Sk8man

WTG Mark and cool report We trolled for 6 hrs yesterday AM out of Hughes with 6 rods out and never had a touch. In retrospect I think we should have started late afternoon. Glad you got into them bud.

Nothing worked for 6 hours of trolling yesterday off Hughes and only marked about half a dozen fish but some bait was there.

Best of luck with the situation....perseverance will pay off in the end.

.040 wire is about right for them the .30 wire will bend too much and more than .40 is tough to work with (bending eyelets etc.

Good luck with the deer Rich

Nice going Kade!

I know you said you used carb cleaner but have you tried running a can of Sea Foam through the carburator? I think the fact that the motor sat for 3 years combined with putting probable bad gas in it (even with stabilizer added 1 year is considered by many to be the longest to keep it and that is non-ethanol gas). I would be considering having the carburator rebuilt and taking the motor to a capable mechanic to evaluate....certainly cheaper than buying a new one. I can relate to your frustration though as both my main motor and brand new kicker are in for servicing.

Guess that solved that hypothesis

In looking at this I can't help but wonder if maybe the hull of the boat itself might have a manufacturing defect such as misaligned strakes and chines combining with the wrong prop?

Keith makes some great points and I'm visualizing him in his lab coat on the boat :lol:

Brian makes a great point and I forgot to mention that earlier. That is what I do as well and used to have temp meters in the past as well (the old Fishawk etc.). I clip the Fishawk TD to my downrigger when I'm out in say 120 ft of water before I set my lines out and run it down to 100 ft. I have a clipboard with a sheet listing depth in 5 ft intervals covered in plastic and I use a grease pencil to record the temp at each 5 ft interval and then look at the temp profile created. When there is an established thermocline it shows as the most rapid change in temp between intervals. I set my lines so that the thermocline is located in the middle of my setup. It should be noted that sometimes the thermocline varies greatly throughout the water column as do the underwater currents so this is just a "starting point" but it usually makes a lot of difference in results knowing the approximate relationship. If I had a Fishhawk X series unit I'd be doing it in "real time" with the probe rigger and adjusting accordingly. A s far as determining the depth I'm running again it is not precision trolling like with a downrigger. I "estimate" using the known length of my rig line (e.g. 120 ft = 10x12 bead chains) and then visually estimate the amount of mainline (wire) let out while watching the angle of the wire itself in the water from the rod tip and my boat speed and adjust as needed. If you are running braid and still have the line guide present you can count the times it goes back and forth on the reel as an estimate as well.

Joe I think earlier I mentioned that rig fishing is not "precision trolling" it is more like "prospecting for fish" or trying to "cover the bases" and I guess a shotgun vs. a 22 All these methods have their place in the fishing arsenal and I still do most of them and switch off depending on the situation (e.g. Lake O vs. the Finger Lakes for example) and it pays to be versatile sometimes even in the way specific setups are put together. Probably the most important thing in all of this is to have fun at what you are doing, try to learn from our successes and failures alike, and to get better at whatever we do in the process. Good luck to all you folks fishing in the Owasco Tourney