John E Powell

As an alternative, you might want to check the Raytheon Dragonfly with CHIRP sonar and imaging - it's brand new on the market.

I know tape works to keep braided lines from slipping, but I prefer to use three wraps of mono on the spool under the braided as the tape leaves a sticky messy residue on the reel. As someone overly particular about my rods and reels, I'll stick to no residue mono.

I'm looking for the lock that you can insert a bolt into. You insert the bolt into and through the lock case and interlocking washer with the bolt threads sticking out, then tighten down your electronics, then slip the key into the lock and slide the lock mechanism into the lock case covering the bolt head. Then you pull out the key. The bolt head is completely covered and can't be loosened because the lock case spins freely around the bolt head. Can anyone provide a link to these? I let all mine go with my last boat and now my local locksmith who carried them doesn't anymore. There are 4 parts to the lock: 1) Lock case and 2) T shaped rabbeted washer to interlock with case 3) keyed lock mechanism, and 4) key.

Still looking for a couple more.

Very motivated to get this out of my living room, no reasonable offer refused...

Be aware that if you clip to the copper and have copper in front of your board, the copper may sag into the water and drag your boards further back than where they would run if you let all the copper out. I load my reels as follows: 3 passes of mono wrapped on reel spool (to prevent braided backing from sliding on spool), spliced to 50lb power pro backing, spliced to 10' 50lb leader material (use abrasion resistant leader material as this is where planer release gets attached) spliced to copper, spliced to final leader material. Lots of splices, but if you use the correct splices/knots between various lines, it's a very durable rig that fishes well with little to no fuss out on the water.

When setting an inline board while running a flatline, move the flatline to the opposite side of the boat from the inline board a few minutes before you begin to let out the inline board line. When you move the rod, depending on factors like wind, wave, troling speed and direction, and dropback length, it can take a couple of minutes for the flatline lure and line to move directly behind the rod tip. I usually add a 2-2.5" bobber in front of a flatline lure for four reasons. First, the bobber will let you know for sure where the flatline is trailing behind the boat relative to the boat wake. This is helpful when setting or fighting fish on other lines. Secondly, it tends to help keep the flatline between the rod and bobber at the surface; hooked fish on other lines will pass under your flatline greatly reducing the chance of tangles and when setting your inline planer lure your flatline will be held above the inline planer lure. Thirdly, if a larger fish on another line is running line out you can freespol the flatline to keep the bobber behind the rampaging fish. All these tips apply to mono, leadcore, and copper flatlines. Lastly the bobber can be placed closer to the lure on mono flatlines to keep a lure shallow to both avoid bottom snags or keep the lure right at the surface for surface feeding fish.

Mark, your way, if you catch a fish on a high diver, are then your going to reel in your inside deep diver so you can reset your high diver in clean water? I don't think so - you're going to reset your high diver over your inside diver which is what I suggested you do in the first place. The point of my original answer is a skilled troller needs to know how to remove and reset any single rod in a spread without having to disturb other rods. For example, If you have three inline boards out per side and you catch a fish (or want to change or check a lure) on the middle or furthest line, are you going to pull the inside inline planer in? A skilled troller should be able to reset a inline planer outside of one closer to a boat without having to move the inside inline planer out. It's no different with divers.

Since an inside magnum diver will run deeper, I set that first. When I set the outside diver, I let it creep out under drag tension and it will stay outside and above your inside diver. Sometimes you will nail a fish on the way out and this can indicate that fish may be hot for a slightly slower troll or a shallower feeding bite is happening (fish marked deeper on your sonar are charging up to feed on shallower bait out of "preferred" temp).

Serious kinks can be cut and "haywire" spliced back together. No need to replace copper unless it gets chewed up somehow. If you loose a section, you can just add more back on to get the length you need. I'd only replace the copper if you also want to change the test weight (for example 32 to 45 or 45 to 60, etc.) or if you're the kind of person who will always be worried about your copper splices holding; in that case, it's a small price to pay for peace of mind and the confidence boost.

To the top.

The glows work well in the early hours. As the sun rose, my dad would switch to the pearl and pearl with pink stripe both with and without fishscale tape. by 9-10 am he'd switch again to the yellow and a hand hammered silver plate dodger. He'd run various color baits depending on water clarity or turbidity and the amount of sunlight he felt was penetrating the water. We generally fished the yellow and silver back then though as the prime morning hours were used to target salmon mostly. It wasn't usually until later in the day when the salmon bite slowed that he would start to target lakers and we would use the later in the day colors. I can't offer an opinion as to whether these patterns would work well on inland lakes trolling as we only ever fished live bait at night (anchored with lights pointing down into the water) for inland lake lakers.

Just a reminder.

Thanks Vince, that would be great!

Still looking for a couple more

ttt

I have a pretty nice KODEN Sonar, model 8841 that I am no longer using. This is a high quality sonar in a sturdy metal case intended for commercial fishing applications. It's a bit overkill for recreational downrigger trolling, but if you have the dash board room on your boat, this is a heck of a nice fish finder. You can easily see images on the big 10" screen while working lines at the transom. I removed it from my last boat but found I couldn't use a thru-hull transducer on my new boat (a foam-filled Boston Whaler) without major surgery to the foam, so I went with a black box add-on to my Garmin network and a transom mount transducer instead. In preparation for transferring it to my new boat (before I realized that I couldn't actually use it) I sent the unit in for a major service and they installed the latest motherboard and software at that time which I believe is circa 2010/2011. I also ordered a brand new 120KH bronze thru-hull triducer with speed and temp. The display was deemed by the service tech to be in good working order so it was not replaced, it's VGA resolution. I have the complete unit, mount, owners manual, and wiring all in very good shape, and a plastic dust cover that while functional, has deteriorated somewhat with time as one would normally expect. Here is a link where you can read up on the specifications of the unit: http://www.bethel-marine.com/Koden_CVS884142.htm Mine was configured and frequency match tuned for the included bronze wide-angle 120khz multi-function triducer. I cost me about $300 for the new motherboard, and a flat fee for service, and a few hundred more for the new transducer. I'm looking for a reasonable offer. I'll ship it, but it cost me about $40 to have it double packed and shipped with insurance when I sent it in for service, so please consider my cost to ship it to you if you decide to make an offer on it. I'm in the Niagara Falls area if you'd like to stop by and take a look at it in person.

For what it's worth, the European carp guys, who have this leadcore to mono splicing down to a science, specifically recommend NOT to use superglue, but I can't find an explanation as to why. To prevent the fraying at the end of the core, they insert a regular needle (bigger in diameter than the mono your splicing to) into the end of the core and then ever so gently melt the frayed core end on the side edge of an alcohol flame where it's coolest. Then, they pull out the needle leaving a perfectly round hole for the mono leader to slide into. Among the Europeans, there seem to be a larger camp of people who leave the core alone, and a smaller group who melt it as described above, however, they are almost all in universal agreement that superglue and core is not the best thing to do. I wish I could find an explanation from them to site, but I haven't seen one yet. I did see one reference however about superglue defeating the "chinese finger lock" principle of the core sheath and the possibility of "fractured" superglue cutting mono, but as to whether this would apply to how the superglue is used as described above, who knows?

Hey everyone, As of this last Thursday, we've had just 1 person sign up to feed the fish in the pens in Olcott (thank you). Please consider signing up, this is your fishery and these are some of the fish you will be catching over the next three years. If you haven't signed up because you worry you won't know what to do, don't worry it's really easy to do; the Town of Newfane marina staff will answer any of your questions when you arrive and check in with them. This would be a great opportunity to take the kids/grandkids on a fun "field trip". We really need some help with this if we're going to continue to do this in the future...

This type of needle is basically a sewing needle called a "latch needle". The difficult part is finding one small enough to fit inside the leadcore sheath. This size needle is used mainly by European Carp fisherman. On their websites they refer to it as a "leadcore splicing needle". basically it's a high quality, small sized, latch needle with a handle (larger sizes are called latch hooks). Do a Google image search for latch needle and you will get the idea.

Just about any two-part deck finish non-skid system will do a great job for a deck that will see fish blood and aluminum net hoops. There's no need to break the bank. Topsides are another story. This is where you may want to go high-end as the more expensive formulations of topside finishes will hold up better over time to the constant bathing of UV rays they will be exposed to. I've had great results using Epifanes two-part polyurethane topsides finish system over their epoxy primer. It was very straightforward. Wash, clean up rust stains, drysand with 220 and repair anything that needs attention, wipe down with degreaser/acetone, apply epoxy primer, wetsand with 400, wipe down with degreaser/acetone, first coat finish, wetsand with 600, second coat, rub out. Looks like a mirror. Took me a couple weekends on my previous boat (26').

The easiest way to fill a reel completely if to spool it in reverse so the last thing that goes on is your backing, then transfer it to a second reel. As you fill the second reel, note the reading on the reels counter where the backing splices to the copper so you can use that number to fill more of the same size reels. If you only have 1 reel to fill, you can still transfer the line onto a spool, then a second spool, then finally your reel. Keep a log for future refills. Easy. Remeber the number on the counter will not be accurate when your putting on backer. It's only close to accurate when the spool is filled. Your just using the number for reference.

Any knot with two wraps of line around the lure's hoop will hold it's place until a significant load is applied to the lure. A fish, or bouncing into the bottom will slide the knot, but the lure's action itself won't. Remember that with significantly increased action, you will be trolling slower so there will be less drag. Fill your bathtub and give it a try. You'll know which of your lures can and can't be tuned in this way before getting out on the water.