Treblemaker

Good luck Ed and have a great trip!

No, I don't let them sit, but I will just grab the rod gently, no jerking it out, and let the board pull back with a big fish. For smaller fish I just hold the rod tip low out the back of the boat and reel steady. We had a lot of fish that swam faster than you can reel and while it felt like the fish was gone, keep reeling and you may find a suprise when it gets closer. Always keep reeling and check things out after a hit. On my buddies boat trolling Lake Erie in early April for hog walleye, we do not touch the rod until the board stops falling back, that is our signal to grab it. Many times buried, and standing straight up we reel steady, no pumping. He will take away our beer away if we start getting grabby on the rods. IMO the hook holes open up when a fish is hot and thrashing, and also uneven pressure wears bigger holes. No doubt hard pressure opens them up too. I like to let them finish doing their thing, then turn their heads and keep them coming towards me steadily. Most times If they are not hooked funny they will generally be cooperative about it and swim right along once they tire a bit. Then slip them in the net with one steady action before they even know what happened. By this time they are thrashing in the net on the boat floor. Arms burning from reeling in a core that fast.

Other than the rod tip causing breakage issues I have found an even bigger culprit in core breakage this year...tangles. Most times you can salvage your cores by untwisting the lines and get it all untangled. If the line crimps or bends in half, the lead can be damaged and can sometimes twist and bend inside the sheath. After one tangle I remember a small piece of lead sticking out of the core. I let it back out and the core broke at that spot when a fish hit it. I will try to manipulate any tangles out such as to remove all of the kinks and twists, and I will cut and remove any bad sections now instead of sending them back out. A quick way of retying them on the water is remove the lead from both ends, and join them with a Uni-Uni knot.

Many thoughts out there on this, here is another. I prefer to set my drags tight as well. Usually just where you want to set them while fighting a fish. When a fish slams a lure on an in-line board with lot's of leadcore, the line will not be straight to the fish from the start. The planer board pulling the core out to the side creates an angle from the rod tip to the board, and from the board to the lure. On top of this the core itself bows under the water and creates a slack while working it's magic as well. With a properly set drag the fish will begin to pull on the core making it rise up and tighten the bow in the line under the water. The board will pull back and straighten the angle from the board as well, so there is a built in cushion inherent in this set up, regardless of drag setting, and not including line stretch of leaders and backing if any. If anything a loose drag will allow the fish even more slack to roll in the line, or pull the line through the treble hook or hook gap causing breakoffs and foul hooked fish which are a pain to bring in. Many guys grab a rod immediately when it goes, myself included. One thing I learned walleye fishing is to let the fish pull the board back, and line straighten before even grabbing the rod. If you grab the rod right away, basically you are just bringing the board closer to the boat, and cutting the angle to that fish, creating uneven pressure as the board skips accross the water towards the boat, and not an even pressure like allowing the board to drop back and line straighten under the load of a fish before you bring it in. Next, big fish have hard mouths. A skin hooked fish is tough to land, but played right, with an even pressure can be landed. Lot's of times the hook pops off in the net when the pressure is released. When a big mouth clamps onto a lure, no matter how hard you pull you cannot set a hook on this fish until it lets go. Having a hook gap as wide a fishes jawbone, and trebles will keep more fish hooked. You may land a better percentage of single hooked fish, but I believe you will hook more fish with trebles. Lastly when bringing a big fish to the boat for netting, have the driver keep one hand on the throttle. If the fish gets close and makes a mad dash to the side or into the riggers speed up and make the fish come back up behind the boat. Don't wait too long to speed up either, try to stay ahead of what the fish is doing. Once he is up and behind you can net it, but I can't tell you how many big ones have been lost close to the boat. Even if they are coming in deep, or way out to the side, speed up a bit, and wait for the fish to drop back and to the surface before trying to net it.

Congrats Rich! What a special moment, thanks for sharing.

Way to go Ed! Congrats!

We did about the same, going 2 for 4 straight out in front 45-50 fow. Cyclonite on a 3 color core took a 13 lber and another long rip before another fish jumped and came off. green glow spinnie green fly took the other 15 lber on a diver set to 3 60 back. That setup also took another rip with no one home too. We launched at 9:15pm and fished from 9:30 and pulled lines at 10:45. Still getting hits when we left, but buddy had to be at work so we pulled them.

Just bear in mind the fish will be in shallower water, many times out of temp. Trim your spread to 6 rods, riggers, divers, and shorter cores way away from the boat. I bump up the size of the bait and speed at night as well. I like the full moon period best. We have one coming up at the end of the month in case you want to give it a go.

Fished Friday 7am to 11 am, set up in front of Holland in 30 fow and whacked a nice brown around 7lbs on a 3 color on a coyote. Then we picked up and motored south to 70 fow and fished out to 120. We got 3 nice skamania to 14 lbs, a coho, a laker and some real fat kings to 16 lbs. 3-12 color was all good with greens and yellows. Riggers 30-50 down, divers 80 back cold water 40' down and bait and hooks all over. We left with 11 fish. Set up Saturday 7am in a little shallower and found good water but no fish. Moved back out to our waypoints and the fish and bait were gone, but we picked up a few on the same program. We moved in again and found a few fish and some bait and got a couple kings on 10 color carmel dolphin. We moved again a little north of the stacks in 50-70 fow and picked up a few more before we quit. Rigger 40 down lemon ice, green spinny green fly 80 back, and a watermelon on the 6 color took those fish. We ended up with 7, again 3 nice steelies 8 to 13 lbs, fat kings 6 to 16 lbs. Sunday it really blew so we motored south, upwind 30 minutes and trolled into the waves 70-140 fow at 7am. Took a couple nice kings early on the 11 and 13 color green spoons, then trolled back towards Holland. Took a couple more on the rigger 60 down lemon ice, and a full core with a green spoon. Fish were scattered and water was a lot warmer down towards Saugatuck.

We ended up 8 for15 or so with 2 lakers, 2 coho, and kings 6-8 lbs. 120-185 fow found a nice 50 degree slick we took most our fish off of. 2 color, 3 color, 6 color, 10 color and copper took rips, riggers 50-120 down with free slider. Diver 250 back on 1 took one too. blue veggie, lemon ice, purple thunder, black screwball, green flasher/green fly, and buffalo bill all took fish and rips. Great morning on the water.

No I meant my partner wouldn't let me change the bait.:

I've gotten smacked reeling them in to change a bait too.

We are having a swap meet for anyone that would like to buy fishing gear on Saturday, Feb 3. We will be selling items for fishing but we also are considering that it be open to sporting goods in general. No flea market crap, just good used gear that one no longer needs or use. Buyers can stop by from 10-5pm. Bring cash and change if possible to make it easier on the sellers who will have limited abilities to make change throughout the day. There is no cost for buyers, but again a donation would be appreciated to show our thanks for the opportunity to do this. Location has been set at Homefront Church, just off 196 near the Rivertown Crossings Mall. The address is 6265 8th Ave SW Grandville, MI 49418. We will have full run of the place with plenty of tables, chairs, and room to spread out in this new facility. Here is a google map to the location, please do not call the facility directly since this is a private event, contact myself or Mark (Adjusted) with any questions or issues. http://www.google.com/maps?f=d&saddr=&daddr=6265+8th+Ave+SW+Grandville,+ MI+49418&oi=manybox&ct=10&cd=1&resnum=1 There is shopping and plenty of great resturants nearby, so bring the family out for a day of fun, fishing, and good friends. See you there! Over 25 tables of used and new spoons, plugs, flashers, flies, meat rigs, meat, riggers, trolling motors, ice saws, decoys, ice jigs, tip ups, augers and more!

Now that's what I'm talkin about! I love a big spread.

I just picked up 4 new reels for core, to replace my tired old PENN 209's and 210's. I opted for the new PENN 220 GTO, and the 230 GTO. I will use the 220's for under 5 colors, and the 230's for 10 colors and under. A great reel for the buck, super smooth and a loud clicker. Hopefully pick up a couple rods at the swap or a show this winter. I also plan to abandon all but 1 of my deep copper rigs and go to assorted lengths of copper this year.

So what were the hot lures? Great job guys, looks like you had a blast.

My wife and I just finished a finance class that lasted 15 weeks. As part of the class we cut up our crecit cards and totalled and shredded the credit card offers. Over the course of the class and 16 families we collected over 5 million dollars in credit card offers. We also paid off $14,500.00 in debt, and made a budget to follow. This was tough at first, but removing the debt has sure made it easier to save money and pay the bills.

By calling they will stop for 1 year. If you write to the 3 major beureaus they will stop it indefinately.

Mike, be careful of copywright infringement when copying anything in full and post a link to the original just to be safe. http://faculty.gvsu.edu/videticp/waves.htm

I have had good luck with the Convectors on wire divers and copper.

If you spool 300 yards of 30# Power Pro as backer you can fit 300' of 30#, or around 200' of 45# copper no problem. Use the albright knot and 20# mono leader has done well. I have the Convector 45 set up the same way and did not get quite 300' of 30# copper on it, but it is a great producer when the fish are deep.

Great info Hit Man, thanks. We were the only boat in the Holland tourny that stuck around the second day after a dismal 1st day program. Kind of a funny feeling after all of the other boats take off and we had not pre fished it at all. We spanked them though and ended up weighing the heaviest box in the tourney and bumping us from 50+ to 6th place in the amateur side. Sometimes you have to play a hunch. We're still kicking ourselves for not entering the second chance.

Good point Jim, but it's really apples and oranges there. Trolling in a boat 2.5 mph plus and dragging the fish from the cold through warmer water at times, and sometimes from the depths has to be hard on the fish, especially if the fight lasts a while. With the eyes we are trolling with rod in hand mostly less than 1 mph and we stop when we get a fish. The water temps are always below 50 degrees and we unhook, sometimes take a quick pic, then let them go to spawn. We really have no desire to eat them when they are that old and they have always swam away to the depths. As I said I release fish all of the time. All shakers, big lakers, big browns get returned to the water unless I fish a tourney and they are legal. In fact I have released many fish just so we could keep fishing. I do feel bad when we see them float, but the times we have turned around to scoop them up they always swim away before we can get to them. Do they make it? I don't know nor pretend to. But I do know that uh oh feeling when one goes belly up and I call that my concience and have to question the ethics behind my decision to let them go. This does not mean I question anyone elses either.

Here is another link to a current study that shows a low mortality, but again not with trolled fish, but fish caught on a fly. http://www.acuteangling.com/Reference/C&RMortality.html To each his/her own as long as they fish legally and within their limits there should be no issue, just opinions.