Yankee Troller

This is a beauty! It'll be hard for me to pass this up if it's still available when I'm back in Shumway come September! I stare at it on the way in and out of Shumway every day! Ever open her up and see what it's top end is? Also, are there 3 or 4 blade wheels?

We run our SD's on 25lb mono with a 8/9' of Fluoro. I like the light bite, however, I only run them with spoons. We also only run them when fishing the top 30', or in 30' of water or less. I honestly have no clue of the dive curve on them unlike my wires. I usually start high and slide her back until she fires or i want to change the lure. If you watch the Salmon Showdown WHI episodes from 2014 we took a slide diver shot in the first video. We were fishing Salmon in 20' of water. It's a great presentation for that. I have seen guys run them on wire or braid. I have an idea of how to set it up, but I have never wanted to try. It's just another depth curve you have to learn.

Great report!

Vince, you made that sound so exciting!

The guys that have used chirp on the lake that I know are saying it isn't worth it, and are still using traditional 2D sonar. Garmin maps are Garmin maps and those units wont let you use Navionics or Lake Master. If you're not happy with Garmin maps in your area then your kinda screwed. I have no experience with Garmin electronics other than some buddies running them for GPS and Radar. Their only gripe is the propriety maps. I have been a Humminbird user for about 7/8 seasons now. I have run 8xx's, 9xx's, 11xx's, and now the ONIX series. I can answer most questions about the HB units, but Garmin is foreign to me.

The Garmin stuff is fairly new, so I doubt you'll see much on it this early in the season. To be honest a 83/200 or 50/200 will work just fine on that bird. Why do you think you need to see down 2500'? DI and SI wont go as deep as traditional 2D sonar, which is what you will use most of the time. Yes, you can split the screen and use all of them at the same time. With the traditional "core" units 8xx, 9xx, 11xx you were stuck with the views that Humminbird gave you. With the new ONIX series you can create your own views up to four windows on the screen.

Jim, They both have switchfire, which is a setting you want turned on. You can always just buy a 83/200 (Humminbird) or a 50/200 (Airmar) for the 859ci HD DI if the price is right. I don't think the ducer coming with the 859ci HD DI will suit your needs for trolling. The 200 frequency would work, but that's a narrow cone and you'd miss a lot. The other frequencies are side and down imaging frequencies, which no one really uses for trolling the great lakes for Salmon and Trout.

I'm with Bruce on this one as well. Look at how tiny that thing is next to those needle nose. I wouldn't call it an adult either, but I'm also a keyboard captain and not a biologist.

I talked with a MI guy in the Southern part and they aren't seeing smaller than usual Coho. They do Spring stockings from what I could gather from him. Maybe these are the Fall stockings that didn't fair well?

I've been running the Short Shallows. With my line set-up (15lb main/10lb Fluoro leader) I can hit bottom in about 7' back 80'. No reason the long ones wouldn't work.

Nice!

You cant run those Bay Rats in less than 7' bud. The Smithwicks depend on the bill. If it's a floating version there are two size bills on the 4.5". You don't want the larger one in shallow water.

We had some new guys from Maine this weekend. The boys got their fathers a Brown Trout charter for Christmas. Nice job boys! Saturday morning was a tough morning, but after a quick tip from a board memeber we moved and we landed on top of them. Thanks Tomy Lombardozzi! The Atlantic was an EPIC battle on light line! Lots of pups today, but you can see some nice ones were mixed in. Natural stick baits were best until the wind kicked up, and then it was back to bright stuff. Studs today were a Rapala Brown Trout F9 and a Smithwick Rogue in Firetiger. Sunday we went back to the same water we finished in on Saturday. The bite was a slow pick for us. It was very spot oriented too even though there was good water all the way down. Best stick was a Smithwick Firetiger. Lots of pups today too. Good to see for the future of the fishery! Both days we had to deal with wind, but these guys went home very happy!