Russell 7-23-11 & Stupid Human Trick

[LongLine]

Fishing Report

LongLine

Launched at dawn. Couple guys pulling out – they got some night fishing in. Clear with south waves on the river. Here’s a look back.

Here’s a look forward.

Winds out of SW. Little choppy. Maybe 1 ½ ft’rs with an occasional “wake-up†wave. Just enough to make handling a small boat solo a little tricky.

Anyways, left the channel; took a left & went out to 160 FOW. Plan was to work 160-230 FOW off Russell. Found 54F with 75 ft of cable out. Almost immediately hit two shakers with NK Wnderbrd. GPS said 3.0, Moor said 2 ¼, Lowrance surface said 1.2 mph. Who knows? I was going North though & I’m sure the wind pushed me more off Summerville.

About 220, ran into this guy same depth, lure, speed, direction. (75 down)

Turned around & headed back shallower, aiming towards Russell. Just on a whim, last week, I retied a No-see-um with purple beads and a 12†lead. Having it behind a clown dodger, at 200 FOW , ran into this guy at 55 down on the shallow rigger

All were nice clean fish. Not bad for only a couple hours of fishing.

Now for the “Stupid Human Trickâ€: With that wind, I couldn’t hold the Rainbow over the side, for very long, to revive him, so I did the deep six thing....he went belly up. Seeing this I thought I better go back & get him. Unfortunately, a strong gust of wind suddenly swung the boat around and I hadn’t cleared the deep rigger with the probe on it. You guessed it, the rigger kicked. Luckily, by the time I finished my “expletive deleted†I had thrown it in neutral & killed it. Raising the engine up revealed the cable was wrapped 4 times around the prop. Luckily it wasn’t cut. I was able to reach the cable with a boat hook but it was painful to pull it in by hand. (14 Lb plus probe) so I discovered that two pair of needle nose pliers can be used to pull it up rather easily & not cut the heck out of your hands. Got the probe & weight in but had to cut the cable to get it off the prop. Thankfully the Cannon people put a decent clutch on those riggers & no other damage was done. (LongLine 1 – Rainbow 1)

So with 90 ft of cable in the bottom of my boat, that tricky wind & feeling really stupid at never doing that before (in well over 40 yrs of fishing), I called it a day & headed in. (I did do a couple of circles though & that fish had gone under.)

Back on the trailer at 8:30. Maybe 10 trailers in the lot. Water level at the launch is now just perfect!

Luck to all

Tom B.

(LongLine)

[dbutts]

good job on the fish, and saving your probe! thanks for tellin on yourself

[tree top flyer]

good save

[PolarBear]

The wind was tricky ,,,, good save on the rigger gear and probe

[ Post made via iPhone ]

[Waynes World]

Wow im glad it isnt just me. Im happy things worked out for you. I tried launching today. Little too ruff. Cant wait to get back out

[ray koziatek]

Ive done a lot of learning curve tricks long before I found this site..did you know you can wrap 4 rigger cables (on a bumpy windy day) stand on the outdrive and unweave the mess alone... and save the works..yes I know back in the day i sorta ran a couple extra lines , then one day with a little help from the DEC i was informed the "porcupine" 12 rig spread was not a good thing ,thank goodness i was running light that day well the 4 rigger boat was new to me and it only made sence to run all the rods that came with it,now I keep the extras in the cabin. But to all you peta folks I rarely brought home more than 2 fish.....

Ive spun around more than once for a steely only to have them dive as soon as you almost get close enuf for a net jub,,,I think thats a trick they do to get guys to spin back and tangle the rods justa get even for pokin their lips....

[Pike Hunter]

Tom, good job on the save. You were wise to just call it quits and head back for a safe fishing day. Sometimes, one little thing can lead to another.

ABout 6 years ago, when I was NEW to trolling, I had a pair of old cannon riggers which did not work well. It can drop the weight down and hold but it wont pull up anything more than 10#. I had to use gloves to pull up the cable manually. My friend had a ball watching me pull up cable everytime the rigger popped out.

[OldTex]

Thanks for the report and pictures..Also thanks for your honesty about the ego bustin experience....I fish alone a lot and have been humbled several times with similar things...I'm glad you were able to save the good stuff.....Years ago at Lake George....we broke the boom right off the downrigger....Lot's of F bombs that day

[LongLine]

did you know you can wrap 4 rigger cables (on a bumpy windy day) stand on the outdrive and unweave the mess alone... and save the works..

I thought about putting the ladder over the side, doning the lifejacket & tying myself to the boat with a rope...luckily my second thought was that I shouldn't try to outdo my previous stunt.

Tom B.

(LongLine)

[keithg]

nice save.i caught a nice steelhead a while back while un-packing the boat(egg sac on bottom).tried to release several times kept resting his chin on my trim tab.finised packing and checked on him, didn't think he'd make it ,grabbed my net.one look at the net zoom he's gone! why would a fish rest his chin on the tab for close to an hour?

[Skippers Trophy 01]

We tried that stunt too, wrapped the cable around the kicker enough to stall the motor. I sat on the 150 outboard, trying to unwrap it to no avail, pulled up 65 feet of coated cable by hand to retrieve the probe, but the torque of the motor had broken the "safety lead" to the weight and that was lost. Was pretty happy to see the probe come up though!