jimski2

Mounting downriggers too far aft on the stern. Makes them hazardous and difficult to work with. Mount them more forward so hooking up to the ball is easy. Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United

Another thought might be to add a couple pieces of new aluminum plates across the transom to strengthen it. Looking at the law enforcement boats and their transom are triple plated to support dual and triple engines. No wood is involved. Since your Crestliner is welded aluminum this could also work. Sent from my iPhone using Lake Ontario United

The larger hot n tots with a trailing small spoon on a leader behind the middle hook work well on the west coast trout fishing. The plug acts as a lure and diving planer. Something different but it also works on walleyes.

Early spring fishing needs slow moving stick baits. Rapala type lures moving at two MPH or less give the right action. The deep diver plugs are trolled faster and not as productive. If the sun comes up after 8:00 AM and you have a bluebird sky, you may have to fish deeper like fifty foot depths where light weight spoons trolled slower are the most effective then.

Come on now, we all know the best chair is a bar stool, easy to get off and stand up. Easy to sit in for hours.

There is absolutely no reason for slot size, catch limits or restrictions on native fish populations. Education on fish takes is very important but just set your catch take on your personal needs. Complaints about fish restrictions usually are started in "Mahogany Ridge" [bar rooms] not professional biologists. Our biggest problems today is the under harvest of species such as perch that forage on the fry and fingerlings of walleye. These do gooders have screwed up more fishing opportunity with their size and catch limits. Limits are fine for stream stocked fishery programs but limits on large lakes do not work. Hook and line fishing never over harvested any fishery as harvest activity stops when production falls. Nature will take its course, if you feel there is a problem stop taking walleyes, etc. on your own. Concentrate on taking perch that are a bigger control on the walleye biomass.

Over the years I have seen the battery taken out of the towing vehicle when the boat battery was dead. The next thing they do is buy a new vehicle battery. The pounding your battery takes in a boat shorts the plates out. Marine batteries are built with plate protectors to protect the plates from shorting out. My trolling motor charges the battery along with the main engine. When the riggers are rolling the kicker motor lugs down with the extra load from the riggers.

Your chart plotter needs a bottom contour readings to really help fishing. Get it.

Stick baits with split shot are the best used in the spring for brown trout and early season walleye. In the early warm near shore water when you stop or turn the boat they float up off the bottom to avoid snags where you lose a lot of valuable fishing time. Spoons sink and snags happen too often. The bad thing of spring fishing the shallow water is time lost on snags. This is the time of year when ninety per cent of the fish are in ten per cent of the water. It is important to use your surface water temperature readings to concentrate your fishing area.

You must prepare for any situation no matter what. Yes there are nut jobs out there.

You can throw or cut loose your anchor line and motor away. prepare your crew to take action.

A lot of anglers especially in Ohio are using in line weights instead of lead core. With side planers the need for extreme long leads from the boat checking your lines is a lot faster and happens more often.. They are producing good catch rates without the time consuming reeling to bring in the lead core rigs. Consider changing your ways. We caught fish before lead core came around so faster setups and quicker catching is available.