John's Tuition

Slipknot charters, Captain Lenny.

I used to run into this a LOT before I had the money to invest in reels with better drags. I was constantly bending hooks or snapping off leads. Couple of things that will help is to switch to longer mono leads as they give you more stretch. I've done double snubbers in the past but it doesn't help as much as you would think. The biggest thing is to loosen the drag as soon as the fish hits and before you attempt to take it out of the rod holder. Sounds like all other variables have been thoroughly discussed here.

@R3Fishing You don't need to invest in 2 more wire divers. Most people, myself included, use braided line on what's commonly referred to as your high divers. You just need a 10 foot rod if you are running a 9 foot for your wire divers. Run both rod holders parallel to the water or as low as you can, because the biggest issue I've encountered with them is getting your planer boards into them when bringing those in because the angle of the line with the dipsy on a 3 setting is pretty flat and extends quite a ways behind your boat above the water line. The other issue is that they can, and do, get tangled with your longer coppers. Typically they don't bother the shorter coppers if you are using mag divers on them because they sink deeper with the extra weight and size. I generally don't run them unless I have an experienced crew on board with me or I'm fishing solo and running an aggressive 3 rod spread (rigger, low and high). They can also come in handy for combat fishing when running planers is not practical due to all the boat traffic. You just have to be very carful about how sharp you turn and the rip currents around the piers can cause problems. Hope that helps.

Awesome! Glad they finally showed you some love. I've been struggling as of late, also. However, Friday night we were 7 for 11 out of Holland and all of our big fish (4 bites) came on meat rigs 220 back on wire diver. Our other hot rig was a mag UV Green Dolphin 120 down on rigger.

@Seahunt210 Water temps are TOTALLY different now compared to Thursday, so depths probably don't mean anything now. Hopefully, now that the GHOC tourney is done there will be more reports. I'd like to find a 28lb king, myself 🙂 Nice work @Bobr!

Seems unusual for this time of the year. 😔