adrenalin

This might sound opinonated but I fully believe if you are using a 12 pound round ball and having to much blow back you are trolling way to fast. When your fishing over 100 feet most people are using a flasher fly for kings or lakers, blow back shouldn't be an issue at 1.7 - 2.0. If your ripping them at 2.2-2.6 their isn't a weight out their that won't have a ton of blow back.

I've tryed them all and the walleye boards are the best. The easiest to use and last the longest.

I think she's right. It sounds like your a hoarder.

does your chip show offshore reefs with contour lines? I never heard of this mesa reef place your talking about. how deep of water is it?

Yes, some.

You can take my locator but not my depth raider. I could bounce a cannon ball off bottom to find depth but their is no way to dial in your exact speed at the ball without a speed and temp probe. In my opinon nothing catches more fish than having your speed right.

I used to keep a detailed log for alot of years. One thing I learned from it was when during the year a piece of structure would hold fish. It kept pretty consistant from year to year. I don't keep a detailed log anymore, to much to do with customers on the boat. As far as your gps charts or contour maps, I don't sit down and analyze that stuff. I have fished most of the contours between Kenosha and Fox Point and learned what's good and what's not.

What is it? Outside of obvious saftey equipment first. Just looking to see what people rely on for success.

You could probably put anything behind a flasher and catch some fish, but nothing will catch more fish than a fly. Get the lead length right and Flasher flies will be the hottest rods on your boat.

I guess I'm a minority here, when a rigger fires on our boat you better jump on that rod, set the hook and reel like hell till the fish pulls line. My releases are set so any fish less than 10 pounds can't release without a hookset. You gotta remember when a fish trips a downrigger they got 5 seconds to shake that hook with slack line. I try to keep that time to a minimum.

That's messed up!

You won't see as many fish as any other unit with the Raymarine. That's because a Raymarine will only mark fish that are actually their. They don't mark a huge bait ball from top to bottom as a black blob, cause that isn't how it actually is below your boat. Most other units will mark interference as fish along with weeds and other debri in the water. The unit you got is going to be hard to beat for 500 bucks. Alot of guys freak out and think their is something wrong with their locator if they aren't marking tons of fish. Some days their just isn't much to mark. A good example of this is come the third week in August you mark tons of big hooks suspended throughout the water column that you haven't marked all season. Those fish are zoned out 4 year olds ready to enter the harbor. All season long those same fish were either bottom related or moving in looser schools.

Bud says it replaces planer boards, but it takes all the stealth out of your setup, hense the reason for boards.

I've seen them before in wisconsin. They have some good info, but it will be half infomercal. They spend alot of time promoting their sponsors which in my opion is wrong when you pay to hear them talk about their fishing techniques. I could care less what kind of riggers or fishing line they use. I have seen just as good seminars for free, actually way better. As far as any grab bag I ever got, do people actually use the stuff they get? Mellsell is right on about asking questions, people shouldn't be allowed to ask till the seminar is over in my opinon, cuz all it does is throw the whole thing off track. This might sound negative but their is nothing more irretating to me that a speaker getting in depth about his technique or program and in the middle some guy asks a question about his favorite dipsey color or pound test line.

I've been fishing spring browns out of milwaukee for about 15 years. The last 5 years aren't nearly as good as it used to be. It used to be so good you could catch 30- 40 browns in a couple hours just about every trip. Now it can be done but alot less often. it is a way shorter window than it used to be also. Their are alot of boat trolling the harbor and it gets crowded. Best advice would be fish away from other boats and you will get em. Check your lines every 15 minutes or so cause their is a lot of crap that hangs up on your gear. Rebel fast tracs work great. But if I had to choose between browns and coho's I'd do the coho's. Can't eat those browns anyways.

You could get 2 manual used riggers and be fine for the next 15 years. An 18 foot boat shouldn't have more than 2 riggers. 2 electrics will cost $1000 bucks and 2 used manual about $250. I wouldn't trust used electrics unless you know the guy. the other $750 will buy alot of leadcore rods which will catch more than the riggers anyways.

I got one one our 27ft baha and it handles great. You can adjust the correction time to dial it into your boat and rough conditions. It's on a 15 horse long shaft and I would say it is good up to 4 plus footers. Last year it was holding a course into 30mph winds one day. So I wouldn't expect much more out of any unit.

That fly does look awesome, I will have to give it a good try this next season. I bet it would be a stud behind a white pro troll. Where are you measuring your leader lengths from?

These 2 setups caught over 200 fish for us this season. White and green hotspot and green oil slick opti with the # 11 and # 17 eyeflies. They will deffinetly be a go to setup for next season. The top one is also a UV hotspot. Sunny days these combos rocked.

I work construction and we use one everyday building houses. The best we found are hondas, but a 7500 watt will easily be a couple grand.

You don't have to go deep when the bite shuts down. Sometimes it helps, but what is actually helping most of the guys that go out deep is getting away from the boat pack. Boat traffic shuts the fish down. If the water is piss warm in shallow the fish do drop to the bottom, so moving deeper to colder water will find you more active fish. I am a huge believer in fishing way away from other boats, and actually a buddy and I have our best luck for big kings after the suicide bite. The trick is knowing what to do to get them to bite, but once you got it down most of your fish will be mature kings. We find alot of big kings way higher in the water column mid morning than deeper. This last season I had some great mid day bites flat lining J plugs of boards.

Exactly the same for me. No better way to find out what they want and then add more of that.

Most days thinning out your spread and running more lead or copper is the first step. After that matching the sky and water conditions to your baits is the most important. Everyday you fish if you pay attention to what is working under what conditions you will start to see what baits work when. Lastly when you find active fish mark each one you catch and keep on them until that spot drys up. I believe that any time you are out fishing, except during the suicide bite, water and sky conditions are the hardest thing for alot of guys to dial in consistently.

Stinger blue dolphin!

24 inch lead from the loop to the front of the spin n glow. The spin n glow has alot of action on it's own. The distance from the dodger to the release will affect the action if it is very close to the ball. I set the dodger about 10feet behind the ball. You want it close so when the ball hits bottom and stures up clay it's right their for the fish. 8 inch dodger. I don't use swr's for Lakers because they aren't that "moody" usually. Don't use stackers either.