Sk8man

There is more to safe ice than just the thickness.....the quality and hardness of it are as critical and often ignored and underwaater currents can change things in hours underneath without it being apparent.

A lot of valid points here in both directions. As a fishing dinosaur (kinda like Fishstix) I've spent a lot of time during my life fishing without the aid of the newest and greatest :"gizmos". I do use an X4D at this point and years ago I used the predecessor to it that was a temp device that was on a reel with 100 ft or so with a thermistor probe at the end that measured just temp, but do I depend on it to solve all the fishing riddles? NO. It is merely one more tool in the fishing arsenal. For anyone looking to become a skilled fisherperson it is a huge mistake to think that any one tool can "magically" make you a stellar fisherperson. All of these instruments have a learning curve and fishing itself for the different species has different learning curves as well. The basic level is data collection, interpretation, and adaptation to the information presented to be successful. Fishstix is an "old school" very competent fisherman and his points should not be ignored. Learning to fish successfully for the target species before reliance on all the "gizmos" is critical. Very experienced fisherpersons do a lot of things seemingly automatically such as perceiving changes in the wind direction and verlocity, surface changes in the water surface, the appearance of rod tips, estimation of current direction and numerous other things involving attention to detail. This information gathering serves as a baseline for figuring out what tactics, setups, or changes might be be productive. Extensive experience with this process makes for a successful fisherperson and can be far more effective than just the reliance on any one instrument or piece of data for that matter. The Fishhawk becomes most effective when you already have these learned skills because of the value of the specific information it adds to the situation, as does a capable depth finder. Both these items require interpretation based on experience in their use. Combining all these things is what gets consistent results and makes one a skilled fisherperson.

The lampricide treatment conducted at the stream mouths and stream sections targets the ammocoete (larval) stage of the lampreys which is basically when they are most vulnerable to the chemicals. It isn't to my knowledge effective against adults. The exact dilution of the chemicals and supportive environmental (low wind, no flooding etc.) condiitions need to be right for it to be effective and to minimize collateral damage. This is a very different situation than trying to kill the adult lampreys which can live up to 15 years or more in the lake. These lampreys look pretty much like medium sized ones so they still have some years left if they were to still live. Previous years high water conditions in the streams which either delayed or prevented treatment efforts in previous years may have resulted in these guys being out there in the numbers they apparently are. Even if treatment efforts are successful it can take years to see the results at the lake level. Have to wonder Steve if those guys may have come from either Wilson or Kashong Creeks as I don't think they are treated.

Thank you Chad for all that you do to keep this website the high quality forum that it is. Happy New Year to you and your family as well as to the entire LOU family

Just an FYI the reels are Daiwa Sealine 47H's They also make newer Sealine 47's but with a different designation SG3B etc.and they are a different reel. I have a dozen of the 47H's and they work great for riggers and outriggers etc.if taken care of.....very versatile reels.

The "usual" spot for fraying is near the actual terminal connection so your spot brings up "wire integrity" as a possible issue.. You may want to carefully check over the rest of the wire to determine its integrity. If other questionable spots detected - replace the wire. If not, and you re-terminate I'd snip off a few feet of the wire before doing it and carefully crimp a crimp sleeve to whatever type of connector you are using making sure it doesn't have "wiggle room" in the sleve itself. Make sure the crimp sleve is tight enough diameter to fit the doubled strands of wire without excess back and forth movement of the wire. Crimp it in two places (e.g. from both sides of the sleve). One of my downriggers has had the same connection for 30 years, the other I put new wire on about 15 yrears ago and that connection is still good.....so the system works. You didn't mention the type of downrigger connectoryou presently have but follow the instructions for it and crimp as mentioned and you shouldn't have any problems.

Come on Rob....you always have those 50 lb salmon to look forward to...snap out of it

I all probability it is the same as pictured above. The emergency handle on later models had two fittings that were offset in opposite directions. The Marlin was a saltwater version of the Mag 10A.

The neat thing is the basic muskybob recipe is so solid you can add things of your own to your tastes without spoiling it

I'm quite sure it is the one for the electric Mag 10A. I may have inadverantly thrown out 2 of them embedded in the styrofoam boxes the Mag 10A's came in back in 1984 or 85 when I purchased them from Canandaigua Fishing Tackle. (I'm sure some still remember that store and greatly miss it) The handle designed for the downriggers after that point was a different design and won't fit or work on the older downriggers.