Need help with church tackle TX-44

[BrokeOff]

The board works great, pulls hard gets the line away from the boat (even with full cores) until the fish strikes. If its a small fish you can't tell and you have a rider until you check the line. But if you get a big fish the board dives and causes horrible drag, plus it spins. We have been rigging with the release tension high so it does not trip. Is it better to have the board release or is there another trick to it? Id say we lost 75% or more of the strikes because the board is such a pain to reel in. When it dives the fish usually gets slack and gets free but we can't even tell its off until we get the board unclipped.

[John Kelley]

I finally got sick of dealing with the inline boards for those reasons, and switched to the mast style boards instead. Much less of a headache in my my opinion!

[lakebound88]

There is two ways of doing this, for the skippers, run your drag so it barely holds, as soon as a dink hits, it will click. As for board releases, no matter what your will fight the board, there is a release kit, that lets the front release, but a rear clip holds the board stable, allowing it to not continue to pull, and nip drag between you and the fish...

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[Jack]

try this:

[rockandtroll]

The tx 44 boards are the best we have found and we have replaced all our other boards with them. Use them for cores and copper up to 500 ft so far.

The problem you are having is not the board but in how you are trying to retrieve it.

If you attempt to hold your rod high and perhaps pump and reel like you might with a heavy fish the board will dive almost every time. That method may work with smaller boards because the rod has enough backbone to power the board up if it starts to dive. The big 44's got so much drag you will lose the fight.

The trick to the retrieve is to point the tip of your rod right at the board just like you are pointing to it. Tighten the drag down enough and just reel. Do not lift the tip and do not pump the rod. Reel, reel , reel until the board is close enough to the boat then lift the tip straight up so the board lifts right up out of the water and take it off the line. You will be amazed at the difference.

If your board does sink for any reason do not try to fight it. It will sink, it can reverse and generally make a mess of your other lines. Simply put the reel into free spool and let line out. The board will come right back to the surface all by itself and then you can resume the retrieve. Make sure to keep your thumb on the spool so it does not backlash in free spool.

When setting the boards we loosen the drag right off and then tighten it so it just stops clicking. If you speed up slightly it should start clicking. If you make a turn the outside board should start clicking. Set like that soon as a fish hits you can hear the line pull out and know you have a fish on. Get a large king and it will almost sound like a wire diver screaming off.

Give this method a fair try and I think you will be pleased with the difference.

Good luck, Mike

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[BrokeOff]

thanks for the responses guys. We have definitely been using the boards wrong keeping the pole high. And yes we have gotten the board wrapped in all kinds of other lines on the way in... not fun. We are running them with 10 and 12 colors cores and sometimes dive bombs.

[BrokeOff]

When setting the boards we loosen the drag right off and then tighten it so it just stops clicking. If you speed up slightly it should start clicking. If you make a turn the outside board should start clicking. Set like that soon as a fish hits you can hear the line pull out and know you have a fish on. Get a large king and it will almost sound like a wire diver screaming off.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

We have been doing this though.

[jekyll]

Drag and bag. Light drag while trolling and then double bag when a fish hits till the board is in the boat.

[snowfool]

if you're using these boards, with say a 300 copper, how far out the side do they pull? meaning what angle off the transom roughly and how far do you run them out if you're using dipsy also? i think we made a mistake with a rookie wheel turner and some how our coppers got tangled into eachother....might have even involved a dipsy as well. i don't remember but a 30 pack disappeared at camp until they were both sucessfully untangled. kind of got gun shy after that and just kept one down the chute. oddly enouggh we've never done a fish down the chute on a flasher/fly. always do good with a mag green dolphin spoon.

[BrokeOff]

Drag and bag. Light drag while trolling and then double bag when a fish hits till the board is in the boat.

what do you mean double bag?

[jekyll]

I drop 2 trolling bags to slow way down untill the board is in the boat. Once in, I put the bags and work on double/tripple.