LakerTaker

Received mine in the mail today. Thank you very much, they look awesome! Look forward to trying them in upper Lake Huron and the St. Mary's river system. I'm going to try the colors on a few spoons as well.

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Agree with the other comments here. Vertical trees are definitely the most efficient way to organize your rods for inline boards. I bought some aluminum tube and welded up my own. Not sure that I saved any $ though, as I'm using Traxstech swivel bases for them. For everything else I use Cisco horizontals and Down East Salty cradle holders. I'm getting so I like the cradle holders and my next purchase will be Cisco cradles. They have risers that you can add to them.

I had one of these and sold it in a garage sale for $1.00. Sorry!

I've had good dealings with Traxstech but I know certain times of the year they are really busy. I'm glad they followed through for you. I've also had excellent customer service from Cisco Fishing Systems. Calling is usually best.

I just received my Bay Rat order. Reading this forum costs me $. Nice quality lures. Looking forward to trying them out on some Lake Michigan brown trout.

You could mount a board across the center of your boat. I have a friend who has that set up and he fishes 2 manual riggers by himself in a 16ft aluminum boat. My choice would be to mount an aluminum plate to your back bench and add an aluminum riser to it (square aluminum tube welded to flat plate at the top and bottom with the hole pattern you need for your rigger). Just some thoughts. Always fun to figure this stuff out. Personally I never trust a clamp. If you can make it more permanent, that would be better.

Wow nice find!

#1) spin-n-glow / cowbell combo as Gambler states above #2) peanut / cowbell or flasher combo #3) Wolverine Tackle Silver Streak yellow tail spoon (or Michigan Stinger) #4) pre-Rapala Storm perch colored deep diver crankbait. These are my favorites for Lake Michigan. In inland lakes in Canada we use cowbells with a leader that has 2 treble hooks about 3 to 4 inches apart and tipped with 3 minnows.

It was early July. They were hanging out at the mouth of a group of islands. I thought it was very strange (that they would take night crawlers) but it worked great.

I've used crawler harnesses (typically used for walleye) with a snap weight in 30-40 ft of water in Lake Huron for Coho salmon and they work great!

I've been using track mounts for years. To me, you can never have enough track since it adds versatility. I always tend to go overboard (no pun intended) with using more track than I need. I find that shorter track can be somewhat unstable (6") unless you can mount with a back plate. I currently have 8 feet of track on each side of my boat. Like Egoody, I also have Cisco rod holders (and several other types/brands). I picked up 6 used Cisco holders for about 1/2 the price of new. I've used just about every brand and always come back to the Cisco as my favorite. My next purchase will be a couple of cradle style Ciscos. To answer your question, I don't think you gain anything by adding a horizontal track on a riser if the rods are all at the same height, especially if you have plenty of room for longer lengths of track. Risers are generally used if you don't have room for longer pieces of track. Vertical rod trees offer good rod separation because of the height difference. Keeps the rods more manageable. On a horizontal application like yours, just having each rod at a different angle would help when running boards, with the rod closest to the bow being the most vertical. I tend to like my rods lower (in height) so they are easier to pull out of the tubes. If you want height separation, Cisco makes riser tubes which can be placed under each rod holder. Reusing the pedestal track is a good idea, even if you have to drill more holes to mount them. Hope this helps.

Very cool that you let him see another day! Awesome catch.

Awesome! Thanks for sharing the pics!