Sk8man

Real nice one MIke WTG! Those snap offs are enough to pizz of the Pope

Thanks guys. I sure wish I had somebody there when I was pulling in one laker on the wire and both downriggers popped...had to leave them and by the time I got to them both gone....think one was a small bow. One of those times when you had to be in several different places at the same time....would have been crazy even with two people

I went solo and launched at Sampson at about 6:30AM. It was a modest south wind and was supposed to go north later on so I motored south to Lodi Point after some screwing around with equipment. I saw ERABBIT and Hoot out in front of Lodi setting up and they were headed south and I needed to head north so I waved and headed back north on the east side and right away I started marking all kinds of bait and fish in 140 - 237 ft suspended from 40-80 ft for the most part. and a huge amount of bait right on bottom in 230ft. I launched 2 riggers with sliders and a wire dipsey with flasher and fly (E chip flasher green one side and white glow on other side) and home made pearl fly out 225 with deep diver....it got hammered just after setting it the holder = 8 lb laker. Went through massive amounts of bait with many fish mixed in and above it as well. Downrigger went off pulled another twin to the first laker. As the morning went on it was non stop action mostly laker 6 -9 pounds but a few bows the biggest around 5 lbs. I barely drank my drink and I'd have doubles several times mostly lakers but one was a very nice bow about 6 or 7 pounds minimum that I got (downrigger) right near the boat jumping like crazy then a huge pile of grass nailed my line and slid down it and knocked the fish off. A whole lot of hit and gone's and lost fish because of being solo with multiple fish on at same time. It was one of the most hectic days I've had and it was all day long with rods going off and my arms are really sore right now from pulling them in. Every fish was released unharmed and without being netted, handled or brought into the boat (needle nosed pliers work wonders. I tried to take some pics but gave up after dropping my camera on the floor while wrestling with one of the fish on the line...the pics I took sucked but after awhile I never had any time to mess with it anyway....it was constant hauling in fish and clearing weeds. The fleas were light today and none on the downriggers at all (Sea Flee) and just a little on the wire rig, I have no idea how many fish I ended up with but I even caught several big lakers out in the middle going west to east in the afternoon in 467 ft of water (all on flasher/fly). The sliders took every rainbow and laker caught on downriggers and all but three fish (Sutton 44) were caught on Great Lakes spoons Jason gave me to test out...they worked wonderfully. The lakers hammered them and rainbows too so it was quite a "test" The area from Lodi to just south of Sampson is loaded with bait and fish especially in the100-200 ft range so anyone heading out there that is where to start. My dipsey was out 200-225 and was nailed almost as soon as I could get it back down there so I kept it there. They loved the whitish flies today I only used two of them but had no reason to try anything else. Here are pics of what I did the "damage" with so that anyone can try to approximate it. The depth finder screen shot sucked because of the sun but it is an example of what I was seeing most of the time out there today. The other shot is what the lake looked like

I know the new power cords are expensive but in my view they are something worth investing in. I replaced the old power cords twice for the same reason ...they fray and crack and expose the wire itself making them a big question mark about shorting out. If you can afford them I'd do yourself a favor and get the new ones now as they are very sturdy and will probably last the life of the downrigger Regardless how you hook them up put an inline fuse on each of them (I think they require a 30 amp fuse if my memory is correct). I run mine on my second battery (combination heavy duty deep cycle and starting battery) and have never had a problem as they are connected to the main fuse block that is breaker controlled.

Severne

Very nice Sean! Looks like the landlock has really been chowing down or else he swallowed a football

I sure wish I didn't listen to the weather report last night and had gone fishing this AM as I had intended to do....oh well tomorrow is another day.

Best of luck to you.

WTG John. In my view anything that works for those little @#$%&^'s is cool After reflecting on yesterday's fishing I think there may be some kings in shallower than we were fishing and right near bottom where half way decent temps intersect with bottom and I wouldn't be real surprised if there were browns in there right along with them either. I know in the past sometimes they (kings) would stage (looked like cord wood piled up off bottom) right out in front of Maxwell for quite some time before the stream runs on the lake.

Thx Bucky. I think you will be very happy you spooled the Sea Flee. We were running Flea Flicker on the riggers on Mikes boat. I run Sea Flee on mine and they both work great to keep the fleas at bay. The wires and braids are a very different matter they were both pretty loaded up yesterday as was the braid backing for the copper setup but not any on the copper wire itself. The wire seems to clear much easier than the braid in my opinion. The 30 lb Big Game works much better than smaller diameters but when the fleas are real bad it still acrues them somewhat as it does even with 200 lb downrigger wire (at least with the flea types in the Fingers). We didn't have any significant fleas on the downrigger wires yesterday on Lake O.

You know Jason... this should be a real eye opener to everyone including me in terms of complaining about pricing etc. on lures and even though I've made my own crude home made spoons in the past (without quality control ) the information you've presented here sheds a much different light on things for me and really highlights all the work (and steps) that go into making good lures from"scratch" and it is not the "easy money" deal that some folks may have thought.....very informative. Thanks. I've witnessed the effectiveness of your lures first hand and my hat is off to you for hanging in there with all the frustrations involved in getting your business up and running and the supply factors beyond your control etc. Les

Nice going on the jigging tg8

Thanks MIke .....maybe we'll have to try it again next time we're out there together....great flavor assortment and ice cream.

(Mark) The lake was just right today Jason....slight chop and slight breeze and although sunny in the AM it turned to haze so we couldn't complain about the weather just the flies

Signalman and I left the launch about 6AM and fished until 1 PM. We started out in 200 ft straight out from the channel and headed due north. We dropped 3 downriggers 2 wires with diapeys/flies and a 350 copper. Spoons on everything but the dipsys. Temp was 43-45 degrees about 100- 115 down. After about an hour and a half we had downrigger release at 115 over 383 ft and out went the drag and we knew who was there stripped out some line and then the usual stuff and Mike landed a 12-15 lb king. Trolled north and a bit west Marking very few fish and no bait pods....couple hours later in about 540 ft the 100 ft.downrigger fires and quickly the steelie on the other end with an orange spoon on slider in his mouth surfaces and does several jumps showing off and it turns out to be a decent steelie. About a couple more hours went by with 2 hits on the copper but they were off before we could even move toward the rod. Then the flasher/fly (white flasher with silver fly) dipsy wire rig starts screaming line and I thought it was a king for sure....more line stripped several times and when finally got it to the net another steelie. LIne was out 300 ft over 587ft. We trolled around and then back toward "base" didn't mark much except in a small area where we got the steelies. We never marked much bait at all and very few fish and the ones marked were at about 540 ft suspended about 90-100 ft. The fleas were pretty bad on the wire and braid and the annoying biting little pkrhead flies were out in force in the sun out there. As usual it was fun BS'ing about various things with Mike as we have known each other since mid teens....fun day on the pond. Thanks Mike. Oh...and did I mention we went for ice cream afterward...eat your heart out Admiral Byrd (working)