chowder

I got a small flash unit for charging glo spoons and flashers. Is just one flash exposure enough for a few spoons, or a pair of flashers? How far away from the baits should the flash be?

I did not get very far trying to talk to anybody at Simrad, your better off talking to people who have an AP 12 or 14, or somebody who has installed a few.

Do the batteries not charge evenly if they are hooked up in parallel to charge from the alternator? There must be a reason that this is not standard practice?

What is the basic idea with an "on board charging" unit? I have a Starcraft Islander with 2 12v batteries, one (which I will call the primary)I assume charges from the I/O, the other I have to charge with 110v unit plugged into a socket. I am not sure why you can't charge the 2cd battery from the primary battery. All my electronics and riggers run off the 2cd battery, so If you have a long day, or if you forget to charge it, it get's pretty tired, one time I had to patch the primary battery over to the riggers and the sonar and down speed so I could keep fishing. Does an "on board" charging system solve this situation, and how much do they cost to purchase and install?

Well, the more info I get, the less I feel like I know about these Sharks, so I must be getting somewhere! As far as the Blacks release goes, is the one with the cable what enables you to not hook to the weight, the other version has a snap- no cable? Tim, the picture I found of the Walker release makes it look like a stacker type, with 2 pinch pads and a clip- is this the one you are talking about?

What kind of releases are you guys using with the sharks. I have some stacker type releases I could use. It does not look like you can snap onto the eye, seems like the tail could catch it?

I am leaning pretty hard towards the 12#, after comments here + some pms. The Shark website makes a point of saying that the faceted finish can confuse a salmon if you are using flashers or longer leads, what do you guys make of that?

More issues; Do you shark pros run the smooth/stealth model if you are using flashers on the rigger rod? Is it a good idea to get a mix of smooth and faceted, or what?

Checked out the site, thanks. I guess I am leaning towards the 12#. I want to think these will : 1-Help keep lines from crossing ,enabling us to turn sharper. 2-Offer some attraction, due to the facets and size.3-reduce blowback , especially on the probe rigger, and 4-not kill my rigger motors. If anybody thinks I should get the 15 # instead, TELL ME NOW! Thanks- Andy

About how far out to the side will a diver be on 3, how about 4?

I guess I am still interested in the shark weights (peoples comments were generally positive when I posted a question about them last fall) but I have Cannon Mag 10s and I know they can't handle 20#. I think they could handle the 12# ok , I don't know about 15# . What's the best place to shop for the Sharks, maybe Santa needs to know!

Rod, I am guessing you don't try to gain on a fish that whacks the outside dipsy at first , but just keep tension on and let the fish take out line till you figure the boat has cleared it of the deep dipsy and rigger leads and then bring it up the chute?

If I want to run 2 dipsy rods on the same side, what practical things come into play? Obviously the one to the far outside has to be set way out, right? Would it need to go in the water 1st too? We usually run our mag wire dds @ 2.0, and I would be interested in running a smaller dd to the outside of the wire dd, or more likely, a shallow running(30-40') slide diver.It seems like this second diver line would be ok if the diver was set to max tilt and went in 1st. My only experience with this was on some one else's boat where we got a pretty good snarl between a wire dipsy and a super braid slide diver. I am interested in using this on the FLX , not Ontario!

Troutman, what's your preference for baits on the copper rig? I got the same setup as you from ATOMIC and I got a 300' setup to run off a board, or to save my 10 year old's arms when we don't need to get deeper than 60'.I just got these setups wet once at the end of the season! Do you run flasher/fly combos on these most of the time, or spoons? Also, you said you use squid baits (I am assuming you use these instead of flies, behind a flasher) which ones have worked for you, I have not tried them yet.

Dave, glad you picked up on the Keating book, if you are motivated (and it sounds like you are) it will not take that long to get a handle on the basic techniques. PM me if you need an inexpensive set of downriggers, I have a pair of used swivel base Long arm Riviera units that I bought on Ebay and then never used them. See ya around on the board!

I have a Lowrance 525c DF ext gps in my 16.5' alumacraft and the Global Map5200 in my Islander. The factory maps range from poor to none, so I got the Navionics Platinum lake map SD chip. In the manual it says to download the navionics driver from the Lowrance support site, using a blank SD card and a SD reader with a USB port, then I put the SD card into the units to update them so they will run the Navionics map SD card. If any body has done this could you tell me if it went smooth or were there some things I should know about to make it easier. I did get a blank 2 GB SD card and a SD card reader w/ a USB interface.

When I got into this last spring I got the 525c DF and I have felt it was money well spent. I am in the process of installing the Navionics Platinum Hot Map, which requires a software update. To do the update, I need to do a download onto a blank sd chip using card reader with a USB port, then run the chip through the 525 and then it should read the Navionics Map. Has anybody done this? I just hope I am on the right track- the factory map is only fair, nothing that you can truly troll structure with.

Maybe a real expert can chime in on this but I would think that wire or at least a super braid would enable a DD or SD to angle out to the max much better than mono because they have less resistance to the water. I have not tried getting 50' to the side with DD, so I do not know how much 18# test line to let out to get a spoon to run at 20' with the DD maxed out- maybe somebody does? Another thought, if you can run 2 boards, why not use lead core off them ? You could alternate between 3,4, and 5 colors and you would be sure of the depth you are searching. Then use the slide divers or small dipsy divers to cover the area between the planer lines and the downrigger spread. Maybe you are all ready using leadcore off the inline boards, but if you are not this could be a good addition to the spread.

Team Helgoya, here are few basic ideas I have from reading your post: 1. The line you are using sounds too light, unless you are using a very small dipsy. 2. It is best to use a reel with a linecounter and rod that is made for dipsy divers 3. Use a rod holder that is made to handle the strain from the dipsy diver 4. Do not use light line from the diver to the bait 5. The combination of a wireline rod, wire line and the dipsy diver is well worth the time and money spent experimenting with it. I would not troll deep water without using them. 6. Use a snubber with a wireline dipsy setup- at least to start with! P.S. I have family & friends in Sweden & Norway.

Stinger, NICE BROWN- now that's what I'm talking about! Stan, the flasher in the picture looks like a full size Pro Troll, as the water warms up in Cayuga, the browns start gradually moving deeper, especially as the day progresses. In June we had browns hit from 15'-50' in 30-200+ FOW. Tim, I like the swivel idea, just have to make sure it goes thru guides & reel, do you have any recollection of the size?

Tim, are you going with the albright knot from the super braid to the big game on the SD rigs?

Stan,on Cayuga lake,one of the Finger Lakes(40 miles long, 400+ deep) my best success rate came from trolling shallow, stained water with stix behind Offshore inlines. On Lake Ontario ,out of Oswego ,we did much better with shallow riggers, running long leads. I am planning to use dual planer boards this spring because I think larger browns are ultra spooky in shallow/clear water and also even though we have a set of inlines with the tattle flags, the dinks get dragged and the mediums don't fight much until the board is off. We also will run 2 colors off the inlines in the spring to search multiple depths. Browns behave rather differently in Cayuga than their counterparts on Ontario, especially after the water warms up, then they are frequently out of temp, thats when a multi depth approach can really pay off.

Sounds good Tim! We were hoping to get the Simrad installed this fall, still waiting for a call saying the shop has an open bay, but now we have a foot of snow and the roads are covered in salt, sand and frozen slush, I think the AP-15 is going to spend the winter in the box instead of in the boat. I pulled all the displays, disconnected the batteries and mothballed it yesterday, I drained & winterized it a while back but we were hoping to get out again with it to check out the auto pilot once it was in- the die hards claim the fingers have good action from Thanksgiving to February. I have had a key employee out since Oct. (dislocated shoulder), so between the weather and that, it's looking like the late season fishing is not happening.

I have used Berts ratchet rod holder in the track setup for dipsy setups and I like them better than traxtech, watch out for the black rubber guide getting pulled off if a youngster grabs the rod out of the holder with a fish on, it can come off and wind up in the drink. It is important to check fittings - dipsy rigs put a lot of strain and vibration on everything! I have heard people say that after a few years, even the Bert's holder will start to show the wear and tear that a Dipsy rig hands out.

Tim, thanks got em ordered! I also used the small pro-troll flashers with peanuts & spoons without much results, we got very few browns off riggers on Cayuga in shallow spring water, but at Oswego we got them all that way. We have 3 riggers in the Islander, so we should be able to search a little better behind the boat, then a pair of sd rigs and stix off the dual boards and we should be in the brown business! Fat Nancy's won't have those NBK copper cup stingers till "Spring", hopefully I will remember to get some. I did get some copper cup side spoons from Warrior in the small scorpion size.