New to dipsey diver

[Lively1]

I came into an older roller rod and big reel and decided to see if I could run a dispey with it. Put some 30 lb AFW on it, bought a black #3 diver, and viola, it works. I have trolled with it a couple of times now, and it gets down to 100 ft or more if I let it. Shows up really well on the fish finder.

 

Thing is, I've trolled with it for several hours now, through places with lost of marks, and not caught a thing. I'm on Keuka Lake so I've run the depth anywhere there are marks - 45' down to 100;. So now I'm wondering if there is something wrong wtih my equipment, or what I'm doing.  I have tried some basic flutter spoons - Sutton 88, FLT Angry Alewife, Michigan Stinger purple/blank, mainly. Leader is 12 lb fluoro,about 8' long. 

 

Here are some of the things kicking around in my head:

How do you know when a fish hits the spoon? 

 

Do they normally just hook themselves?

 

Do they pop the dipsey front clip when they hit? 

 

How close to the boat should the dipsey be? 

 

How fast do you troll?  I've read 1.5 mph but now was to go that slow.

 

How bendy or stiff should the dipsey rod be?  The one I have is pretty flexible. I think it's 1st gen. fibreglass.I would describe the tip as "floppy"/

 

When you see a bunch of marks on the screen at say, 100 feet, do you try to run the dipsey at their eye level?  or slightly above maybe? 

 

Any other advice would be appreciated.. I throw up a photo of the rig when I can.

 

Thanks!

[bandrus1]

Seeing a dipsey on a screen 100 feet down doesn't seem right

[LNDBT]

I may be doing something wrong but my divers don't show up on my finder, I figure they are too far back to show. If they do show I would think that would be the distance from the transducer and not actual depth. I would try running more or less line til you start to catch fish and note the relationship to the fish marks.

[zackblain]

somethings not right if you can see your diver down 100' at trolling speed, either your transducer isnt properly adjusted or youre barely moving at all.

[Steve.e]

Lively, I was there the first week of August and hammered LT, mostly on dipsies. I use the regular size which is I believe is a #1, ~4" with ring. I used a e-troll rotating flasher or a spin doktor with a spin n glow. 4 feet between dip and flash and spin n glow about 3-4ft back.I usually set mine on 3 setting( weight underside)- furthest from boat.Clearer the water, more stealth normally. Early in the week 150ft of line worked( I'm using 30lb wire) which runs about 50-60 ft. My speed was 1.25-1.5 at the ball. The rod will bounce when one is on. Later in the week I ran about 175-200. There are charts on line that give the "ballistics" when running dipsies. Most are based on #1 or Mags. As far as releasing, I usually have to pop the release when one is on . I tried setting the release lighter but it would pop sometimes on its own from the heavy drag. Most lakers dont hit real hard as you know. Most of the ones I caught were 17-21in, with a few up to ~24in. By the way on my last trip out on Sat, I got skunked using the same tactics that worked all week. I think the full moon changed everything. My neighbor got a few on riggers but had to go down to 105 over 120-130. 300 ft of wire on dipsies to get that deep.

Edited August 27, 2014 by Steve.e

[apb]

Something is definitely wrong if you can see it on your graph. Do you have any way of knowing how much line you let out. Do you have any flasher fly combos? They really work well with dipsies. This graph is for size one and mag wire dipsies. Not sure if it's any help. Also position your rod horizontally as close to the water as you can. Watch the rod closely. If it's a noodle it will be maxed on flex and you may not see allot if any throb, that could be a problem. Allot of guys like a 8 ft lead but I go 12 to 14 ft. Keuka has had it's really bad days this year keep in mind!! Best of luck.

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[Sk8man]

Before getting too "wigged out" about setup particulars   keep in mind trolling on Keuka has been particularly difficult for most folks this year. Jiggers have been more successful but even they have had some tough days out there. Keuka and Canandaigua as well have been unusually problematic.  Don't give up though as these "doldrum" days can actually lead to experimentation and hardcore fishing which may lead to things you might not have otherwise tried. The seventies on Seneca was just such a time for me and I learned a whole lot by not giving up and changing up things as I went along....putting in some long hours per fish but the lessons were invaluable.

[Lively1]

Thanks for the help.. Here's some additional info.

 

First off, its definitely the dipsey on the fish finder because the track moves up or down on the screen when I let out or take in line. I bought a #3 magnum dipsey based on the need to get down to 100 feet, of course I'm running wire not braid or mono (whatever the chart is based on).

 

Trolling speed and wire angle: I did take the ring off the dipsey, but the wire is still nearly vertical and the dipsey not far behind the boat. My smartphone shows my trolling speed at about 1.5 mph. I read that you needed to go slow for lake trout. But I see guys pulling copper with a little outboard going twice that fast. I'm using an electric trolling motor at the present time, my slowest speed with my I/0 is about 3.5 mph. I could go 2-2.5 with the electric though. Should I speed it up?

 

Side angle: Since I'm only running one rod I thought it would be OK to run it straight back so the weight is set on 0. If it helps to get it away from the boat I can change that.

 

Presentation: I've tried several spoons solo with nothing to show for it. Today I tried a Sutton 88 with a little white streamer tied on the hook and trailing about 2 ft behind. My version of flasher/fly. Still no hits. I did pick up about 50 ft of discarded mono that wrapped around the wire. 

 

Finally - a fishing report. I did some jigging today as well as playing with the dipsey. It was overcast, and I was seeing a lot of marks from 5 ft to 50 ft. in some breezy chop. Hard to jig with the wind, so on a whim I tied a 1/2 oz black/white bucktail to my UL rod and cast it down wind. Let it sink and jigged it up. You know the rest.. Wham.. Laker slammed it probably 30 ft down, 20 inch fish but it felt like a monster on my 5 ft rod and 4 lb test line.

 

Next time out I am going to try:

- weight setting on 3 to get it out to side of boat

- speed of 2-3 mph

- smaller spoon, closer to size of the jig that worked today

 

If that doesn't work maybe I need a smaller dipsey..

 

Will post a pic of my rod/reel in separate post.

[Sk8man]

Try 2.3 -2.5 with the dipsey and downriggers Normally you shouldn't be able to see a dipsey on your depth finder and it suggests you are going too slow. Llakers can move when they are interested in something . Just release a lively one sometime and watch it go like a missle toward the bottom.

Edited August 27, 2014 by Sk8man

[ERABBIT]

 

 

When you see a bunch of marks on the screen at say, 100 feet, do you try to run the dipsey at their eye level?  or slightly above maybe? 

 

 

Above the marks , the fish see the bait/spoons/atractors above them if you below they will not see it.

[guff]

Off the subject but you got me thinking Les (maybe dreaming is a better word). If the Keuka lake trout have been starving themselves this spring and summer (lots of poor biting reported here on LOU) just imagine if they all of a sudden start thinking "holy sawbelly, winter is coming and I am only skin and bones. I need to do a bunch of eating soon." As I said, a fisherman's dream come true. We shall see.
 

[guff]

Closer to the subject. When jigging I have seen (on my fish finder) Lakers on/near the bottom start heading for my jig when it was still 50 feet above them. 

[Lively1]

 If the Keuka lake trout have been starving themselves this spring and summer (lots of poor biting reported here on LOU)

 

 

Guff - I've only caught and kept half a dozen fish this year, but all of those have had empty stomachs. Makes you wonder if they are eating anything.

[TyeeTanic]

How do you know when a fish hits the spoon? 

Assuming your drag is not set tight (it should almost just creep out slow due to the dipsey drag, 1 click every 5 seconds), then you will know as the line starts peeling out. There will be no mistake.

 

Do they normally just hook themselves?

The fish strikes the spoon and hooks itself.

 

Do they pop the dipsey front clip when they hit? 

Yes, the force of the bite pulls the latch open.

 

How close to the boat should the dipsey be? 

That is not the important question. How deep should my dipsey be is the better question.  Here we target a temperature range about 44F to 48F in Lake O.  Sometimes it's 20ft down, sometimes it's 80ft down.  Once you know your target depth, you need to let out enough line to get your dipsey to that depth.  Use the charts the dipsey came with to figure out how much line to let out to get to the right depth. I'm assuming your reel has a line counter on it which tells you how many feet of line you have let out.

 

How fast do you troll?  I've read 1.5 mph but now was to go that slow.

For Salmon/Trout that is way too slow. You need to be going more like 2.5 to 2.7 mph.

 

How bendy or stiff should the dipsey rod be?  The one I have is pretty flexible. I think it's 1st gen. fibreglass.I would describe the tip as "floppy"/

It should be medium to strong action - so not that bendy, as the dipsey puts a lot of force on the rod.

 

When you see a bunch of marks on the screen at say, 100 feet, do you try to run the dipsey at their eye level?  or slightly above maybe? 

Firstly the fish are at the highest point of the fish arc, assuming they are right under your boat.  If I see lots of marks at a particular depth, I set my lines anywhere from that depth to about 15ft higher than that depth. I don't set my lines all at the same depth, and stagger them about 10ft in height apart, to cover more water column.

 

Dipseys are good from around 30ft deep to 80ft deep. After that it gets difficult. Yes you can go shallower, but I feel that gets the line way too close to the boat. Yes you can go deeper, but the risk of tangles and drag on your rod is massive!

[Hookedup]

Lots of info for you in all the above post. I run one to three dipsys per side mags and number ones. The best info I can give you is get a mag dipsy only two colors on my boat black or green. Put the mag on a 1.5 setting run 1.8 to 2.2 down speed to start on finger lakes. Spin Dr/ fly combo 8 to 12 ft behind diver. If you wanna catch those fish at 100 let out 220 to 240 and you will be right on them. Sean

[Lively1]

Update - Went out this morning starting at first light. Jigged the first hour, saw some lookers but no biters. Put it in cruise with the I/O drive and GPS said 3.5 mph. Decided to try the dipsey anyway. Got it paid out OK, At this speed, it was way behind the boat and not visible on the fish finder. An improvement over yesterday. Trolled past a bunch of marks on the screen, but no action. After a while decided to try it a bit slower, using the trolling motor. Got that going at a speed of 2.25-2.5 mph. Dispey still well behind the boat and not seen on the screen. Fish were at various depths, so played with varying amounts of wire out, including a run with nearly all 300' out. But the fish were not interested. After 30 mins or so called it a day.

 

The battery charge on the troller was half gone from the 30 minutes of use. Remembered that the other day my neighbor showed me something called the Happy Troller.. Anybody use one?

[Sk8man]

There are various versions of trolling plates and they work but most you have to remember to disengage them after trolliing etc. and  they can be a pain others have springs only and don't need to be disengaged but usually they are for relatively small motors (outboard). Something less involved is to get yourself a couple sea bags and deploy them they can usually do the trick for most folks...take a little getting used to but a more conservative approach to try first rahter than drilling holes in your lower unit.

Edited August 28, 2014 by Sk8man

[JimB]

For slowing the boat down...I've been chastised for running a hillbilly set up, but 1 or 2 5 gallon pails tied off to the bow cleats does wonders for putting the brakes on a motor that just won't do 

2.5 mph at the lowest idle.

[skach1]

I have a 22' fiberglass with a 5.7 I/O and with a 36" sea bag I can get to 2-2.2 depending on going with or against the waves, recently put a 9.9 kicker to go even slower

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[K Gonefishin]

You said size 3 dipsey? you should be running a size 1 it's about 4 inches across. IF you are running a #3, your bait isn't getting down very far at all, tops 20 ft. 

[quality time]

Do you have the depth finder transducer pointing down? If you can see the dipsy it sounds like it is pointing back. If the angle is the same as the dipsy you are not reading the depth of water but the distance behind the boat the dipsy is running. I run a mag dipsy with the big ring set on #1 and have to put out 225' to get down 100' of water at 2.3 mph. If you are letting out 100' of wire you are more than likely in water that is too warm for lakers! When first learning it is always good to get out with someone that has been doing it for some time. We have some great charter captains in the finger lakes and a trip with one of them could cut the learning curve way down. The other thing that you can do is ask someone on the site to ride along. I have taken people many times and have enjoyed watching them come up to speed. I always tell the people I have taken out is I don't want to get a call from a ticked off wife because you are spending so much time and money fishing. We run three dipsy's on a side and seldom get tangles. Keep at it and you will get fish. Wes

[GANGGREEN]

Off the subject but you got me thinking Les (maybe dreaming is a better word). If the Keuka lake trout have been starving themselves this spring and summer (lots of poor biting reported here on LOU) just imagine if they all of a sudden start thinking "holy sawbelly, winter is coming and I am only skin and bones. I need to do a bunch of eating soon." As I said, a fisherman's dream come true. We shall see.

 

 

I hope that you're onto something because I'm going to hit Keuka in the morning.  I'm mostly just giving all of my gear on my new rig the shakedown to see how things work (particularly the drift sock gizmo that I've rigged up to run double 30" bags) but I'll give it an hour or so before switching off to shallow water bass fishing.  Hopefully they bite better than everyone suggests they've been biting this year.

[Lively1]

Another Dispey Misadventure this morning. Decided to try it in a stiff south wind and some decent sized chop with whitecaps.. Did get it out and trolled for a while.. Speed was a more modest 2.2 mph going against the wind and waves. Let out most of the 300' of wire and trolled a Sutton 88 with trailing fly. Still nothing to show for it. After 20-30 minutes reeled it all back in. 

 

Here's where the misadventure begins..

 

When there was just maybe 10-20 feet of wire out, decided to try to manually trip the dipsey just to see if I could do it, if I did happen to hook a fish. Gave the rod a couple of strong hooksets.. Met with tremendous resistance. Made me think for a minute I was hung up on something. Gave it a stronger tug, and suddenly -- no resistance. Not even a little!  Turns out I had straigtened the swivel and the dispey is now buried in the mud in 130 FOW. The good news is, the leader had wrapped around the wire several times and I recovered the spoon and fly even though the dispey was deep-sixed.

 

So, need to buy some stronger swivels, and another dispey.. Will get a #1 this time instead of a magnum.

[ERABBIT]

You should be able to trip it with a"wrist" hook set NOT a bass/slaming/fullrod/hard/as/you/can/set....... make that adjustment next to the boat.....no trip with a "wrist" set......reel it in and adjust..... you'll get it , it may take a few times in and out of the boat but you will not have to reel in 200 to 300' of wire with the dipsy loaded.............

[apb]

What do you guys think about a fly trailing a sutton? Does this action seem right to everyone???

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