Down Rigger spread Help

[Erbyjoe]

Ok I hope You guys can help me with my problem.The 2 trips I made to Lake Ontario last year were great for my dipsey rigs 95% of my fish came on the wire rods.I couldn't get my riggers to fire at all.So here is my question what was I doing wrong?I have always gone by the 100 foot rule that I was taught 22 years ago by an old timer from scriba N.Y.I tried changing lures after lures with no luck we were running flasher/fly's on the wires.should I have run flasher/fly's on the riggers also?I was running 2 riggers and 2 wire rigs the temp was 42 to 45 deg.down 100 to 110 feet so we were deep ,Our speed was 2.2 to 2.5 mph and was running the lures back 20 to 25 feet with sliders.I must be doing something wrong not to have a rigger go in the 9 days we were there for the 2 trips.I would love to here what any of you would do in a situation like this like how far back to run the lures,sliders,how far apart you would put the riggers.I just seam to have a problem with setting up my riggers so I'm asking for some Idea's.Thanks in advance.

[Yankee Troller]

In my experience usually ones hotter than the other. I dont pay too much attention to the 100 rule. I wont run a spinny or chip any closer than 20', usually. As for spoons I dont run them much farther than 15' behind the ball. If they are hitting spinnies and chips off the wires then go down on the riggers with them. I had numerous times last year where all I had in the water was paddles.

[Finders Keepers]

I would say that I run mostly dodger/flies now and have had great luck on the riggers. I run them as close as 5' off the ball to as much as about 40' back, depends what the silvers want any particular day. We also stack spoons 8-10' above the dodgers or run free sliders. This set-up did very well for us this past summer.

[ray koziatek]

where did ya go, when,hull type,moter type,gps speed or surface,or down,do ya have a good looking girlfriend if ya do please post picture..........of your boat and motor......bummer to drive that far and no release wires going off says your in the ballpark on speed and lure selection ASSuming your total catch was 15plus fish a day thats wy i ask where and when.now if ya did 9 fish in9 days then ya got some work to do or tackle to buy seeing were in the cabin mode go to that Black Box website , see if any thing there rings a bell,i woudlnt rush to buy one as most voltage problems can be resolved without one,, i ant no expert but when i go fishing i like to hear my drags a working, i might not be able to remember my wifes birthday but i can pull any lure out of my main tackle box the one that sleeps with me (over 300 in there) and tell ya when where and what i caught on it .now we all got our if i tell ya i gotta shoot ya favorits, the 15 to 20 that work all the time .if ya just answer that first line we can help .. without tellin ya the secret 20 cause if we tell ya ........................... Ray K.

[Erbyjoe]

Ok Ray I'll bite I fished out of Fair Haven.I also fish out of 19 foot Lund,main motor 140HP 4 stroke,Kicker is a merc. 9.9 4 stroke,2 Cannon mag 20's,Cannon SNT temp probe and 4,825 lures 1st trip July 7-10 went 14 for 21 for the trip.I'm not complaining on my fish count it was my best trip ever. but like I said I couldn't get the riggers to fire every thing came on the wire rigs.2nd trip was Aug.9-13 I think we end up with 10 for 14 and we got a couple on the riggers 1 on meat rig and 1 on an NBK mag.I'm just trying to see what I might be doing wrong as to not get a rigger bite.I know it's a stupid question but I respect everys thoughts

[ray koziatek]

Shimmer me timbers thats 2.010 lures per min with a 10 hr day try to up your down time to 1min per lure ..as soon as ya say FH your outta my area but if Capt Billy V. gets off the sloaps for a min . im shure he could chime in here.guess i shuda asked depth and temp and line used on dypsys,30#wire with #2.5 setting on dyp. should give ya 33 ft down for 100 out at your speed approx. you could adjust your rigger depth to match your wire depth go to lure jenson web for diver depth chart . now i fish the oak 60 mi west of FH . always use 2.6 2.7 mph speed .im shure if you left 4700 of those lures home you would pick up about 30mph if those mags 20 are the ones that have the ion feature i dont know how its applied but i are a technishion and i would try to unplug them after putting down ????(that will help keep that spoon down a little longer too :? )hmmmmmmmmmmmm ok i wont live this down this year i invited a friend who lives to fish and lives on sodus bay to the oak lets just say it was his first trip there and he assures me it wont be his last, but out of fairness if ya know the waters you fish anywhere on onterio you can do well. if the dyps are work try long 80+leads off one rigger (only with lures no spinneys) thats a high loss % setup but ya cant lose it if ya dont hook it...and if your on the rod quickly with sharp hooks youll land more than you lose..we still got those other 125 lures to deal with .... Temp look for 50ish that time of year little colder earlier in the season little more out of temp in aug,unless the lake rolled the good temps were deep this year(last) 100ft plus. and worse yet they were narrow with strong down currents .thats why the experienced Captns. did well with many recs . left to wonder whats going on..sometimes 1hr hunting for fish at 7to10mph is more rewarding than 3 hr of hair pulling trolling ,also chat on the docks with a couple charter Capts.if you do well in there home port they know you will send clients there way, that should narrow you down to that last 25 lures for that area...in july i start with blk, glow.spinny w/dark or glo fly..purple glow spoons ,black magic,penna dolph.glow 1st hour not minute keep the purpledown and green penna glow, start blue spinny w blu ,marage,or white fly after that .......bang Ray K. hop this helps P.M

[Billy V]

Erby, Erby, Erby....what happened to that top-secret new lure that I told you about over dinner in August? You know that one that only Fair Haven fish like? Didn't I give you some of those??? That was the ticket for us off the riggers last year!

[Miss em]

I'd look at your speed Erin. The Cannon SNT should be checked against your GPS or a thumper rod to calibrate it. My first SNT probe was right on the money, the second one reads about 1.0 mph slow. Shoot for 2.7 mph. That is a good all around speed. Your dipsys will be speed up or slow down depending on what side of the turn they are on. If you paid close attention, you might have noticed having more bites on the wire on the outside or inside of the turn. For instance, if they are biting the dipsy on the outsdie of the turn, speed up and you'll get your riggers to fire too.

[Erbyjoe]

Ray,

I was running just what you said on my wires 330 feet to 360 feet on the counter with 30 lb manson wire.I allways wondered why my boat leaned to one side it's probly the 4,000 lures in the dry box And I have talked to the best captains and fisherman in Fair Haven and Oswego they have all been so helpfull I couldn't ask for any better info(you all know who you are )Yes my riggers have the Ion cotroll set in the middle so I haven't noticed any smoke coming out of the water so I think there ok.

Billy,

I have your hot spoon Is that the secret weapon you speak about?Remember I told you of this problem last summer at the bar.Remember that sunday you guys were getting hits on the rigger and mine were dead in the water?I tried trolling everything.The only thing I didn't use was Johnny on the rigger with a net in his hand .I would love some of your secret spoons

Jeff,

Maniac took care of me and set me up with a rig that hooks on the cable like your set up When I'm right next to the boat my Gps speed is very close to the probes speed but when it's down deep it off by about .6 to .8 mph.So I'm up close to 3 mph when down deep.I have to come up with a better set up from the probe to the weight.And to be honest both sides were firing for us on the dipseys so I don't think that the speed was my problem at the time but maybe you right.Maybe I should have increased my speed.These are the things that I have to learn I need to set up another way to write things down.I asked in another post for a fishing log I think that is going to be a must this year for all my fishing.

I want to thank every one for the replys back I appreciate it

[muskybob]

Erby, It worked for me last year by running 10-15' off the ball. I was running as far back as 40' :shock:

[UpGrady]

Two words... Troll Direction... esp. with that much cable and wire out... you obviously had the right combo's working for the wire to be firing... sometimes, you can't get both working in tandem, but I would think that over that many days, you would have...

Were you mainly trolling with and against the waves? Was there any wave action?

Typically, the junk lines will fire better than riggers on a troll into the waves and esp. when turning into them (slow side)... subtle hints to pay attention to when junklines are working better than riggers.

If there is wave action, trying to turn subtly wander 10 to 15 degrees away from straightline trolling, to help the rigger presentation will help.

One other pointer, whatever direction of troll... pay attention to where your riggers are tracking, make sure that all lines are tracking as straight behind the boat as possible, the worst thing you can do for riggers is try to troll directly cross current... If you want to troll North, due to waves and currents, you may need to troll more NE or NW than anything in order to get north with a heavy E-W current... esp. in the Western Basin. If there is a heavy current noted, slightly turning into and out of that current will help your whole set.

[Erbyjoe]

Upgrady we were trolling in like a figure 8 patteren there were 1 to 3 footers but for the most less than 2 footers.I had way to much blow back on the troll with the waves and real good tracking on the against the wave troll.We tried to change trolling directions.My biggest cocern is am I running the lures the right way off the riggers.My wire was very hot but riggers were not.That's were I lack skills I think Don't get me wrong I know how to rigger fish It's Just I'm not putting my spred out in a way that should regularly take fish.That's why I made this post.I'm looking at ways to better understand why you guys set your riggers like you do.Thanks for the info.

[nyforests]

I'll apologize upfront if this is too simplistic. Run 2 more wire rods! If that is whats working for you, go with it!

[Guest ReelDiel]

Erin,

chances could be you were catching most fish u came across they just never made it into you riggers. i apoligize if any of this is repeat as i didn't read the whole post. heres a couple things to try if you haven't already:

1- if u r targeting 100' with spinnies and divers run your spoons off the riggers 10-20 feet deeper.(this will grab fish coming up to check out whats up, or if they come in to divers and go down and in)

2- i think like yankee said run all spinnies.

3- or run spin/diver, rigger spoon, rigger spin, spoon diver (try to set so if a fish comes into attractor and leaves they will come across your spoon)

4- try at least one ridgeback rattler on a downrigger..this will get your riggers firing...you can run the spoon like 5' 10' off the ball

hope this helps in some way if it don't do the opposite

[Erbyjoe]

Jim I'm thinking of doing a (I think it's called a thumper rig or a howarts rig)off the back this year but I'm not sure if I can swing it I would love to have 4 wire rigs I need to set up more rod holders But I have a budget to worry about and a wife that let me get this far but now I need to slow down My wife is great but I have to agree I need to slow down buying stuff so maybe next year It took me 3 years to set my new boat up like it is so I can't complane.It took me over 10 years on my last boat to get everything I wanted But thanks for the input that is a very good suggestion :mrgreen:

[Erbyjoe]

Reeldiel what you said is on the $$ I appreciate your time to answer my post every thing that has been said by you guys is awsome.It's all going in a log I make so I can go back and look thru so any thing that comes to mind is that much better.I hope that other are learning also from your posts.I never tried the #3 of your post before but it is worth a try.And last august I bought a new 13 lb ridgeback rattler from chip.And was running it also.With all the new ideas I got today I think I have a good chance to succeed next year.What color is you Ridgeback should I paint it black?Mine is the yellow color.Thanks again for you reply

[Guest ReelDiel]

mine is a dark blue..i may paint black this year or rubber coat...i have a few chips and they are starting to rust and...well thats another post for the (to blackbox or not to blackbox)

[Billy V]

Erby,

I was just bustin' on ya about the secret lures....that week in August we were running mostly Spin Dr.'s & fly on our riggers....same as we had on our dipsys. I did dedicate a couple of high rods to spoons, and those took a few fish, but the majority of the Kings came off of our deep rods.

[Erbyjoe]

Billy I know you were busting my B***s.I wouldn't want it any other way .And you know I appreciated all of your help last summer One of these days I would love to go on someones boat just to watch and see what they do with there rigger spread that would be a great learning experience.By the way I still want some of your secret spoons you promised to Yankee

[Billy V]

You're more than welcome to hop on board with me sometime Erby. And no worries, I'll paint some of those up for you this spring!

[Erbyjoe]

Billy Thanks for the offer.I would love to bum a ride sometime you don't have a charter that would be awsome.And thanks for the lures I can't wait for spring.It looks like we are going to get 10 to 15 inchs of snow tonight and tommorow This is the first storm in over a year.You guys out by oswego god bless all of you I can't imagine having that much snow on the ground at one time.When we were stationed in Fairbanks Alaska my mom said she used to put bells on us so she could here us The snow was so high.she said she hasn't seen snow like that in 40 something years.You guys should have some good spring fishing with all the run off that snow is going to make

[Billy V]

.....if we can get the boats out of the barns they're stored in!!!

[mikejonestkd]

ERBYJOE >>>.I would love to bum a ride sometime you don't have a charter

heck, count two more ( dad and I ) of us in and we'll pay for the day, gas and stuff. We don't get out in a decent sized boat very often and it would be great to fish with a few veterans that know whah they are doing.

[Billy V]

I'm not so sure I know what I'm doing!! :roll: :roll:

But you guys are more than welcome to come on board for a day of fun-fishing.

[L&M]

Can I come too? Would like to see some new trick's.