Twill23

Congrats and really whackin em too! lol

The biggest being a 59lb laker.

Yea, there are some monsters in the refuge.

Only problem is, you can't fish inside of the refuge, and its one heck of a run to get to the edge!

Hmmm....interesting for sure. But as I see it in a way your buddy is correct. If the boat is traveling 2.5 sog according to the gps then yes your bait is also traveling at 2.5 sog. Now lets put the current into place, sog has no bearing on current speed but indeed does affect the action of the lure as we all know. If heading into the current the bait will indeed be acting as it is being ran at a faster speed and with the current would certainly look to be going too slow. With that being said, I would inform him that the Fish Hawk type devices measure the "action" speed of the lure at the depth you are running and if a particular lure best performs at 2.5 then he would want that lure to look as though it is running at that speed either with or against the current.

As far as fish are concerned, when current is in place, speed over ground has absolutely no bearing. Essentially what your doing is measuring effort of this fish.

What your trying to do is essential imitate bait. We do this by trolling 2.0-3.0mph. Bait is comfortable swimming at this speed. Now throw current into the mix. If a bait is swimming into that current at a comfortable pace, they will be swimming slower than what they normally are, while exerting the same amount of effort.

Think of it this way, Your late for the school bus. As it pulls away from you, you begin to chase it luckily the bus is going only 5mph. You easily catch that bus.

Now toss in a 40mph wind and chase that same bus. The bus is still going 5mph but because your running in to the wind you just missed the bus. You just couldn't catch the bus and now your late for school!

Essential a fish hawk measures speed in relation to energy spent by a fish to chase down and eat.

We know they are comfortable hitting bait this is traveling at 2.5mph. If they also have to swim into a moving current, then they are spending more energy to swim 2.5mph to catch that same bait.

You have to remember, fish dont understand MPH nor do they understand ground. They live in the water. They want to be comfortable. We as humans measure their effort to chase down bait in terms of speed. Again, they don't know how fast they're going. But they do know how much energy they exert to chase a bait. Even if the current is restricting them, they will still exert the same amount of energy to eat.

This is because the bait is also exerting their normal amount of energy to swim. If they're going into the current they will swim slower(in our terms of speed over ground) If they are swimming with the current, they will be going faster.

If you REALLY want to explain it, take him to the beach and fly a kite!

Here is the best way i would be able to explain it to him.

Remind him that speed over ground is different from speed related to moving water.

The water which may not be moving at the surface could still be moving below.

Look at wind as an example. Think of a anemometer(a too used to measure wind speed). This tool is at all times stationary, but yet will read a speed directly related to the wind. It doesn't move because it is anchored down...

Let's fish for birds today. we'll do this with kites. Say those tasty seagulls want the kites going 2.5 mph. The wind today is blowing exactly 2.5 mph! Essentially what you can do to "fish?" effectively for the seagulls is to stand in one spot while your kite does all the work. The kite will act as if it's going 2.5 mph(because that's what your anemometer says its going)

But what happens if there is no wind?(Or current) Your kite will sit on the ground not catching any "fish?"Your speed will be reading 0.0 on the anemometer...You must move your body at 2.5mph ground speed to read 2.5 mph on the anemometer.

Reading speed over water is much different than reading speed over ground, and it just doesn't work in the same way.

Now say again that the wind is blowing 2.5mph. For the bird to get to the kite he has to fly faster then 2.5 mph. Now say he wants to just sit there behind the kite, how fast does the bird have to fly? His speed over ground would be 0, but his speed above ground would have to be 2.5 mph to stay right next to the kite! If it were 0mph than he would be blown away by the wind, and not be able to keep up with the speed of the kite.

Moving water vs the ground, is in essence the same as wind vs the ground.

Now say you have no way of reading speed at your kite. Your going 2.5mph over ground, but the wind is blowing 2.5 also. Is basic terms your kite will be going 5mph. Why? Because essentially that bird will have to fly 5mph to stay even with that kite. From experience, seagulls just don't like it that fast!

Now change that wind to water currents, and those birds to fish and you have a simple explanation! His non moving surface water on the lake is ground in this example, and his moving water below is wind!

I would also point out that fish don't live on the ground. They live in the water, which is sometimes moving, and tools used to measure water speed are much different than tools used to measure ground speed.

My last point would be this. Tell him to go sit on his couch.. Now ask him if he's moving. If he say's no...Give him a GPS and when he says "See! 0.0mph." tell him he's moving. If he doesn't believe you, ask him how every day the sun sets and rises. This may confuse him more, but in relation to space, it makes perfect sense.(the earth is rotating as well as orbiting around the sun). His speed over ground may be 0, but he is still moving! Only his speed would be measured in speed relating to space rather than speed relating to ground! His gps is again incorrect.

I hope this helps!

Passing this along.

2012 Alpena, MI Brown Trout festival Walleye Extravaganza

Walleye Extravaganza - July 14 & 15, 2012 - New this year - $6,000 pay out for first place and 95% of purse for second through fifth. Thunder Bay is becoming one of the top walleye fisheries in the world. this is one tournament that you don't wanna miss! To find out all rules and regulations: http://www.alpenami-browntrout.com/2012_Rules.pdf

Scroll down for exact rules on the Walleye tournament.

Brown Trout festival home page:

http://www.alpenami-browntrout.com/index.html

Awesome Dave!!!!

When you put braid on first, you either have to tape it down, or if your reel has one of those pins on the spool, then you first tie it to that.

As far as backing for walleye, cut as much off as you'd like

Steelie came on a MS spoon with black dots on one side - not sure of the name.

Moonshine Moonshine, or yellow submarine depending if its half glow or not

Lake Trout.

These fish are not 4 year fish. A 15+ pound lake trout is anywhere from 10-20 years old. Lake trout also feed on goby, which are plentiful.

Nice job nick! good fishin!

Closest thing I have. It's not digital though.

Have you tried that fish hawk on any other coppers? Just wondering what depths you figured out?

Sure have. CasseyII(Mark) has done it more than i have, and has all the numbers for pretty much all coppers available. You'd be surprised how far off most people's expectations of depth is with their coppers, to actual running depth. The stuff is EXTREMELY speed dependent.

Still love em, i'd rather have boards off to the side rather than right behind the boat...

Those are awesome clips! There are several different clips that are pretty much the same idea, but if you want to get away from the clips you can tie it just like you do with your wire rods. Two simple overhand knots will do the job.

We ran the 1000' for a field test. We also dropped a Fishhawk TD on it to check depth.. Right around 140ft.

It's definitely not a fun fishing tactic...We do now have one 1000 on the boat, and aaron at lakeshore can definitely hook you up with the correct reel for the job.

We used it because the kings we were getting were 120-150 down. It just happened to take a monster lake trout. We only ran it for around 10 minutes effectively, because after it took the first fish, in haste to get it back out, the fresh alewife we were running wasn't set on the meat rig correctly. Hope this helps!

Use the smaller boards for the shorter coppers...Reasoning behind this is because they pull back much easier with a fish on them. The big boards love to pull true 100% of the time, and it makes it sort of difficult to get the outside boards behind the inside boards when you have a fish on them.

Nice job Jon!

Thanks alot if that doesn't work then they will be floating around out there with free written on them!

I'll take em! Love those things! In my honest opinion you can't ask for a better planer board. i mean, they pull 1000 copper for god sakes! lol

I like to pretend I'm 8 years old and just keep steady, smooth cranking.

That's 100% correct as far as fighting fish on boards go. Slow and steady wins the race. If the fish wants to go AT ALL let him go!

We had a great troll speed on the last boat that I like and we are still tweaking the new one. GPS should be GPS, but I still think we need to dial it in on the new boat.

Hay Mark,

Troll speed should differ daily as far as GPs speed goes. Personally we have absolutely no use for gps speed. Your speed should be tweaked at the ball rather than on the surface(unless of course your fishing a bunch of 2 and 3 color leads for steelhead or really shallow kings..aka surface baits). I haven't been out since Tuesday, but one direction top speed was 3.6 while down was 2.4 and the other dirction it was 1.8 and 2.6. The current changes daily, and there is never a magical speed.

Hmm, When is the board diving? We've pulled up to 1000feet of copper, and pulled BIG fish on that rig, without the board diving.

Are you keeping your rod tip very low when your fighting the fish while the board is still in the water?

if nothing else but for the fact that they look cool and would look awsome if i painted flames on them.

hahaha. Flames! Haha. I like it.

youch, $75. I dunno man, I'm going thru cannonballs faster then I went through your planer boards. Hence my desire to maybe make my own.

LOL! For you, i think the 10# or 12# fish weights would be best. The fish weight molds are easy to find at garage sales and what not.... Stop breaking weights off! lol

Hey John,

In my opinion, either the fish shaped or the tradition canon ball molds are the best option. Pancake and flat style cannon balls don't preform well while fishing deep, and in strong currents. Right now out of holland current is pushing up to 1.3mph in comparison to surface speed. That can cause havoc for a flat weight, especially fishing as deep as we have been fishing(taking bites as far down as 200). The sheer surface area of the pancake weights will cause the water to push them in more(possibly causing crossed cables) For a boat your sized, the fish shaped cannon ball may be the way to go, especially if you decide you want to bend that tail section to plane then SLIGHTLY away from the boat. They have much less surface area, and you can still bend them to track off to the side if you wish to.

Atomik makes an AWESOME cannon ball. The torpedo weight which not only cuts through the water better than any other weight, but has a much smaller surface area for current to push on them. The one down side of these weights is the price... about $75 ea.

We'll shot (I mean scare) the ducks.

I'll try to keep an eye on it for ya.

Lol,If your shootin, just dont put any hole in the boat! lol