camomanbg

I'm sold, but I have a question on your comment djj717....does it shut off 45 seconds after it is maxed out or 45 after you start it? In this product review the guy says he left it out for about a minute....add deployment and retreival times and its definitely longer.

I bought a rod/reel that was already setup and it had 19 strand torpedo wire on it, so I was trying to match the setup for consistency reasons. The 1000' spool that I bought was about $50, then I paid the guy to spool it on, and add a twilli tip. I lost the external part of the twilli with the spring on it. The part that glues onto the rod tip is still there though! Any arguements against the 19 strand? Maybe I'll just get two spools of 30#, 7 strand and do both rods....since the rod I bought has used/older wire on it? As far as the TD goes, I was thinking I would put it on my downrigger ball, and drop that down before I started setting up. That way I could learn how much the ball blows back vs. how much the line counter on the rigger is reading. I also wanted to put it on my dipsy's to figure them out a little better. I have plenty of old rods and figured once I get the blow back figured out I would put it on an old rod butt with an old reel and use that with a bunch of weight on it ( I was thinking more like 4-5lbs?) Think that would be too much weight for the bottom half of a on old GL 8'6" downrigger rod?

It's okay to laugh, I'm over it. I feel bad that there is 1000' of wire somewhere between Mendon and I-Bay, but maybe I'll find it. I hope I didn't burn the drag out on my new reel. You going to be out this weekend?

No crap! I just setup two wire diver rigs, used them for the first time on Saturday (just realized I forgot to post a report!). Well, when my buddy was taking the rods off the boat on Sunday he noticed that there wasn't any wire on the one brand new rod/reel combo I set up. GONE...and so was the spring part of the twilli tip! No wire left on the spool, just a few strands on the second to last eyelet before the twilli. I reeled the swivel right to the tip and put it in a rod holder. I made a comment about how I should probably break them down and lay them on the deck but the bouncing around would probably be worse for them. I then said, "I'm sure there is an excellent reason why I shouldn't do this, but I guess we will live and learn the hard way". I did! I'm guessing we must have snagged a tree on the side of the road and peeled all that line off. I'm just glad the wire broke and didn't yank the damn rod out of the rod holder or even break the rod. I'm grateful to only be out about 60 for new wire and a twilli than the whole setup.

Thanks! So, did you get one this year? I think I'm gonna order one this week. I felt pretty comfortable before, but after reading that I'm 100%.

cool, I thought it was new this year. I'll search some old posts then!

I have been thinking about getting the Fish Hawk TD.....any one have any comments on this product before I pull the trigger? http://store-7f951.mybigcommerce.com/fi ... h-hawk-td/ Getting an actual probe like an X4 isn't in the cards at the moment but I'd like to have something to get temps with. I figured this would help me dial in my blow back too if I put it on the ball. It reads temps every 5' and it records the maximum depth. Brian

I'll try the respray/let it air dry method! Thanks.

Thanks Nitro! I've read that on Humminbird and other websites, but the Windex doesn't do the trick. It just moves the streaks around. I was hoping there was some oddball secret hiding out there that someone could shed some light on.

Two part post... 1) Any suggestions for cleaning the screen on the fishfinder? It looks like finger smudges but they don't wash off. You can scrub it off with a fingernail and some elbow grease though. It's only bad when the sun is hitting it just right, but it's annoying. 2) We have a Garmin GPSMAP 182c on the dash and the multi-pin power chord that screws on the back is fine but the collar that it locks onto is broken and the connection won't hold on its own. Garmin says they don't make that part anymore so the only option is to buy a new unit. Not an option right now. I noticed a friend unplug his bowmounted trolling motor and the connection looked the same. I was thinking about plugging it in, then using a "plastic weld" glue to hold it on there, then splice a new connection inline. Think it's safe to try a plug like I saw on my buddies trolling motor? Does anyone know where I can get a power cable for a Garmin?

Pm sent [ Post made via Android ]

Fishing Report Your Name / Boat Name:Bahtenda ============== TRIP OVERVIEW ============== Date(s): Time on Water:Afternoon/evening for about 5hrs each day Weather/Temp: Wind Speed/Direction: Waves: Surface Temp: Location: LAT/LONG (GPS Cords): =============== FISHING RESULTS =============== Total Hits:6 Total Boated:3 Species Breakdown:1 brown, 2 kings Hot Lure: NBK Trolling Speed: 2.5-3.0 GPS Down Speed: Boat Depth: 40-220 Lure Depth: Surface to 70 ==================== SUMMARY & FURTHER DETAILS ==================== Friday we had to go to Letchworth to scout and set up blinds for the NWTF Wheelin' Sportsman hunt we put on Saturday. We made it to the launch by 1, and started setting lines in 60' of water and headed North looking for kings. We put out 2 dipsys with flies (back 100' and 150' on mono.....I know, I know, I'm getting wire setup this week) and stacked 2 rods on each rigger. Riggers lines set at 20,40, 50, and 70. All the standard green stuff on the riggers, NBK, Glo Frog, 42 Second, and a DWB. Dipsies had a white green dot spinny with a green crinkle, and a green crush echip with a white glo fly. No hits, had a few releases but I'm almost positive it was due to a light release tension. I fixed that and we headed in towards Hedges to try for a Brown before dark. Finally we hooked up with a 12lb brown and my dad's girlfriend caught her biggest fish ever! We pulled shortly after since it was clear she was getting cold. Saturday we had a great event, none of the 4 hunters shot birds but they all had gobbling birds or close encounters. Here's a group pic and news article from that if your interested. Check out the wheelchairs with tank treads on them! They can go anywhere they want. http://geneseesun.com/index.php/living/ ... worth-park Sunday I hunted in the am and we made it to the launch around 1 again. This time we encountered all that mud everyone has mentioned and we started setting up in 40' and working the edge of that out to deeper water because we were marking steady fish there. No hits, and we trolled all the way out to 220 and then circled towards Hedges again. This time we had a shaker King on the glo frog down 60 over 110', we ran that 110 line for a while and right in front of Hedges we had a screamer. 2nd one of the year on the boat and my bass fishing buddy had his first big fish on. It weighed in at 15lbs after hitting the NBK down 40' over 110'. It hit the port side bottom line, ran across everything we had out, then ran straight at the boat before turning and making his big run and almost it spooled him (I forgot to tell him about the adjust the drag thing since I had them all set light for brown's). The fish even spent a little time doing some acrobatics which was cool to see. I think my buddy is rethinking the bass fishing thing.....I don't think he will pick pond fishing over coming with us the next time we invite him. My biggest passion is turkey hunting, so for this month I will just have to settle for afternoon trips. I can't wait for June though!

Way to go Mike!

Fishing Report Your Name / Boat Name:Bahtenda ============== TRIP OVERVIEW ============== Date(s): Time on Water:10-2:30 Weather/Temp:crappy Wind Speed/Direction:Fast/NNE Waves: Big Surface Temp:47-48 Location:East of I-bay LAT/LONG (GPS Cords): =============== FISHING RESULTS =============== Total Hits: 5 Total Boated:3 Species Breakdown:Browns Hot Lure: 42 Second Trolling Speed: 1.8-3.2 depending on the wave (GPS) Down Speed: Boat Depth: 10-30 Lure Depth: 5-20 ==================== SUMMARY & FURTHER DETAILS ==================== The Hunt: 12 yr old Austin traveled from Syracuse Friday night with his mom to stay the weekend and go on his first hunt ever. As the sun came up so did the wind and rain but the gobbling was non-existent. After about 30 minutes of nothing a hen appeared in a field behind us. I called her in and she fed contently with the pretty boy and pretty girl decoys 15yds in front of Austin and my friend Bill. I sat behind them with his mom to call. After playing with the hen for about 20 minutes we heard a gobble and looked up to see a gobbler about 300yds out in the field. He had already keyed in on the decoys and was making a beeline. At 7:20 only 30yds from Austin the bird strutted, gobbled once and proceeded to approach the strutting decoy for combat. As he rounded the decoy with an outstretched neck, Austin used his new 20ga. 1100 to take his first turkey, first animal of any kind! The bird weighed in at 20.5lbs, had a 9 3/4" beard, and 1" spurs. The resulting floppage and excitement made for some missing tail and body feathers but that didn't matter to any of us. Wet turkey's make for horrible pictures but here it is! The Fishing: We cleaned the bird, grabbed the boat and were on the water by 10am. We set up right out of the channel with 3 lines on each board pulling a wide variety of colors back 85-120' and two riggers with NBK and 42 Second spoons back 75'. Just a little bit East of Oklahoma Beach the 42 Second spoon down 20 over 30 FOW fired and Austin was sitting in the chair fighting his first Lake O brown. Didn't weigh it but it was about a 8lb fish probably. He wanted to put it back so we only took one quick picture. Next the same rod fired but we missed the fish as we handed the rod to Austin's mom. Then a firetiger off the starboard took a shot and his mom landed a cookie cutter. As we neared Hedges Austin took another fish off the 42 Second spoon down 5 over 12' fow. That fish was a nice 5lber. All were released quickly and we decided to throw in the towel to avoid any negativity to the day (they were getting cold and wet). Austin topped off his day by getting to steer the boat with Capt. Bill as we (carefully, and slowly) made our way back to the bay. Needless to say, I think we have him hooked...but we may have ruined him at the same time.

Good point! On that note, what do you guys suggest for swivels? I have been using the Dreamweaver swivels but I can't seem to find them this year. The Sampo's that were welded that I could find were too small. That got me thinking I should see what other people on here use.

Fishing Report Your Name / Boat Name:Bahtenda ============== TRIP OVERVIEW ============== Date(s):4-14,4-15 Time on Water:7hrs, 4.5hrs Weather/Temp: Wind Speed/Direction:light and south then WNW? Waves: <1' Surface Temp:48 on Sat, 47 Sun Location:East of I Bay LAT/LONG (GPS Cords): =============== FISHING RESULTS =============== Total Hits: 18 and 6 Total Boated:8 and 2 Species Breakdown:Browns, Laker, King, Steelies Hot Lure: NBK, Spook, and Dirty White Boy Trolling Speed: 1.9-3.0 GPS Down Speed: Boat Depth: Lure Depth: Surface, and riggers down to 20' ==================== SUMMARY & FURTHER DETAILS ==================== Saturday morning we set up right out of the channel. 3 lines with sticks on each planer and 2 riggers one had a stick other had a Dirty White BOY. We landed one small steelie right away before we were past the beach. We then proceeded to drop 3 or 4 fish off the boards...not sure why we couldn't keep them on. Things slowed down and we started prospecting from 10 FOW to 30 FOW and I would drop the riggers to wherever we had marks. I also switched the stick off the rigger and put a SS spook on. A fiesty laker took the DWB shortly after the change up. We picked up a few cookie cutter browns and a couple in the 3-5lb range. We managed to hook a very nice brown on the DWB and lost it at the back of the boat. We stuck it out in the 25-30 FOW range and started to get steady shots on the rigger but dropped a bunch of them too. I'm pretty sure they heard us in Canada when the DWB on the 20' rigger fired and we heard the drag singing. We boated the first king of the year for us. My dad has now caught the first fish of the year 3 years in a row and the first king also this year. That made the day! Sunday was much slower with only one release off the boards and the rest coming off the rigger, more specifically the one with the NBK that I kept adjusting. Most of the hits were 20 down over 30 FOW. First fish was a little steelie and shortly after that came some more drag singing...but it wasn't a King this time. It was a nice 12lb brown. The rest of the morning was unproductive but the brown made the trip for us. Thanks to all who replied abou the planer mast emergency! We used a spare knob for the downrigger spools that we found in the boat.

My backup knob for the Walker deep trolls fit perfectly! [ Post made via Android ]

Thanks guys! HD had a bolt with the same threads but nothing to put on it. We'll get by this weekend [ Post made via Android ]

Where can I find a plastic "wingnut/knob" that tightens down on the spool of a Big Jon planer mast? Guest on the boat this afternoon over loosened it and fed it to the gobies. Of course Home Depot didn't have anything that would work tonight. Zip ties around the mast and through the spool will have to hold it tomorrow. [ Post made via Android ]

I used the 20# FF last summer and just ran it straight to the swivel and didn't see a drop in success. I have wondered if I might have caught more with a flouro leader, but most of the time I was running flasher/fly combos and from the dipsy back I use flouro and same with combos off the riggers...I just used flouro from the flasher back. I didn't measure but it didn't seem to take up that much more room on the spool. I realize that might be magnified with a smaller spool though. On this topic, I am still using my FF line straight to the swivel this spring. We went 15/19 last Saturday so I don't think it made a huge difference but should I consider swapping back to mono or at least using a flouro leader once we start moving deeper as the season progresses? I just don't feel like swapping out the FF just to put it back on mid summer when the fleas get bad.

I'd like to spend some more time out of Point Breeze this summer myself. If you make it to Rochester give us a shout on the "Bahtenda". I too am a sponsor member and big supporter of the NWTF. I actually run an NWTF chapter in Lima, we just had our 2nd banquet a couple weeks ago.

Congrats! Looks like someone was a sponsor or bought a pack of raffle tickets at an NWTF Banquet this year! We usually fish out of Rochester but will share info if you are ever in the area.

Fishing Report Your Name / Boat Name: ============== TRIP OVERVIEW ============== Date(s):4/7/12 Time on Water:5hrs Weather/Temp:Windy/Cool Wind Speed/Direction:N-NW 10? Waves: 2-4' some bigger Surface Temp: Location:I Bay LAT/LONG (GPS Cords): =============== FISHING RESULTS =============== Total Hits:19 Total Boated:15 Species Breakdown:1 Steelhead, the rest were browns Hot Lure: Gold/White Rapala Trolling Speed:2.0-2.5 Down Speed: Boat Depth: 10' Lure Depth: Surface ==================== SUMMARY & FURTHER DETAILS ==================== We launched right around sunrise and headed East out of the bay. We headed right for our marks from Friday night and setup just in time to run over the first one. It was only a 5 minute ride but one of our guests was chumming before I could get all the lines in the water. It must have worked because before I could get the 4th planer line out I was handing him the first rod I set out. He managed to stand up long enough to land a beautiful 9-10lb brown. Great way to start the morning! He forced a smile for the camera and went back to hanging over the side of the boat. We decided to prospect further East rather than circle on our marks and we ended up finding a stretch that was hot. We worked the edge of some brown water in 7-10' FOW and ended up fishing that stretch the rest of the day. It took til 9:30 before I had a chance to get all the lines in the water. We had a steady pick of cookie cutters in the 18-24" range with the occasional fish being better. We ended with 3 fish in the 7-10lb range and a couple in the 5lb range in the boat for our guests to take home. We ran a variety of stickbaits off the boards, 2 per side 120' and 100' back and two off the riggers down 3-5' and back 75-100'. Riggers never fired but that was probably because I didn't loosen the Black's releases from last fall. When pulling up I had to handline in both of my rigger lines because a 3-4lb brown had hit the dirty white boy and proceeded to twist the two rigger lines up all the way back to the boat. He was actually in good shape and I was able to release him quickly and he swam away strong. I said that the gold/white rapala was the hot lure above, but it really didn't matter. We had fish hit everything from the gold/white, gold/black, firetiger, solid orange, chartruese/orange, dirty white boy spoon, etc. I think we had more hits on the broken backs than we did the solid bodies but that is about the only thing that was evident. The seasick guy was a trooper, he never complained out loud and even offered up a joke from time to time. We eventually dropped him off on the breakwall at Hedges for a while so he could take a break. When we went to pick him up, he put his foot on a ledge on the breakwall and as luck would have it, it acted as the bumper between the boat and the wall. Good news is the crunching noise was the trim strip on the bow hitting the wall...bad news is he reported this morning that he has a hairline fracture. The foot pain took his mind off the seasickness for a minute but he was back at it before we could get him back to the bay. He still didn't complain and is looking forward to eating some dramamine and coming out again. At the end we met Mortigan on the docks...it's always great to meet other LOU guys out there. I would have never considered trolling the bay for browns....you learn something new everyday! I know they go through there but I wouldn't have tried it. Kudos for making it happen when it was too rough on the big lake

Fishing Report Your Name / Boat Name: ============== TRIP OVERVIEW ============== Date(s):4/7/12 Time on Water:5hrs Weather/Temp:Windy/Cool Wind Speed/Direction:N-NW 10? Waves: 2-4' some bigger Surface Temp: Location:I Bay LAT/LONG (GPS Cords): =============== FISHING RESULTS =============== Total Hits:19 Total Boated:15 Species Breakdown:1 Steelhead, the rest were browns Hot Lure: Gold/White Rapala Trolling Speed:2.0-2.5 Down Speed: Boat Depth: 10' Lure Depth: Surface ==================== SUMMARY & FURTHER DETAILS ==================== We launched right around sunrise and headed East out of the bay. We headed right for our marks from Friday night and setup just in time to run over the first one. It was only a 5 minute ride but one of our guests was chumming before I could get all the lines in the water. It must have worked because before I could get the 4th planer line out I was handing him the first rod I set out. He managed to stand up long enough to land a beautiful 9-10lb brown. Great way to start the morning! He forced a smile for the camera and went back to hanging over the side of the boat. We decided to prospect further East rather than circle on our marks and we ended up finding a stretch that was hot. We worked the edge of some brown water in 7-10' FOW and ended up fishing that stretch the rest of the day. It took til 9:30 before I had a chance to get all the lines in the water. We had a steady pick of cookie cutters in the 18-24" range with the occasional fish being better. We ended with 3 fish in the 7-10lb range and a couple in the 5lb range in the boat for our guests to take home. We ran a variety of stickbaits off the boards, 2 per side 120' and 100' back and two off the riggers down 3-5' and back 75-100'. Riggers never fired but that was probably because I didn't loosen the Black's releases from last fall. When pulling up I had to handline in both of my rigger lines because a 3-4lb brown had hit the dirty white boy and proceeded to twist the two rigger lines up all the way back to the boat. He was actually in good shape and I was able to release him quickly and he swam away strong. I said that the gold/white rapala was the hot lure above, but it really didn't matter. We had fish hit everything from the gold/white, gold/black, firetiger, solid orange, chartruese/orange, dirty white boy spoon, etc. I think we had more hits on the broken backs than we did the solid bodies but that is about the only thing that was evident. The seasick guy was a trooper, he never complained out loud and even offered up a joke from time to time. We eventually dropped him off on the breakwall at Hedges for a while so he could take a break. When we went to pick him up, he put his foot on a ledge on the breakwall and as luck would have it, it acted as the bumper between the boat and the wall. Good news is the crunching noise was the trim strip on the bow hitting the wall...bad news is he reported this morning that he has a hairline fracture. The foot pain took his mind off the seasickness for a minute but he was back at it before we could get him back to the bay. He still didn't complain and is looking forward to eating some dramamine and coming out again. At the end we met Mortigan on the docks...it's always great to meet other LOU guys out there. I would have never considered trolling the bay for browns....you learn something new everyday! I know they go through there but I wouldn't have tried it. Kudos for making it happen when it was too rough on the big lake

Fishing Report Your Name / Boat Name: Bahtenda ============== TRIP OVERVIEW ============== Date(s): Time on Water:2hrs Weather/Temp:windy/cool Wind Speed/Direction:NNW Waves: 3-4 Surface Temp: 45-46 Location: East LAT/LONG (GPS Cords): =============== FISHING RESULTS =============== Total Hits: 5 Total Boated:3 Species Breakdown:Browns and a Laker Hot Lure: purple/mirror 4" stick Trolling Speed:2.5 Down Speed: Boat Depth: 10-15 Lure Depth:Surface ==================== SUMMARY & FURTHER DETAILS ==================== Got out by 4:30, set up right at the channel and trolled East. Hit the first fish around 5:30 on a fire tiger which shook off at the boat, next came moments later on a gold and white J-11 and lost that too. Couple mins later took a 5lb laker on the gold/white J-11 and then two browns 2 and 4lbs on the purple/mirror stick that someone gave me the other day. We called it after that but will be out in the am. [ Post made via Android ]