Lake Trout out of Oswego

[bluewater]

Pretty much flat and Sandy over a 100 fow, I have never hit the bottom over a 100 fow you have to pay real close attention to the depth though. I very rarely see the fish on the bottom but I know they are there due to the amount of fish I catch. I go slow anywhere from .9 to like 2.0 mph sometimes it may vary a bit. I use blacks releases and tighten them down pretty good I never have any problem

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[bluewater]

I believe its the 5/0 size cowbell that I use

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[Mreinisch]

How far you are running cowbell off the ball .

[GAMBLER]

How far you are running cowbell off the ball .

5 to 20' back from the ball. Put one long and one short. The longer one will need to stay a touch higher off the bottom.

[Mreinisch]

Thanks info . Pretty new to this game . Sounds pretty stright front .

[fathobbit0074]

As long as it works for you, that is the right thing to do.

Using the sonar to figure out how deep your riggers are running does not work though. Your sonar measures a straight line from your transducer to your ball. If your ball is "out" 100 feet and it is blowing back at a 30 degree angle, your actual depth would be about 85 feet. Your sonar would still show it at 100 feet because it is 100 feet from your transducer to your ball. If you are running a 10 or 12 lb ball you might be blowing back at about a 45 degrees angle if you are running about 2.7 mph. At 100 "out" and a 45 degree angle your ball will be about 70 feet down. Your sonar will still show it at 100 feet deep if it is still picking it up.

. I have no idea where you came up with that. You are entirely wrong The best way to check the accuracy of your ball counter is on your sonar It is the wAy most people due it. There is no truth to your theory I have polled a bunch of capts I know and they all do the same thing I do. Maybe you have it mixed up The counter on your rigger Lies because of blowback. but your sonar Give acurate info I thought maybe I and all my fellow fisherman i know were wrong So I googled it just to be sure. And your the only one I could find saying that Edited April 6, 2014 by fathobbit0074

[stoutner]

Agree or not.... your sonar measures a straight line from your transducer to your downright ball. If your d ownrigger counter reads 100 down, your sonar should also read 100 down. Problem is that with blowback your ball is probably only 80 down. I have a fishhawk X4D which measures actual depth and it proves this every time I fish.

Prove it yourself. Just run at 1.5 mph and check your sonar. Then speed up to 2.5 and your sonar will read the same depth. Common sense will tell you that your ball is blowing back and therefore up in the water column. Your sonar reading will read the same.

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[fathobbit0074]

Actually sonar doesn't meSure in a straight line it is a cone in the water with the thinnest part at top going down to larger base I do to know what kind of electronics you run but I can watch my ball swing back and rise on my raymarine.

[GAMBLER]

No need to see your rigs on the finder. Bang the ball in the mud and then raise it up a foot or two. Seeing your rigs is the last thing you should worry about. Speed, lure selection and having fish where you are fishing are the most important things to worry about.

[JGS]

. I have no idea where you came up with that. You are entirely wrong The best way to check the accuracy of your ball counter is on your sonar It is the wAy most people due it. There is no truth to your theory I have polled a bunch of capts I know and they all do the same thing I do. Maybe you have it mixed up The counter on your rigger Lies because of blowback. but your sonar Give acurate info I thought maybe I and all my fellow fisherman i know were wrong So I googled it just to be sure. And your the only one I could find saying that

Your sonar and counter should read the same, this is also what fish show as arches, when they first enter the sonar cone they are further away from the transducer in a straight line. As you travel over them the distance between fish and transducer is reduced which is why it arches up, and vise versa after you go over the top of it. Sonar reads straight line distances to objects.

[Tim Bromund]

Sonar measures distance, not depth. It sends out sound waves and measures the time it takes to get a return signal that bounces off of objects and returns to the transducer. That is why fish appear as arches when trolling. When it first entered the transducer's transmission cone, it is farther away from the source of the signal so it takes longer to receive the return signal so it appears deeper on the display. When it is directly under the boat, it is physically closer and the time between send and receive is shorter so it appears shallower and the same thing happens in reverse after it passes so it appears to be deeper because it is farther away, hense the arch shape displayed on screen. Where it shows cannonballs is NOT the depth the balls are running, they are higher in the water column due to blowback but are farther away from the 'ducer so they show deeper than they actually are.

Tim

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[Tim Bromund]

Wow, I really need to start reading all the posts before responding

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[stoutner]

Actually sonar doesn't meSure in a straight line it is a cone in the water with the thinnest part at top going down to larger base I do to know what kind of electronics you run but I can watch my ball swing back and rise on my raymarine.

 

I run a Raymarine C125. How do you think those humps or upside down U's are created on your screen? If what you are saying is true, your marks would be straight lines that would look like short dashes and would not look like humps. 

 

Look at this mark in the lower left corner of this pic. As you can see, the bottom of the mark is at 110 feet and the top of the mark is at about 90 feet. Is this a 30' tall fish? If this fish shaped like some kind of weird hump? Probably not but who knows.

 

What is happening is the fish is suspended in about 90 feet of water. As your sonar first picks it up, the fish is about 110 feet away from the transducer. As your transducer travels over top of it your sonar shows the true depth of the fish which is 90 feet. As the fish fades back behind your boat the the sonar shows it as being deeper and deeper all the way to 110 feet before the signal is lost. THAT is how the hump shape mark is created on your Fish Finder. That same scenario plays out when your downrigger weight blows back and naturally rises. The distance to the transducer remains the same and therefore it does not show your actual depth....it just shows how far it is from the transducer.

 

 

 

 

P.S. I am just trying to share some information. If you disagree that is O.K. Just think about it a little and test it out on the water. It makes a huge difference when fishing deep and fishing fast. At 50 or 60 feet and 2.2 mph it doesn't matter much. at 100 feet and 2.5 mph it makes a huge difference.

[fathobbit0074]

I run 15lb torps. My blowback is very minimal And u have no doubt that my sonar is dead on

[steelfire]

This is a good discussion!! I have a lowrance LCX26c. I can see all 4 of my 20lb torpedoes, even when they are down over a 100 feet. I can also watch the fish "streak" in and behind a torpedo. Most of the time I can point to the rod and it will fire instantaneously when the streaker gets to the torpedo. If sonar is only measuring distance, how can you watch this happen in real time and see the fish hit?? I'm not trying to be a jerk, I have been trying to figure this out for years.

[lost a lure]

Someone needs to do some better "googling" to see how sonar works!

[stoutner]

Per Google

Sound travels through fresh water at a speed approximately 4920 feet per second. What a sonar device (depth finder / fish finder) does is to measure the amount of time for a burst of energy to travel to bottom and return to surface. This time variation is then displayed on the readout of your sonar device by means of flashing lights, Liquid Crystal Display (LCD), or Cathode Ray Tube (TV screen). When the depth gets deeper, the time of travel for the sound increases.

An electronic “power pack†generates very short bursts of electrical energy which are sent to a transducer, which operates as a “loudspeaker†to convert those short bursts, or pulses, of electrical energy into very short bursts of high frequency sound energy. After sending out a single burst of this high frequency sound, the transducer is switched over so that it now acts as a “microphone†to pick up the sounds of the returning echoes created when that pulse of sound hits the bottom of the lake (river, ocean, etc.) and possibly other objects (fish) which lie between the transducer and the bottom.

The returning echoes of this short pulse of high frequency sound are received back by the transducer (operating as a microphone) which converts sound energy into electrical energy. These tiny bursts of electrical energy, now much weaker than the original signal, are then put through an amplifier which increases their strength to the point that they can be used to light a neon bulb, Light Emitting Diode, or to activate a pixel on an LCD. Thelocation of the flashes on a dial or the location of the pixels on the display can then be used to indicate the RANGE, or distance, from the transducer of the object (bottom) or objects (fish) which have bounced back the echoes.

And the last sentence says it all

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[steelfire]

So I guess then a true measurement of where your torpedoes are would be to drop them down while in neutral (and flat calm seas) and see if the depth on the riggers matches your sonar. Then engage and slowly bring up the speed and see if the depth changes. I agree with what your saying. The only thing that makes me question this theory is that when I'm running my 4 torpedoes, if i have guys move quickly to one side of the boat I can see the opposite side torpedoes lift up and down. It kind of looks like a small mm instead of a straight line. Same thing in big waves, you can see the torpedoes rocking back and forth with the waves.

[Tim Bromund]

So I guess then a true measurement of where your torpedoes are would be to drop them down while in neutral (and flat calm seas) and see if the depth on the riggers matches your sonar. Then engage and slowly bring up the speed and see if the depth changes. I agree with what your saying. The only thing that makes me question this theory is that when I'm running my 4 torpedoes, if i have guys move quickly to one side of the boat I can see the opposite side torpedoes lift up and down. It kind of looks like a small mm instead of a straight line. Same thing in big waves, you can see the torpedoes rocking back and forth with the waves.

Wouldn't that be because the attitude of the transducer in the water is changing (getting deeper or shallower as the boat rocks) and that difference is reflected in the displayed depth?

[stoutner]

So I guess then a true measurement of where your torpedoes are would be to drop them down while in neutral (and flat calm seas) and see if the depth on the riggers matches your sonar. Then engage and slowly bring up the speed and see if the depth changes. I agree with what your saying. The only thing that makes me question this theory is that when I'm running my 4 torpedoes, if i have guys move quickly to one side of the boat I can see the opposite side torpedoes lift up and down. It kind of looks like a small mm instead of a straight line. Same thing in big waves, you can see the torpedoes rocking back and forth with the waves.

 

You are correct. Just go really slow are stop completely to check to see if they match. You see the mmmm when you are rocking from one side of the boat because your transducer is near the pivot point and the weights are actually getting a little closer or further away as you boat is rocking side to side.

 

My Raymarine C125 is a very good fish finder. It displays in color like most units do. I can tell (somewhat) if I pass directly over the fish or not based on the color of the mark. If the "tails" on the mark are blue/black and the top of the mark is bright red, I am pretty sure that fish passed very close to directly under my boat. When it is bright red you can pretty much be assured that the depth you are seeing that fish at is accurate. If I see a mark that is all light blue with no red in it I am pretty sure that fish was off to the side a fair distance and therefore probably higher in the water than what is displaying on my screen. That may not always be the case but that is my experience.  

 

I was amazed when I first started using that Fishhawk X4D that measures depth. I have 12 lb weights that I use for depths to about 60 feet. I have 16 lb torpedos on my outer riggers and a 20 lb Shark on my probe rigger. I can tell you that it is nearly impossible to get down to 125 feet with 12 lb weights. I would have to let out 175 - 200 feet of downrigger to get to 125 feet when running about 2.6 mph. That is exactly why I spent the money on the heavier weights. Most of what i am talking about becomes a little irrelevant if you are using good heavy weights. 

[lost a lure]

You are correct. Just go really slow are stop completely to check to see if they match. You see the mmmm when you are rocking from one side of the boat because your transducer is near the pivot point and the weights are actually getting a little closer or further away as you boat is rocking side to side.

 

My Raymarine C125 is a very good fish finder. It displays in color like most units do. I can tell (somewhat) if I pass directly over the fish or not based on the color of the mark. If the "tails" on the mark are blue/black and the top of the mark is bright red, I am pretty sure that fish passed very close to directly under my boat. When it is bright red you can pretty much be assured that the depth you are seeing that fish at is accurate. If I see a mark that is all light blue with no red in it I am pretty sure that fish was off to the side a fair distance and therefore probably higher in the water than what is displaying on my screen. That may not always be the case but that is my experience.  

 

I was amazed when I first started using that Fishhawk X4D that measures depth. I have 12 lb weights that I use for depths to about 60 feet. I have 16 lb torpedos on my outer riggers and a 20 lb Shark on my probe rigger. I can tell you that it is nearly impossible to get down to 125 feet with 12 lb weights. I would have to let out 175 - 200 feet of downrigger to get to 125 feet when running about 2.6 mph. That is exactly why I spent the money on the heavier weights. Most of what i am talking about becomes a little irrelevant if you are using good heavy weights. 

 

 

I didn't mean you! You're on it.

[stoutner]

I didn't mean you! You're on it.

 

I thought so. That post was for Hobbit

[fathobbit0074]

I have no problem. When trolling to see every little thing my balls are doing when I speed up they swing out and rise when I slow they drop. When I set them on bottom and drag I can see that too. All under power. When I turn some rise a little some drop a little. All this is visible On my soNar While my balls are not directly under the boat. If what your saying is true. Then there would be no rise at On the ball when I speed up. If your theory is correct then the cannon digitroll Setup would be a compete fraud Because their bottom tracking rigged to a humming bird ff would not be acurate as they claim I personally don't Havd one. But I know a couple people that swear by them. You are definatly a well informed person but you are still wrong. I have been waiting on the phone to raymarine. For an hour If I ever get thru I'll ask them what they think. I'm actually calling them cause I am in the process of rigging up my new evolution autopilot and trying to network it to everything else on boat If I'm wrong I'll admit it. But I'm not

Edited April 7, 2014 by fathobbit0074

[lost a lure]

I have no problem. When trolling to see every little thing my balls are doing when I speed up they swing out and rise when I slow they drop. When I set them on bottom and drag I can see that too. All under power. When I turn some rise a little some drop a little. All this is visible On my soNar While my balls are not directly under the boat. If what your saying is true. Then there would be no rise at On the ball when I speed up. If your theory is correct then the cannon digitroll Setup would be a compete fraud Because their bottom tracking rigged to a humming bird ff would not be acurate as they claim I personally don't Havd one. But I know a couple people that swear by them. You are definatly a well informed person but you are still wrong. I have been waiting on the phone to raymarine. For an hour If I ever get thru I'll ask them what they think. I'm actually calling them cause I am in the process of rigging up my new evolution autopilot and trying to network it to everything else on boat If I'm wrong I'll admit it. But I'm not

 

SeaTalk ng. Are you networking to your sonar that you don't know how to use properly?

[fathobbit0074]

My sonar works just fine. It's others I wonder about I got hum 998hdsi and a ray a50 Ya seatalk mg. I got a vhf ray 49 that's nmea And rest is seatalk mg. I got a evu 200 sport pilot And they sent me completely wrong manual and install instructions. Go figure