Amish Outfitter boards at slower speeds

[CaptSpike]

So I fished on my buddies new boat yesterday and the A/O boards would not pull right at speeds we needed (1.5-1.8 mph). We troll live smelt early on for salmon and the down wind board would lag behind the boat and almost look like we were pulling it sideways. Pretty disappointing as we had heard so many good things about them. Speeding up they pulled great but at the slower speeds failed terribly. I did search and find some people had also had this issues (guess we should have done that before buying them). Anyway there were many fixes mentioned but none of them outlined (exactly what they did to correct this). I have an email out to Frank but figured I'd post here and see what others may have experienced or done. My otter boats with two full keel would work at those speeds but not much slower. So I understand the concept of speed and pull along with impact of wind. These just wouldn't work any direction but down wind and the wind was only 5 mph that built to 10 mph. Very fishable conditions.

Thanks for any help.

Spike

[John E Powell]

Back in the 80s when people were building double boards out of cedar, we'd move the pull point fore/aft to adjust them. If I recall correctly, we settled on a board that had two holes, one for faster salmon trolling speeds and one for slower walleye trolling speeds; we’d move the hook from one hole to the other. If I recall correctly, the faster salmon hole was the one towards the front and the slower walleye hole was behind it by an inch or so. If the principle is similar, it might help to try a pull point slightly behind the current location.

 

You might try fashioning a bent offset pull hook to fit in the existing hole in the board to reposition the pull point. Try to keep the pull point the same distance offset from the side of the board as that is a factor also – if you change that you're changing two things at once.

[J.D.]

I installed a length of small chain on my board so i can change the tow position depending on speed and waves.  I cut 2 small slots in the board, pushed a chain link in and secured with a galvanized finish nail from the top.  The chain link with the twist tie on it was my last tow position.

 

 

[dry net]

We troll smelt as well and use otters with single keels. I believe that the slack in the tow line leads to more hits. The boards are constantly speeding up and slowing down, you just can't have them out to far. Good luck!!!

[CaptSpike]

We troll smelt as well and use otters with single keels. I believe that the slack in the tow line leads to more hits. The boards are constantly speeding up and slowing down, you just can't have them out to far. Good luck!!!

Yeah my old boat I had Otters. I had issues with them going slow and wind but not this bad. I added a second keel and that solved the problem for 90% of the fishing conditions. We did get in touch with Frank and he’s sending us something he said would help.


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