slipknot

Great thread... cool pics and stories.

My experience is a mixed bag for sure. I grew up trolling for landlocked salmon here in NH. While the fish are only 15 to 24 inches long and a big one weighs in at 4 or 5 pounds, its much the same technique as on the Great Lakes. The gear is just much smaller. I spent a few summers in my youth fishing Alaska. I was lucky to have an uncle that lived there and a grandfather that took me along. I learned what big water (ocean) trolling for salmon was all about. Also spent a lot of time there bank fishing the rivers for pink, red and silver salmon. Learned a lot of unique ideas from a very wide array of people I met each summer. I've used a lot of those ideas through the years and made them work for even the small fish here in NH. I've trolled on Lake Champlain quite a few times now. It is a nice happy-medium from Lake Winnipesaukee here in NH and Lake Ontario in NY.

I didn't start fishing the Great Lakes until a few years ago. So far all my Great Lakes experience has been on Lake Ontario. I've fished quite a few of the ports now... Henderson Harbor, Pulaski, Mexico Bay, Oswego, Sodus, FairHaven, Olcott, Niagara and even out of Toronto. To say I am addicted is an understatement! I've been averaging six trips out there per year, but really hope for more. My wife has already said we should get a camp in the Salmon River area... so thats in our short term plans. (Just waiting for the economy to make a turn now...) Would be nice to not have to tow the boat back and forth from NH anymore. Actually last year I left my boat in Pulaski for the last half of summer. That was so nice.

I lucked out last year and was asked to join the Pro/Am Team of Savant Spoon. The Sodus Tourney was my first/only one last year. I'm really looking forward to doing all the tourneys this spring/summer. Already cleaning and organizing gear to prepare for it! Cannot wait... its so much fun to be surrounded by that many people who enjoy the sport of salmon fishing. Great camaraderie and great fun!

Well, look at that, I did figure it out... Sorry for the wasted space...

Hey there... I have tried to figure this out, but can't. I'm probably a bonehead, but I can't figure out how to have my "real name" show up on the top right corner of my posts like everyone else. Or is it already there and just doesn't show on my screen?? Help...

I forgot to mention one thing. On our fixed sliders, we use a medium sized rubber band. Most times this band does not break from the hit of a fish. What happens is the band slowly slides down the main line... OR... 70% of the time it stays in place and acts as a sort of shock absorber to the fight of the fish. This makes it so we don't have the big lag time between a fish hitting and finally getting tension on the fish. Much less lost fish this way.

If a fish hits the main lure, be prepared to remove the fixed slider when it gets near the rod tip. We quickly unclip the duolock, but leave the rubber band. We keep the band just small enough that it can be reeled through the guides of our rods easily and feed back out easily if a fish decides to make a last minute run (this wouldn't apply to a fish on the cheater lure as you'd be able to land it without getting the band into the rod tip).

We run two rods off each of our four riggers all the time. Usually each of the rods will have a free or set slider on it as well. Have not had a problem with sliders getting tangled yet. I would think a third rod off the same rigger would pose a problem for sliders though.

A lot of days, its the sliders that get all the action. I won't put a rigger down anymore without a slider on it.

I'm a big fan of free sliders as the slider will change heights in the water column depending on currents and speed. (The belly of the main line will expand and contract according to the pressure on it from those forces, changing the location that the slider rests.) I think this extra up and down movement of the lure really helps entice bites from otherwise uninterested fish.

However, some days the fish are looking for a consistent depth and possibly less movement in the lure. On those days we use the rubber band method to "fix" a slider anywhere from six to twenty feet above the main lure.

I almost always only use a six foot slider length. It is easy to control while landing a fish and seems to never tangle in the water.

I do the same as mentioned above... I put a good duolock snap at the lure end of the leader and a duolock with ball bearing swivel at the line attachment end of the leader. I buy my swivels and snaps seperate and make my own "ball bearing duolock snap swivels" so that I get the quality I want while keeping the overall size down.

We can't use sliders here in NH... but I use them every chance I get on Lake Ontario. They've always been a huge success.

As far as split rings... I almost always remove the front splitring from lures. I always attach my leader to the lure with a nice rounded duolock snap. I have tested lures alongside the boat and I see no difference in lure action doing it this way. Too many times I've seen a brand name splitring uncoil. I've also seen several times where feisty steelhead will somehow manage to twist a splitring off a lure. This happened twice last spring with some new lures we had not removed splitrings from. The first time, the lure came off and the fish was gone. The second time we netted the fish and then noticed the splitring was 3/4 of the way unspun from the lure! Crazy. So, yes, I remove splitrings.

I use finned rigger pancake weights and bend mine so that the outside riggers spread a bit for more room. As long as I don't go crazy with the bend, I have no problem running a wire dipsey rod off each side as well. Although, I do use a 10' 6" dipsey rod to help keep the wire from touching my mono in the turns. I also never set my dipseys at a "0"... always at "1" or more to help maintain a safe spread of the lines.

Wow... nice salmon. Wish we had some Atlantics in that size range around here.

Hehe no tacklestores in Sweden, only Volvo and Saab stores.

I just found this box on ebay... I have one just like it. I hang magnum spoons in it. However, the way the inserts are designed, you can hang two rows of shorter spoons on each, doubling the capacity. I have twice as many spoons in this box as I do my MaxiMates. It may be worth a look?? If he won't ship it to you, I'd be willing to accept it here and then ship to you, if that helps. Here's the link

http://cgi.ebay.com/PLANO-TACKLE-BOX-MUSKY-PIKE-SALMON-TROLLING-CRANKBAITS_W0QQitemZ270333292750QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item270333292750&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1205%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318%7C301%3A1%7C293%3A4%7C294%3A50

I take it there aren't many "tackle stores" in Sweden? Or is it that you're looking for stuff they don't carry? Just curious what its like over there. Very interested to see/read more about your fishing culture and styles. Very interesting.

That is great! I'm passing this one along to some friends...

Wow. I'm surprised the twin outboards will troll that slow... Thats' great!

Priority1, I really like the way you explained the "dinner mint". Its a much better/easier way for me to explain to people why big fish will bite little lures. I'm always hearing the "big fish - big bait" comments from rookies and its so untrue a majority of the time. Thanks to your post, I now have an easy way of explaining the use of smaller lures in the pattern.

Very nice boat! With the twin engines, do you need to throw out "bags" or does it troll slow enough just the way it is?? Glad to see that folks across the ocean are enjoying the same love of fishing. Keep the stories and pics coming, please.

That is awesome! Nice work, indeed.

Ughhh... what a killer. I can feel your pain losing those big kings. That stinks for sure. You had way better luck than us on the kings though. In the four hours we fished for them we got only one little shaker! Then, like you said, we headed for brown trout depths. Definitely worked for the fish this weekend! Sorry to hear of all your drops... we had four or five nice browns we dropped too. Would have really helped to get them. I just heard today that we missed biggest comeback by one point. Went from 18th on Sat to 3rd on Sunday.

Good luck out there.

Hadn't seen this thread before... I know I'm late, but this is my thought on rubber bands to fix a slider... they're great! That's all we use for fixed sliders. We never break the rubber bands though. If we have a fish hit the main line, we just reel up til one of us can unclip the slider. Then we just go ahead and reel the rubber band through the rod guides and onto the reel. I have never had it cause problems with taking line in or the fish pulling line out. We use small rubber bands bought at the convenience store... nothing special.

Great report Billy V

We were out there fishing for Savant Spoon Pro Team. Rather than tow a boat out, we fished aboard Walk On Water out of Sodus Bay. Captain Steve is a great guy. We had a lot of fun with him.

Luckily, we brought some copper rigs with us. Steve doesn't have any nor had he ever used them. I think we now have him hooked on copper! Half our fish came from the copper in the two day tourney.

We fished til 10am on Saturday for kings... not one bite! So, we said the heck with that and moved in looking for browns. It didn't take long to find the hooks, but getting them to bite took a while. Several other boats were working the same water and we think the fish were spooked. So, we pulled out several lines and ran "silent mode" over the schools we were marking. Bingo... fish on. Ran with only four or five lines until 1pm and headed back to the harbor with six in the box and two decent fish lost. I think we were one place behind you (Billy V) on Saturday.

Sunday morning, we went right back at the browns. Had a triple on at 7am. That was nice, but only landed two of them. Pulled in two fish during the day that were just 18 1/4" so they went back in the water. Couldn't risk them shrinking under 18 and getting DQd at the weigh in station, so we tossed them back. Like you, we had zero activity during the storm. At one point we had a lightning strike within a half mile of us... figured they would call the tourney, but they didn't, so we fished through it. Kinda nervewracking, really.

We had 8 fish in the box, three lost at he boat by 1pm. Decided to troll towards the peir heads... lucky we did. Between 1:30 and 1:45 we boated two more browns. Then made a mad dash for the harbor. We made it with a few minutes to spare. Total of ten browns boxed. Best was just under 10 pounds.

We ended the tourney in 5th place. Not bad for the first time we all fished together as a team.

It was unfortunate to hear of some guys with boat troubles. Heard of at least 5 guys that ran close to 30 miles to fish. Fortunate for us, we found fish within 7 miles, so the fuel consumption wasn't bad for the weekend.

Seeing as we are Team Savant Spoon, its obvious what we ran for spoons. The Jake 45 in any of the greens and the new gobie colors were really hot for us. Also caught a couple on the Savant holo green.

Cheaters on the riggers brought most of the action that wasn't on copper. Only two fish were taken on dipseys.

Now looking forward to next June. Hoping to fish all four tourneys next year.

Have fun.

Just got a wonderful call... I have been invited to fish the Sodus Bay Pro Am this coming weekend. A friend of ours lost a couple of his team and asked my friend Adrien and I if we'd be interested in fishing this weekends tourney with him. Heck ya. I am so psyched. I thought this past weekend was my last trip out til August! Woohoo. Can't wait. Good luck and I'll be sure to let you know how we make out.

Nice fishing! Great way to spend a vacation.

On a side note...

This may have been asked before... but, how the heck is that rod tree (in the background of your picture) fastened to the gunwale? Looks like its just bolted to it, but seems like it would rip out with the stress of all those lines in the water. I really like that setup, so very curious how it is attached to withstand the drag. Next question would be... is that something custom made or did you buy it off the shelf somewhere? Thanks for any info.

A few pics from in front of the harbor. No pics of me waiting to get some from my buddies camera... but here's the few I did take that day.

Thick, thick fog that morning! Like I said above, we had seven boats in view at one point, even though visibility was horrible at that time! Lots of boats, few fish.

This is the first king we landed after moving west of the harbor entrance and away from the pack of boats... I think we landed nine fish very similar in size to this one in the next 3 1/2 hours... a few that were maybe 8 pound range... and half a dozen long distance releases ( )

Not fishing related, but I have to say, we were in awe of the great dock space we had for two nights at Pier 4. What a view of the CN Tower! Great city. My first time there, but I will return!!

Here's some pics of the the group with each of our first fish of the trip.

Here's me with a small one:

Here's my wife, Becky, with hers:

My friend, Adrien, with his (our first decent one) and my wife fighting one in the background:

Here's Nadine with her first:

And here's the girls doing it on their own!:

Those are the first five fish of the trip... a couple of them were really beautiful fish. What a way to start a trip!

That is great! Nice pictures.

Yeah, when we pulled the boat Monday morning for the ride home, we talked to a few people that had seen or been involved with catches between 25 and 30 pounds. It was funny to us to have people calling our 17 pounders "small" fish. We are so used to catching 2 or 3 pound fish here in NH that 17 was crazy big. Hard to get used to that being small. Hey, its all about the fun and we had a blast! The wives even enjoyed it more than they thought they would. I'm gonna try to get some pics posted here later. Probably should put them under the Fishing Report section though, so check there if interested.

I learn a little bit every trip out there. Eventually I'll get my 30#er.

One thing I will say is: the people out there are so nice!! Everyone is willing to share info at the docks to help us out and point us in the general direction of where the good bite is. It makes the trip so much more fun being able to get into fish without days of searching for the good bite.

Not sure if I am doing something wrong??? I've tried Elberta Clippers, but it seems that they end up damaging my line over time. I've switched to the old rubber band technique the last few trips and it seems to work okay. I'm always hesitant to reel the rubber band through the guides, but so far I have had no problems with it costing me a smooth drag if the fish peels out line. Never seems to be enough time to remove the band in the middle of the action! But, I guess thats a good thing...

Lots of good info in this thread. Wish I had known some of this prior to last weekends trip to Lake O. I have never run more than one dipsey per side. After reading this, I know I have been missing out. Time to set up a couple more wire/dipsey rods and have them on board next trip. Great info... very detailed. You guys are great.