Wire Dipsy versus Wire with Lead Ball

[eastcoasttransplant]

So in inquiring about wire line fishing, I realize that many guys utilize wire dipsys for kings but how many utilize suspended wire with 16oz. or greater lead balls?

Just curious what you find is the major difference using the lead balls versus the dipsys...besides having them pull directionally of course and how you go about determining where roughly in the water column the presentation is.

I was thinking of maybe picking up a few 16oz lead balls and giving it a shot this summer.

Thanks all.

[Yooperdad]

PMJASPER, you will get a lot of responses to your question, I'm sure, so I'll offer something a little different.

I didn't like the wire and ball down the chute as it seems to be in the way of everything and causing tangles. And for me, dipsies catch a lot of fish, so I wasn't willing to give them up in favor of wire with ball weights. So, off to the side I went with Church Walleye boards, pulling wire and a 1# ball. The boards were just barely able to stay above water on a calm day. I gave up on the 1# balls pretty quickly.

Copper works very well to get to some of the same depths, and does well off boards too, especially Z-Boards after replacing the front release.

Just something else to think about.

[killerbe20]

there are a lot of guys running wire/braid with lead weights off of boards, and have great success with it. Running these "thumper" rods is very popular north of Milwaukee for some reason.

I personally do not have any positive or negative input on it.

[EdB]

I love my 1-1/2 lb weights(I think they run better than 1lbs) but I run mine off mono or braid and run them in the low diver spot most of time with a high diver outside it. If the low divers are smacking fish, I'll run one down the chute. You can move them to either side when down the chute if your landing a fish. I never have problems with tangles because they are behind the riggers and if I have low divers out, I have then set on 1 so if I move a 1-1/2lb that was down the chute off the side, they still stay out of the divers.

[eastcoasttransplant]

It's interesting because obviously I've read about the thumper rods and even deployed them back in NJ for fishng bottom lake trout but I also have seen a few videos and articles about fishing them suspended for kings.

Tim Dawiduak of Howies Tackle still runs lead balls and says he likes them because it gets the gear running in it's own "clean" water out behind of the boat.

Now with a 6 rod spread, I normally just run my two leadcores, two divers and two riggers but I always think it's worth having different arsenals on the boat just in case.

Maybe this is a perfect example.....last year I was out in some choppy conditions and trying to run braid and wire divers. Even though I tightened up the releases, I still had the dipsys trip from time to time in larger waves. Perhaps in conditions like that I could scrap the dipsys and run the wire suspended via lead balls. The balls wouldn't trip and thus might make the presentation easier. Nothing like letting out 250ft of braid or wire, putting it in the rod holder, only to have it trip immediately.

Just another option I'm thinking.

[Grant Sadler]

I ran a thumper rod if you will last year straight down the shute when I was over to Pentwater in 60'-120' f.o.w and it was a very busy rod all morning, I would run out 75' of 20lb mono and clip on 1lb ball with the or8 off shore w/the pin, then zero the counter and send it down 75' w/ a green spatter j-plug, I just set the drag tight enough to hold, this year fish was deeper and it was not as prductive, maybe a couple of fish.

[ChampionShip]

Just about anyone you see running lead weights on boards are using Big Birds with Scotty pinch pad releases in front(I like red offshores with the pin in the back)........myself included (this is the only reason I have Big Birds on board). Church boards just don't get it done for some reason, niether do offshores. I like Church better than any other for copper and lead though.

[anonymous]

I use a 2lb ball occasionally in a 6 rod spread in place of a dipsy if I can't get them to go and lead or copper is working. It makes a good stealth presentation as you can use infinite lead lengths. You can also get deeper than a dipsy with this rig. You might be better off going with the new directional torpedo diver because it has even less resistance, meaning less set back and more depth. There is no reason that a 1 or 1.5# ball won't work for this, you just get more set back as you go lighter.

[Line Dancin]

typically i use wire and lead balls for lakers. I use either a 1 or 1.5 lb ball. typically we will one one in each low diver position and one down the chute. Like Ed said when you get a fish on just move the shoot rod over to one corner to clear it out of the way for landing a fish. i usually move it to a corner rigger holder till the fish is landed. This is a deadly way to kill lakers. never tried it suspended for kings as dipsies work so well for king fishing.

[eastcoasttransplant]

I was looking at those torpedos today. A little pricy but might be an option in choppy weather.

[KJ pluggin]

I have only ran thumper rods on our boat a couple times but it seemed like I was putting a little to much in one area for a boat with a 8.5 beam and four riggers. Next year I would like to give the directional torpedo's a try for when the dipsies go dead.

[ChampionShip]

I was looking at those torpedos today. A little pricy but might be an option in choppy weather.

We ran Torpedo's a bunch this past summer- it was a terrific experience and I give the credit to my Buddy Gilligan........here's what we learned:

1. Torpedo's are awesome for fishing deep even when clipped to leadcore of copper when the fish were out in 500 FOW. They're super efficient and their dive charts are awesome!

2. A standard planer board will pull the smaller ones pretty darn well, way better than it would have pulled a Dipsy.

3. The DIRECTIONAL ones (which work great in place of a Dipsy) don't like to go out to the side in anything but calm weather- the pull back of the rod has a tendency to spin the diver on axis which doesnt allow it to pull to the side.....standard ones still work just fine but they're right next to the boat

4. The rod/reel combo needed for them is pretty darn basic.....you can just use whatever- naturally a line counter is favored but you could count passes.

5. Despite what I heard about fighting fish on them before I used them- they don't really have much drag, far less than a pump handle!

[KJ pluggin]

We ran Torpedo's a bunch this past summer- it was a terrific experience and I give the credit to my Buddy Gilligan........here's what we learned:

2. A standard planer board will pull the smaller ones pretty darn well, way better than it would have pulled a Dipsy.

What size torpedo's were you using? I have been trying to decide if I want to run torpedo's or dive bombs with my copper and core setups next year. I like the price of the dive bombs much better though.

[eastcoasttransplant]

If you guys are using leadcore, are you attaching you torpedo where the leader attaches to the leadcore or where your backing attached to the leadcore?

In addition, how are the "releases" on the torpedos? I'm concerned that I could lose a torpedo without having a secondary clip attached to the line.

Any info would be appreciated.

[KJ pluggin]

If you guys are using leadcore, are you attaching you torpedo where the leader attaches to the leadcore or where your backing attached to the leadcore?

In addition, how are the "releases" on the torpedos? I'm concerned that I could lose a torpedo without having a secondary clip attached to the line.

Any info would be appreciated.

I have not ran any of the torpedo's but I think most guys are attaching them in the start of the backing. The releases are Offshore OR 16's, the ones with the pin in the pinch pad. I use them on my boards as well and have never had one fail.

[Line Dancin]

I agree with Kyle on the OR-16 Release. You will not lose your torpedo as long as you set it right. Get the line behind that pin ever time and there is no way to loose it. I also use OR-16s on my planer boards.

[ChampionShip]

I like the offshore releases, but haven't had one of the Church ones fail yet. Be sure to add a berrol swivel between diver and realease- trust me on this one:rolleyes: We used all the snapper, shark, musky and cuda all summer, but the snapper and shark pulled no problem behind a church board, a Musky pulled so-so but I'd want to try it with a big bird before I rule it out on a board...don't even try a Cuda unless you have a triple ski or maybe the new church boards- dunno yet, haven't tried it. To gain more depth, we added the diver at the backing like everyone else said- same as a dive bomb. Our favorite setup was what was described by the owner, Matt Sawrie......Mono or braid with 50' of fluoro leader.

-Champ

PS- I don't want it to seem like I learned all this on my own, I had an awesome teacher that taught me how it all worked and how to tie it all together.

[Pioneer]

Mark, When you and Tony were running them what were your experiances with the directional torpedo's. I would like to substitute my inside divers for torpedo's with the finns out. How far do they go out and in rough water or do they spin or just not want to pull out? Talked to Tony abot a week ago, he's a hunting machine. Chris

[ChampionShip]

Mark, When you and Tony were running them what were your experiances with the directional torpedo's. I would like to substitute my inside divers for torpedo's with the finns out. How far do they go out and in rough water or do they spin or just not want to pull out? Talked to Tony abot a week ago, he's a hunting machine. Chris

Chris,

Tony has a little different setup for his divers than I do, but it's pretty much all the same. He typically only runs 1 diver per side so the directional thing isn't much use to him since his main Torpedo diver rods are like 14' long.... he can easily clear his riggers that are always in an out-down position. We have run the directionals in place of dipsy divers and they worked great. If you're running it as an INSIDE diver, don't bend the fins- they go out quite a ways and will likely be too close to your high diver.

I ran them with 2 on a side in place of dipsy's with plenty of success. Inside diver was one that I had basically sitting like they show on the Torpedo website in 'predator ambush position' right above my rigger. High diver was directional and they make a pretty darn good push away from the boat so I wasn't really concearned with tangles there........however, in the rough stuff I was trying to set them in, while down in Port Washington, I was trying to get a directional Torpedo over top of an inside dipsy set on 1.......it didn't really work that well but the waves were all of 4-6' that day. I talked to Matthew at Torpedo and he said that a longer stretch from the clip to the diver will help that a bunch and to use a berrol swivel in line. If I had used one of Gilligan's long/outrigger rods to get over top of my inside diver I'd likely have been ok. As for them not pulling to the side, you're right- they just spun when the rod would pull back straight. Hope that helps! Tony invited me to come out and shoot some stuff, but I've been pretty busy with work this fall so I haven't been able to, but he has been killing some pheasants! He taught me an absolute TON this year, and your fly works well on just about everything I ran it on!

-Mark

[eastcoasttransplant]

Hum..sounds like the torpedo guys are very helpful.

My thought is using torpedos was for the choppy conditions where regular dipsys might want to release due to wave action.

Last year we had a few trips where we would set the dipsy back a few hundred feet, put it in the rod holder only to have the dipsys release due to wave action. Next we tightened up the releases, fairly tight, to prevent the false releases. However, if we hooked a smaller fish we'd be fisghting the dipsy and the fish, due to how tight we had to set the dipsy release.

Here's where I thought the torpedo could come in handy. It would still take the lure out and back away from the boat but there would be no worry about false releases. I'm just curious on how the directional torpedos really work in rougher conditions. I was thinking about picking up 2 shark torpedos and giving them a shot this year.

Lastly, so I am understanding that the addition of a barrel swivel between the torpedo release clip and the actual torpedo will help the rotation of the directional torpedo in rougher seas?

Thanks guys.

[ChampionShip]

I dunno how much I'd bank on the directional part of a Torpedo diver in rough weather as I didn't fish much after getting that advice from Matt, just need to adjust your dipsy divers a bit more to stop false realeasing or just use slide divers. Regular torpedo's worked well in the waves, they just don't go all that far away from the side of the boat.