Conventional Wisdom!!

[JoeMan]

The usual rule is to fish longer leads behind the ball when fishing shallow water. I usually set my lines about 30-35' behind the ball when I am fishing less than 50fow. Here is a sonar pic of a salmon coming off the bottom to my rigger ball set at 24'. As you can see the fish checked out the ball and took off. When my lure came thru about 10 seconds later the fish was long gone.
http://www.greatlakesfisherman.com/gallery/files/1/3/4/9/S00046.PNG

Here is another picture of a fish coming down about 6' and it looks like it took a couple of pokes at the ball. I was told fish never come down, again my lure was 30' back.

http://www.greatlakesfisherman.com/gallery/files/1/3/4/9/S00047.PNG

This is a downward looking sonar so the lures are well out of sonar range. I thought these were interesting. They were taken less than 5 minutes apart. Next time when fishing is slow I am going to try to break a few conventional rules and try some things that may not make sense, but may just get a hit!

[Adam Bomb]

Boy, i hear ya there. We fished about 3/4 of a mile out from the peir head a week ago and had the same thing. Fish come up from the bottom to the ball, and no hit. Probably shoulda run one super shorter just to see.

[Priority1]

Kings are generally not afraid of the boat etc. I have taken Kings on free sliders with the main line down 30-35. Where was that lure running??? Prop wash big time. I have also take fish with lures 10 ft behind the ball in 30 FOW.

Here's one for you. In June we were fishing walleye and had an unbaited harness and BB in the prop wash while we dealt with a fish. A walleye came up and slammed that unbaited harness and we were in 12 FOW. Walleye aren't supposed to do that. Sometimes the fish don't read the rule book.:)

[hi-tech redneck]

It pays to start out with a long and short lead behind the ball to see what the fish like. When I double stack rods on a rigger, I run a personal version of the cutter rig (a mini dipsy set to the side with lure attached to downrigger release, another pole stacked 5 ft up), and have caught fish on the mini-dipsy while setting lines - meaning the fish came up and hit within 10 - 12 ft of the boat. And I can't tell you how many times in the past I've had salmon hit j-plugs while setting lines (mostly at the sand docks in Muskegon)