but I do have friends that almost never bring a fish into the boat proper. Similarly to your boat's setup, they have a very big cooler (150 Q Igloo) on the swim platform (although your swim platform does look VERY deep in your picture). They have a boarding door to the platform and go out on the platform to net fish it goes directly into the cooler to be unhooked. It would have to be pretty calm seas for me to get out on a swim platform to fight a fish. I'd be nervous going out there to do the netting. Looks like you have a wide transom but I suspect that the "fishing area" not very deep (back to front)??? Something that might help a lot to get more rods in the water -- especially boards with leadcore/copper -- would be vertical rod trees. The space taken on the gunnel is what would normally be taken up by a single regular rod holder but the tree gives you 3 or 4 rod holders. The Big Jon and Traxstech trees also allow the rod holders to be angled up & down which would permit you to lower the bottom one closer to horizontal for use with a diver. Not really related to getting more rods in the water on your boat, but it also appears in the 2nd picture that you don't put a lot of bend in your downrigger rods. I would suggest really increasing the bend in those rods significantly. I have much better hook up rates when the rods are really loaded up. Some guys I know actually put enough bend in that the rod tips are nearly in the water. It helps let you know when you have a strike and helps to take up the line slack on a strike. Taking a shot in the dark here since your pictures don't show it, but if the boss doesn't want fish in the boat I would guess that cluttering up the hull with rod holders is also frowned upon? If so, seriously check into a track system for the gunnels. Allows for downriggers, individual rod holders, trees... to be put on the boat when fishing. When not fishing the gear can be removed and be replaced with step pad inserts. Very clean setups that keep the boat "clean" for non fishing situations. Also means that you only mount the track directly to the boat. You can also mount accessories such as cup holders for non fishing time use. It is hard to tell, but in the 2nd picture it also appears that you have all of the rods angled pretty high. It is a lot easier to run more rods if some are angled closer to horizontal. For downriggers and divers that are closer to the stern it keeps those rods out of the way for fighting fish. For divers it helps keep the diver set as it won't have as much up/down motion as the boat rocks in heavier seas. A track system helps with getting the diver rods closer to horizontal because you can get rod holders for the track that can be adjusted up & down. Although my boat is really a fishing boat (no boss for me ) I have a track system and it makes it very versatile to customize the setup to fit the situation. It also makes it nice to be able to move things and try different configurations which you might never do without a track since it would mean drilling more holes in the boat. My downriggers, rod holders, and rod trees are all mounted on the tracks. For example, when I go walleye fishing on Erie, the downriggers come off to give more room for casting, and the rod holders and rod trees are moved to optimal locations for trolling and bottom bouncer rods.

Can/should this be used with wire? Yes they can be used with wire. Will the wire go through the diver or will I need to used a leader? Can be rigged either way -- I lean toward a mono leader to clamp the SlideDiver too since you will want mono to the lure anyway. Do they dive the same as a regular dipsy? By using the heavier optional weights they will. Would a snubber be needed? No I have done it for similar reasons to what you describe but mainly because I catch more fish with longer leaders off the diver... especially with flashers and cut-bait. Hard to get a fish in the net with a 15' leader off the diver (even worse when I'm fishing solo). I have done it but deploying a SlideDiver can really be a pain compared to a "regular" diver. I wish I knew an easy way to let the line behind the diver out before clamping it in. So far I have not figured out an easy way. Consequently, I will put out the SlideDivers for salmon only in daylight and generally only if regular divers are not doing well. I do like the SlideDiver LiteBites for walleye and early season Coho. Generally a daylight presentation though but being able to have the fish release setting different than the rod setting is great for the smaller or lighter hitting fish.

Biggest thing I do to avoid lines getting tangled is to deploy the long line poresentations with the deepest sets closest to the boat. Depending on how many anglers I have on board I will have up to 10 lines out (4 anglers onboard -- legally could run 12, but I don't). Working from the center of the boat to the outsides and also from the stern to the bow as far as rod locations: 2 stern downriggers -- one usually with a SWR and a flasher on the other to try to attract fish into the spread 2 outdown downriggers -- usually with fixed sliders 10-20' above the ball, spoons or plugs 2 PP high divers on 2.5 or 3, with flasher/fly, spoons, or plugs 2 wire divers on 1 or 1.5, usually with big flashers with cut-bait or flasher/fly 2 300' copper off walleye boards 2 leadcore up to a fullcore off walleye boards Any of the individual presentations can be removed or another substituted, but the overall is: It must run 20' shallower/deeper than either the line/presentation adjacent to it (except downriggers) Setting it up this way has two advantages: 1. When you need to reset a line it can generally be deployed without getting tangled because it will go over all of the lines inside it. .... a. boards w/ weighted lines are let out the back and when far enough back then the reel is put in gear and the board will then pull to the side into formation .....b. the "high" divers are set by deploying in front of the "low" divers to let them pull out away from the boat and other diver but still be above it 2. When a fish hits and pulls back away from the boat, it will go over the top of the presentations inside of it as the fish is brought behind the boat to fight and land it. 90% of the time fish are fought and netted down the chute of my boat -- right between the two outboards. Although a down the cute presentation of a weighted line (copper or leadcore) or a pumphandle can have its days, I prefer to keep that area open.

Sounds like the MUP rig (Magnum Up) is what you want to run -- or maybe the SMUP (Super Magnum Up) . Basically a regular size spoon on the main rigger line and a bigger spoon of the same pattern (mag/smag) on the fixed slider 10' above.

Received the following email from Dan O'Keefe (Michigan Sea Grant) related to the Corps of Engineers Asian Carp report. ======================================================= Understand Options to Stop Asian Carp and Make Your Voice Heard! Now is the time to state your opinion on basin separation options for the Chicago Area Waterway System. Eight alternative plans are listed in the recent GLMRIS report. Two of the plans involve dams that would restore the natural divide between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins in Chicago. You can submit comments online until March 3 at the GLMRIS website or register to attend one of two meetings in Michigan (Jan. 21 in Ann Arbor or Jan. 23 in Traverse City). Link to comments/meeting registration page at GLMRIS website: Click HERE Learn more about the issue by going to these links: • Understanding the Eight Options Click HERE • Downloading the GLMRIS Report Summary Link to the report summary: Click HERE

I have a bunch of "super mag" spoons (~6" long) that I will occasionally run -- early spring and late summer fall. Since 80%+ of the current Lake Michigan alewife are juvinile file the bigger spoons don't "match the hatch" very well. Bigger alewife are most abundant in the lake prior to the spring spawn and then after feeding all summer long in the late summer through fall. Most of the spoons are from the early '80s and were made by Yeck and Silver Streak -- can't say if they are even being made any longer. I mainly run them off leadcore or copper and sometimes off divers. Used to set up a MUP rig off the downriggers with them but have not done that with the super mags in many years.

Blood Run does have an anti flea line call Sea Flee. It is 30# test. http://bloodruntackle.gostorego.com/salmon-fishing-line-downrigger-leader-wire-copper-trolling/sea-flee-fishing-line-mono-spiny-water-flea-300-yards.html