Sk8man

I'm not currently a member of FLT but I've fished a couple tourneys with them with Jason and John is right they are a great bunch of knowledgeable guys with a wealth of experience and are some of the best fishermen on the Finger Lakes despite many of them being "southenders" :lol:

Dick is right... that info on the Bloodrun site will give you a real good jump on things.

Might want to put some padding around your new boat Nick and maybe even bring a chain saw with you

I don't think the particular object (e.g. flasher) you use is the most critical part of the equation. The trick is to attract the fish by some sort of commotion and then present the bait (spoon, fly etc.) as something vulnerable or wounded trailing behind the commotion (which may of may not represent a school of fish or perhaps a fish that has hit some bait and the lure trailing is thought to be something it wounded and you're trying to "trigger" the aggression or feeding response. There are various ways to set this up ranging from hooking a blank flasher or dodger right in back of the downrigger weight without anything on it and having your actual lures trailing from slightly above it and behind and a slider can even used above the main lure to add further enticement.. The most common setup is to have the lure actually trailing the flasher or dodger itself at various lengths. At different speeds various flashers or dodgers (or Spin Doctors) will create a much different effect in the water (e.g. level of turbulence) and to the degree that this mimics something the fish is interested in each will have varying success so it is advisable to pay close attention to details (and perhaps record it down) when something does work and repeat it as closely as possible for that particular setup regardless of what is being used as the attractor. As has been mentioned before there are a lot of "gimmicks" out there aimed at attracting the fisherman's wallet rather than fish.

thumburn makes a good point. There is a time and place for all these tactics and if you are able to do it dedicating rods and reels to specific setups is the way to go so that you can flexibly adjust to whatever conditions you find out there.

It is kinda like saying "Do I want a lion or a tiger for my pet" They are both very different "animals" with quite different 'habits". In this a case the usage is quite different. The wire lines let you get quite deep and often involve using a dipsey diver and an attractor with a fly or spoon in the most common instance with the wire line cutting through the water in conjunction with the dipsey (or it could be a weight). The copper setup is usually rather more of a "weighted topline" approach to achieving depth and distance behind the boat most commonly with a lure by itself but it can also be used with a dipsey but the drag is greater in the water. The copper can be deployed off either inline or big boards (preferably the latter because of the drag in the water). To use wire off boards it is much trickier but can be done. With both you have the be VERY careful to let them out slowly to avoid kinking them. With thecopper you have more severe depth limitations because most reels for them will only tolerate about 600 ft max with backing (typically braid) at most and if you ever try reeling in that amount you will probably wish to run "shorter coppers" after that experience You can easliy get 1000 ft of 30 lb stainless stranded wire on many reels and achieve greater depth and this becomes important as the summer moves on and the thermocline moves downward in the water column and the fish go deeper. The wire rig then becomes more versatile. They both have their advantages but I much prefer wire over copper if I only had one choice as it is more flexible in application but coppers are very "deadly" as well when used smartly.

There are indeed a lot of great folks on this website who share freely great information that we all can learn from. One of the unusual aspects is the fact that many of the charter guys do this despite the fact that they make part of their living using this information. They deserve our support wherever possible. Hats off to Vince, Rick, Matt, Rob, Sean and the many others on this very special website who do so. We all fully appreciate it.

The best part of that little Whaler came at the end when I sold it.... I received $300 more than I paid for it after 22 years of use

suttontroller94 - I had the Sport Model with the steering wheel in the center not at the starboard side like most. I had the mahogany seats that went totally across the width and actually had my 4 ft boom (Rivieras then Cannon electrics) downriggers mounted to the center one that I sat on and 15 ft. outriggers mounted to the dash crosspiece. I had so much equipment on it that during ESLO derbies it became a problem as many boats would come up too close to me to take pics The real beauty of it was being able to steer with my leg or foot while fighting fish

The only thng I use NON ball bearing swivels on is sliders on the downriggers because it doesn't seem to make a big difference there and when they get tangled it isn't as expensive to lose them. I have found through experience that ONLY the SOLID RING ball bearing swivels are worth having nomatter what brand you use

I know when I was fishing out of my 13 ft Whaler there were times when a large fish would actually pull the boat backwards a bit while fighting and it helped having the rods forward a little so they didn't tangle was helpful while fishing solo. It is a whole different ballgame fishing by yourself and definitely something to be taken into consideration