Sk8man

My son and I were on the water at Woodville at 5:05 AM. We started at white rock and were just setting the lines out when we had one on the rigger 35ft down over 60 ft (gold rebel)....smallie about 3-4 pounds let off at the back of boat. About 5 minutes later while still putting out lines and the other rigger fires (down 40 over 70 ft) and then the jumping beans got activated in this rainbow... out of the water several times and my son got him in the boat after a little chaos. He hit a "reconditioned" gold Sutton 22. Trolled to Vine Valley without another touch and marked some bait suspended and a few fish but no takers. Picked up and went back south full tilt and tried the west side. Trolled to just south of Bristol Harbor and wham... downrigger 70 over 88 ft with a "reconditioned" Quick Strike 88 and we had another jumper. After a few drag take outs and some jumping my son had the rainbow (6 pounds plus) within 10 ft. Of the boat and he went sideways into the wire rig with the Spin Doc on it and pulled the hook.He stayed on the surface for a minute or so and then seemed to smile at us (for some reason ) and took off to the depths below unscathed. My son decided to keep the first one for the grill tonight so just as well the other one would have been released anyway. All in all better than a skunk and the weather was real nice this morning....Quit at 11:15 AM. Rather tough finding active fish though. Here is the rainbow he kept Oh...and did I mention that the leadcore got into the wire rig?

Good going sure save the old $$$$ being handy and doing the stuff yourself. I don't think you'll regret having that back up motor for a second....mine saved my butt recently.....good luck with the rest of the project....you're going to have a real nice rig when you finish....

You're very welcome Jeff. Hope it works out for you.

It looks like the bracket s made out of white metal or cast metal of some type...once that stuff is broken the strength of the material immediately surrounding the break is also suspect. I'm thinking that what might work is to cut the remaining material off flush with the main part of the bracket and have a piece replicating the broken part machined out of 1/2 inch or 5/8 aluminum stock or 1/4 or 3/8 inch stainless and have a "base" integrated into the part itself (L shaped bend or welded part) that you can bolt (with stainless bolts) to the remaining plate (forming an "L" shaped brace?). It's hard to tell from the pic how much material is on the base of the unit but the cross piece looks pretty sturdy for bolting to. I know it might sound a bit lame but I wouldn't depend on something I might or might not see on the back of the boat...I'd put a small note right on the center of my steering wheel (covered in plastic) so that I'd be sure to see it (as a constant reminder as well). I 'd make a template of the existing unbroken part on the other side by tracing on paper

I think they need to get their quality control under CONTROL....Some of this stuff shouldn't be happening in the first place if they were testing properly ahead of releasing the items. My convector was messed up right out of the box.

Cool..... I didn't realize anyone made them.. so like most things ...I made them myself when I couldn't find what I needed. I first used mine on salt water years ago.

TIP: For those of you who fish from friend's boats and would rather use your own release set up.... I've used this setup for over 20 years and it works great. The release is the OUTRIGGER version of the Black and I then use a very large (and strong) split ring and then a large salt water coast lock swivel (again very strong one) and I put the coast lock on the split ring and then put it on the release at the bottom and then SOLDER the split ring. You can then just clip this rig on the existing swivel of the downrigger and then attach their weight to the swivel on your Black release.

Ah.....the joy of modern technology.... What I want to hear about is (like with the old copper rig) you snag up on bottom How does that work out (especially if it fails to release)? I have a similar copper set up by the way... .

Nice report... good going! The flatfish on copper is an old school technique and also using a black (or dark colored) Twin Minnow as well...deadly this time of year and early Spring as well. They seem to think they are fresh water Sculpin.... The cotton seems really bad this year just about everywhere.....including lawns.