Spot Lock is a Game Changer

[Pete Collin]

Hello All,

Since I took up boat fishing, I always sought to do more with less.  I had a small boat, cheap equipment, and gear I had made or modified.  I did OK with it.  Part of the fun was finding creative ways to get to the fish.

It's natural to eventually want to add to what you've got.  As my small boat began to show its age, I wanted something bigger, safer, and better fitted for modern fishing.  I searched for a while before getting my 17 foot Lund last fall.  It came with electric downrigggers, two GPS sonar graphs, CB radio, Yamaha kicker, and best of all, a spot-lock bow mount motor.  

In the past, I experimented with anchoring in deep water.  When you vertically jig for lake trout, you'll often drift over a big group of fish that you'd love to park on top of.  With drift bags out, moving with the wind, all you can do is hope they bite in the time it takes to pass overhead.  Staying in place is an attractive notion.  I've tried using the foot pedal of my bow mount to stay in position, but it was too much like rubbing my stomach and patting my head.  And on Lake Onatrio, there are no landmarks to navigate yourself into a swimming pool sized waypoint.  Aside from tossing out a bouy to go by, the only other option seemed to be splicing together a 300 foot section of anchor rope so you could really work over a good area.  I tried that only once.  Ever hand-haul 300 foot of anchor rope, heaving for the length of a football field against mud, zebra mussels, water resistance, and gravity?  A capstan would be a practical assist for that grueling task, but the cost of one is roughly the same as buying a spot lock motor.  And an electric motor that can use GPS to robotically hold you in a tight position, with the click of a button, is awesome!

I wanted to get an early start yesterday because it was sure to be busy at the launch.  The guys in front of me helped me launch, and explained that they couldn't get their engine started, so had to pull out as soon as I got underway.  I thought, "poor guys", as I thanked them and waved goodbye while putting toward the creek mouth.  Early morning, flat waves, tons of recent, encouraging fishing reports.  What a time to be dead in the water.  This is when I noticed my fuel gauge pegged at empty.

"How could this be?" I thought.  I could swear I had about a half tank after my last trip.  The new boat uses way less gas than my old 2-cycle.  Flipping switches on my panel, I figured that either I was in fact out of gas and was damned lucky to have made it all the way in on my last trip out, or the gauge was broken, or the tank had somehow sprung a leak.  If the gauge was broken, I either had enough gas for the day, or didn't but there was no way to tell.  I tried rigging a dipstick to put down the gas port with what I had on hand, but it didn't work.  Even with all the other boats out there, I still didn't want to get myself stranded, and have stories about this idiot who wasn't smart enough to buy gas to show up on this forum.  The only way to save the day was to trailer up, fill the tank with enough gas for the day, and head back out again.  I lost about an hour of fishing time.  And it turns out my gauge is broken, the tank top-off didn't budge the needle.  On my second launch, I met another group of guys that had to come back in because of mechanical problems.

Isn't boating fun?

Well I learned exactly what a help my space-age equipment can do for jigging lakers.  If you park your boat right above any blip you see, teasing them with a fluke in their face until they make up their mind is just the presentation the situation calls for.  I also came to appreciate how strong the lake currents can get on a seemingly flat day.  When stationary, my jig wanted to belly out behind me fairly quickly unless I used a rather heavy one.  One could imagine lakers on the bottom finning themselves in place, holding themselves steady in a choice lie the way a stream trout would.  Spot Lock let me stay right with them, tease them, change lures, try every trick on each fish until they bit.  It was a revelation.  You spend so much more time with a line in the water, rather than pulling in the drift bags and motoring back upwind.  I was having a lot of fun, was ready to set up a camera to make a video, until the batteries of the Minn Kota ran out.  I guess they don't hold their charge when sitting idle for 3 months!  Oops!  Still, I was really happy and look forward to a fish-catching summer!

Stats:  Landed 6, missed 2.  Doesn't sound earth-shattering, but I lost prime fishing time and they were still biting when I left.  3 were bigger than 30 inches.