TyeeTanic

I'm pretty sure it is because of one or both of the following reasons: 1) Hooks are not sharp enough - take your hooks and run them down your thumb nail, if they do not immediately bite into your nail and dig in then they are not sharp enough. Sharpen the hooks by striking the stone from the turn of the treble down towards the point. You only need to sharpen the last 1/4 inch and it will only take 3 or 4 good strokes to get them razor sharp. 2) You are pulling the fish in way to hard and the hooks are ripping out of their mouths. This is a major problem and if you are not careful it will get you almost all of the time.

Is there any trick to being able to check the pump without pulling the whole boat out of the water? Can a make shift plug with hold the pressure of the water from the inlet to the pump if I take the hose off and have a look? Or is this too dangerous to do?

I have a new Tahoe Q5SF - nice boat, but had a problem with the livewell pump today. We caught the first fish we wanted to keep and I started up the livewell pump no problem. Fish goes in. Catch another one we want to keep and open up the live well - no water! I switch it off and on - if I leave it off long enough it spurts out some water and then stops. I figure it's plugged somewhere. So I call the dealer and he says run some tap water back through the pump by putting a garden house onto the live well feed water nozzle. Did this and flushed the pump backwards. Saw bubbles and water coming out of the inlet nozzle just beside the engine, so I know everything is clear - tried starting up, and nadda - now I can even hear the pump running. What the heck is going on? Do I need to prime the pump again, or is there a more serious problem???

All I can tell you is that I've done it both ways - with only wire and taking the rod apart and with a 12' floro lead and taking the rod apart - I can definitely tell you it is 100% easier taking and putting the rods apart and back together with the floro lead. With the two lengths apart I can still wind my reel to tighten any slack in the line. Putting the peices back together is also simple and quicker. So, I'm not telling you to use it, but I find it myself much easier and the leader has never caused me any problems, so I'll stick with it.

K Gonefishin, There's one good reason and it is not really related to where your mind is going with this. It is a trick I learned from members on this site. With a wire rod, when dissassembling and putting it away, it is always a problem as the wire kinks over the guides when you take the two pieces apart and store together. A kink means a break in the future. If you use a floro or mono lead approximately 10 feet long, you can reel in the steel all the way to the reel and then leave the floro through the guides, which can take the bending around the guides. It means the difference between being able to fish within 5 mins, or having to cut my wire line and create a new loop each time I go fishing (15 to 20 mins). This is the main reason - the second is just a bonus, and that is to have a bit more stealth. The dipsey (with right color choice) can easily look like a fish and attract them to the fly/lure. I use 40 lb floro lead, really good knots - nothing's going to break before my rod snaps in half. Mark

Use flea flicker 30 lb is good.

I have a 10 foot 40# floro lead connected to my main wire using a micro swivel. I connect this lead to the diver. I then run a 12" snubber + 5 feet of 40# floro between the diver and flasher. Essentially what the fish sees is the diver, flasher and fly - with no line in between. I match the diver color to the flasher, so it looks like another fish. With this setup up I was able to land 10 large fish on the flies last week in about 3 hours. I can't say what would happen if I went from a 5 foot lead between the diver and flasher up to a 10 foot, however, I can say we had more than enough action on the boat to keep us all busy. Mark

I bought two Eagle Claw Wire Rods for $50 each. They are pretty good - but not the best. The big issue with wire rods is the tightness between the actual ball bearing roller and the guide bracket. Sometimes on my rods the wire gets wedge between the side of the roller and the guide bracket. It happens on the top guide as a fish may pull to one side or another. It gets anoying. When buying a wire rod, take a good look at how tight and robust this area is. I hear the more expensive rods are $100 per piece and they have good guides to prevent this from happening. Best regards.

Thanks Chris. I'll drop the fishhawk TD down next time I see this. I suppose if I see this it would be good to fish just above and in this depth right? Or will all the debri cause chaos with my line/spoon?

I don't think it is the dipsey, the lines are set out 200 feet on my wire rods, it would be almost impossible for the dipsey to get into my radar's view without significant slack on the line. I know that bait balls generally look like balls - but this is definitely something - you will see that even the predator fish underneath are picked up weaker than the ones on time. It's either bait spread out at one level, or someone else said it could be plankton.

The knot tbromund is recommending is a simple and VERY effective knot - it holds up and really is a quick knot to do. I have been using it ever since he recommended it to me.

Okay, here are pics of the formations on my fishfinder. First up are the diagonal lines across my screen - it does not happen often maybe once every 6 hours and lasts for 1 minute. Is this interference from something - if so, why does it not happen all the time? Second up is the 10 to 15 foot thick band that stretches over 200 feet - you will notice a few predator fish above and below this. Is this bait or thermocline??

Dewey - I just ended up changing all my braid over to flea flicker line - 30 lb test - because of the fleas. The flea build up on braid renders these rods useless in a few hours nowadays - I would not go with braid right now. You don't have to get wire if you don't want to, it is more difficult to work with, but I think good to fish with. You can put flea flicker on all your reels - it cost me $20 for 250 yards - and it works great - strong as steel and the fleas don't stick to it. Also, down temp is not a necessity, but I do produce more fish with it. First thing when I'm out on the water I put the lines down to 30, 40, 50 and 60 ft. Then I test the temp and adjust my depths according to where the 45F to 55F is and then put one just above the 42F. I have really zero-d into the fish zone quickly with this technique. I do agree with Dewey though, don't go replacing all your equipment - what I gave is a suggestion - rather tell us what you have and we can suggest any necessary changes. Speed is definitely important - 2.5 to 3.1 mph is my range. I get strikes mostly at 2.8 mph.

What equipment do you have? I thought I had the best equipment, and have changed it over 3 times. Firstly you should have wire dispey's and or down riggers. If you only have wire dipsey's then put on flea flicker on two chute (center) rods. Use 8 to 8.5' rods and nice trolling reels that can take at least 300 yards of line, with good drag systems. Next - you need to find out temperature by depth. Fishhawk makes good products they have the fishhawk TD, which you drop into the water and it tells you the temp every 5 feet. Drop your lines in the 45F to 55F depth range - spread them out. This time of the year you will find this temp range in 30 ft - 50 ft of water. Finding the right depth is easy with down riggers - needs some work with dipseys. Get the Precision trolling Big Water edition 2 - this has all the charts for wire, mono, etc. Put some good floro leads on the end of your line before you hook up to your spoons - try 10 feet of 20 - 40 lb test. Use Monkey Puke, Watermelon, Purple Black, Blue Silver Williams spoons - all size 3 or 4. Troll at 2.5 mph between 100 ft and 140 ft deep water. Try over an over until you catch fish.

Just got a new boat. Want to put the boat's name somewhere on it. What places normally do this sort of thing??

Fishing Report Your Name / Boat Name: Pirate's Cove ============== TRIP OVERVIEW ============== Date(s): July 23, 2011 Time on Water: 6 AM - 2 PM Weather/Temp: Hot 32C?? Wind Speed/Direction: West, light Waves: 1 foot Surface Temp: 74F Location: Bronte East to Port Credit LAT/LONG (GPS Cords): =============== FISHING RESULTS =============== Total Hits: 17 Total Boated: 13 Species Breakdown: Steelhead, Coho, Chinook 10 - 20 lbs. Hot Lure: Atomik pumpkin orange fly + SD, atomik green fly, nasty boy 4" silver blue, 4" black purple. Trolling Speed: 2.8 mph Down Speed: ?? Boat Depth: 125 ft Lure Depth: 20ft, 30ft, 50ft, 70ft. ==================== SUMMARY & FURTHER DETAILS ==================== Amazing day - we had 13 fish before our first 2 hours of fishing were up. Went a little quiet, but then got hits in the early afternoon. We had fun, arms need a rest. A lot of kings landed - consistently 17 - 20lbs. Lost a monster - I figure 25 - 30 lbs - wire got stuck in the reel!!!!! AArrgghh!

Okay, some weekly feedback on my topics. I loaded Prime Times Lunar Calendars - it said fishing would be good today from 6:30 - 9:30. Sure enough we hooked into 13 fish during this time - after 9:30 it all went quiet. Then it said at about 2 pm it would pick up again, and at 10 mins to two we started getting bites with 17 lb and 19 lb kings in the order. I really do think this moon thing works.

So can I simply attach a 5 gallon bucket to my ski rope hook on the boat? Isn't there a danger that it gets stuck in the propeller? I have an IO engine.

So can I simply attach a 5 gallon bucket to my ski rope hook on the boat? Isn't there a danger that it gets stuck in the propeller? I have an IO engine.

Paul. I hear you and agree. I like using the temp for my initial setup in the morning and then pay attention to the graph. The other thing is I am not as experienced with the graph as you so the extra info on temp helps me a lot, at least for now. [ Post made via BlackBerry ]

RCO, Braid and wire both have thin diameters true, but the wire is obviously much heavier. There is about a 5 - 10% difference in depth between the wire and braid at deeper depths. So at the same line length there is hardly a difference in shallow depths but after about 50 feet you will get around 5 - 10% more depth with the wire. Also you generally can get to any depth up to around 90 ft on braid, just pull out more line - but wire can get you to the 100 - 110 ft depth, which is much more difficult for braid. So, if getting to 100 ft and lower is important - you do have this benefit with wire on the Mag 3 dipsey set at 0 with around 230 feet of wire out.

I think my setup is okay - I am getting hits from all kinds Kings, Coho, Atlantic, Steelhead, etc. The one thing I can't control is down speed - I don't have a rigger to test this, I use dipsey wire rods. Annyhow the other issue is my boat goes at the slowest 2.8 mph on the gps - I can't go any slower. This might be an issue, am somewhat worried about it, but I have a 20 ft ski and fish boat with a 4.3L IO Merc engine, and there's not too much I can do. There is an electric trolling motor but it's a bit of a pain to hook up. Do you think 2.8 mph is too fast and it is worthwhile for me to go to the electric trolling motor, or is this a good enough gps speed. I was told that in general down speed is 0.5 mph less, so that would make my downspeed around 2.3 mph.

I don't think it matters too much, but I have to admit I do have a 10 foot floro lead on my braid and wire rods. This is so I can connect direct to a lure if need be for shallow fishing - and I don't think the extra stealth hurts any.

I recently started a thread on this issue. I'm going to save you some time. Look at the fishhawk products, don't waste any money on anything else. You need a probe that can test the temperature while you are trolling. Fishhawk products measure the temperature and depth of water despite how much line you have out. If you have riggers it is best to get a product that fits to the rigger - so you have an exact temp at depth reading and continously - so you can adjust the depth as you are trolling to follow a temperature. If you don't have riggers buy the fishhawk TD - this is the way I went. Cost $140 plus taxes. Don't know where you are, I am in Ontario - found them at Radio World on Steeles and Hwy 400. This is the best money I have spent on fish gear. I now get out on the water, drop the probe while trolling (I put 1 lb weights on it to get it down) and then measure the temp. I adjust my lure depths to give me a full range of coverage in the 45 - 55F range - I put one on 45F, 50F and 55F. I place my last rod just above the 42F in case there are big kings around. I have been far more succesful with my fishing with this info. Before the fishhawk I was just guessing what to do. So, to answer your question, with first hand experience - this is the most important parameter. But let me warn you it is not the only important parameter, these are also important: - surface temperature - try and find areas above 65F, where the temp shoots up suddenly - moon phase - best time is when moon overhead and moon underfoot coincides with sunrise and sunset - cloud coverage - affects lure colors, and depths - winds - will tell you how scatterred the fish are - pressure - just before a dropping pressure is good fishing. In or after a rising pressure isn't really good fishing. I am still trying to figure it all out, but am developing a knowlege quickly, and once you know how to read these parameters, the advantage is that you get your boat to the right area of water more quickly, rather than spending most of the day in the wrong water.

I flew over Lake Ontario on Monday evening and saw some clearly formed boarders around large areas of water in the middle of the lake. Basically you had the middle (core water) encapsulated by a very slick (smooth) boarder. There were about 3 or 4 areas that had this complete boarder around them. It was a little choppy inside and outside of the boarder. Is this the cold water meeting up with the warm water and the boarder being a vertical thermocline??