Eliminator

I say spring for mine in shallow and yours later for going deep. The rumor is Sea Eagle will fish with big balls this year, with the help of some new electrics. LOL

I will be at the GR show, but if its in grandville I will do both. I will also do the Walleye show.

That made my sides hurt also. I never thought about that, he could have had me " hook, line, and sinker...." Sorry, Bad joke Friday.

That is my biggest fear of buying used on ebay. Craigslist you at least will meet the person. It is amazing what lengths people will go too for a buck. Its even more amazing what fisherman will do to fish salmon! LOL

The reason I am posting this here was to avoid the great responses associated with the age old question of what downriggers to buy... I currently have Big Jon Manuals and not very happy with them. I would like to upgrade to electric anyways but not sure of what to consider. As far as my manual Big Jon's I do not care for the clutch system. It was very hard to tighten the clutch hard enough to prevent slippage. I use 10 lb balls so I am not sure why they don’t hold..... So my question is what do you like and dislike about your current downriggers? I am a weekend warrior that usually has one other person on board. What would you recommend? I would like to use 15 lb balls, what size can you run with your current downriggers? I would like to purchase a set of good used if anybody knows of a pair laying around somewhere.....if not I will buy new come spring time.

Not too join un invited, but I would very interested in learning also. I live in Kalamazoo and be more then willing to head your way to learn some fly tying methods. Started fishing 2 years ago and want to learn anything I can.

Great job! I am glad to hear someone was still out there fishing, I was hanging on up to this past weekend and decided to winterize the old boat. I need to ride along sometime and learn how to catch those wallys. They are one of my favorite fish to eat!

Thanks for the location comment, just updated it (Kalamazoo). I just recently joined this website and definitely agree with the friend’s network. I really appreciate all the information shared on this site. I would like to have one or more people join me on my boat or ride along on others to learn more. I am very interested in the temp probe you linked too.

Yes, I have manual Big Jons's that get a little old in 100+ water, then have 16 rod and reels with planners and dipsys and two special mate tackle boxes one with 25 spin doctors and fly's and the other only half full of spoons. Plus I have a small collection of body baits and j plugs

That is prob what it was, I varied from 2.8 to only 3.4. Thanks for the great insight!

Great Job! Even more reason to leave the boat out. I also am still fishing and just cant put the boat away.

Went out at 7:00 and tried to fish the deeper 100+ water but was too rough with waves crashing over the bow. Came back in to work the much calmer mudd line and could not keep the lakers off. Was in 25 feet of the water and almost all 8 spoons took at least one laker. Time ran up and had to load and go. Finished 11 for 11 ALL LAKERS!! Two color lead caught over half of them. Being very new to this I am not sure why I could not get silver fish to bite only lakers.

I would like to make an equipment improvement of some kind this spring. My question is what’s the bigger bang for the buck. I fish out of a 21' Trophy Cuddy usually with only two people sometimes three. Being only the second year my fish catching is only 2-3 per trip. So I am trying to decide what makes the most sense to go after first. Elec Downriggers, auto pilot, speed temp probe, Kicker Motor with digital control, or anything someone would suggest. Maybe I scrap these ideas and focus on baits and rides with others......

I also run SWR's during the summer. For some reason I did not have luck with them in shallow water during spring. I had better success with just a mono setup. Not sure why.