Lure spread help...

[joeltammyx7]

I am still fairly new to the big lake. I have a question about my lure spread. I have 4 downriggers and 2 dipsy rods. I do not use meat rigs but I have flasher/fly, spoons and j plugs. My question is how many flasher/fly's to use vs. spoons and at what depth. Do you run flasher/fly at all depths including deep? Any general advice of how to run my 6 rod spread? I know this time of year people usually don't use j plugs but not sure how many spoons I should run vs. the flasher/fly. Thanks for any help!!

Joel

[fishsniffer]

this is a hard question to answer as it varies all the time..sometimes all flies and flashers..sometimes all spoons..sometimes its an all board spread..it mainly comes down to fishing the stuff..getting bit and load up on whats working..never get caught up in the thought process that a certain bait dont work at a certain time of year..plugs will work any time of year if the conditions call for it..a decent starting spread for this time of year is spoons in upper column and f/f deeper

[Gnarf]

i ran 6 rod spread all of last year with great success.

id start with a spoon on one rigger, flash fly on the other. same for the dipsys. and all spoons on the longlines. then as the fish bite, or dont bite, adjust the spread accordingly.

adjust the depths up and down every 30 mins or so to try and find fish.

expierimenting is the key, however its always a good idea to keep a couple setups that you know work. blue dolphin on deep copper/rigger and big white paddle/fly deep are good and yellows in the middle of the column always seem to put fish in the box.

good luck

[SUPERTRAMP]

The more baits you have in the water the more water you cover the better the results, We run 4 riggers with free sliders on all 4, up to 4 dipsy divers, and up to 6 long lines depending on how many we have on board. Our boat is a big one and we can fish up to 24 lines if we have 8 on board. However the best spread includes short lead cores 5 and 6 color, 300' of 45# copper along with the close to the boat presentations. I really like this set up, it gets 16 lines out on 12 rods and covers the entire water column. If the lake sets up u need to concentrate on the temp break and get some stuff on the bottom. As for meat rigs, I resisted until last season, now I am a true believer. After the first of May I always have up to 4 of them out on riggers and dipsy's.

[pentwater bite me]

,I agree f.f.deep one on each outandown. Don't. Be afraid to run them on your divers but you will have to exprement

Vifu

[cabelasfreak]

I too have only fished spoons, fly/flasher and J-plugs in years past. I am getting back on the water as I get a boat in 3 weeks and will be watching sunrises and sunsets from Lake Michigan once again. I am completely ignorant to Meat Rigs....what are they, what do they look like? Thanks for any help offered.

[klode]

Meat rigs are basically like little "smelt helmets" (what i call them anyway). You put the smelt head into this plastic helmet and push a tooth pic through it to hold it in place. There is a treble hook on it that you can hook to the smelt....they are not only used with smelts tho. Some people will use trout belly or hering.

I've just started to experiment with them this year....so dont know too much about them. I run them behind a flasher. Hopefully someone else will chime in and help shed some light.

Im pretty sure there are different types of meat rigs..i've only tried the helmet and whats called a "peanut" (peanut is just a treble hook with a peanut shaped spinner head in front)

[slickwater]

I ran a 6 rod spread for years. I would always put at least 1 flasher/fly down on my deepest rod. Always ran flasher/fly on my dipsies. Spoons on the other 3 rods mix of smaller spoons and mags. Then when a fish was caught I would change up lures that were not getting bit. But like everyone else has said it depends on the day what they want to hit.