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Joe von Grabe

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About Joe von Grabe

  • Birthday 10/14/1950

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  1. Spoonmaster, A SWR (Seacret Weapon Rig), is running 2-3 colors of lead core off of a downriger, usually as your deepest rigger. You can run any lure. Idea is that you get the rise and fall action lf lead core but deep where the fish are. I think it was described in a Great Lakes Angler magazine article. Joe
  2. The bathemetry site is very interesting with good information. The L&L coordinates don't come up on my computer at work. Any ideas? They come up on computer at home but I found they are totally inaccurate and useless. Are you finding the same thing? Joe
  3. This maybe the same as what Bob does but to expand. I tie about a one foot leader from the bead chain to a barrel swivel that's small enough to go through the J-Plug hole. I make up a bunch of these ahead of time and have them handy. If a fish really swallows the hooks or you have a bent hook or frayed leader, just put a new setup on. You can even just put the fish in the cooler with the old hook still in it and worry about it later. This comes in handy during prime time low light conditions especially during harbor patrol. Joe
  4. There are so many ways/reasons why you lose fish that you have to address them all. 1) Releases but no hookup. 2) Hooks bent/broken, snap swivels bent etc. 3) Mono line breaks. 4) Knots fail. 5) Jerky drags esecially with wireline or superlines. 6) Poor netting job. 7) Poor job fighting fish including horseing fish in, not keeping it out of other lines or downrigger cables, giving slack, etc. Things you should always do: Sharp hooks Quality hooks, snap swivels. Quality reels with good drags. Maintain reels regularly. Proper netting and fish fish fighting techniques. Check/replace mono leaders and end of mono line. Remove end portion of mono line and re-tie snap swivels often. Check/replace leaders on flys and meat rigs as required. Properly set drags (app. 1/3 of line test) Check rod guides and tips for missing or cracked rings. Other things to consider when you're having a bad day and you know you have all the other reasons covered. Shorter leads. Stronger releases. Troll faster. Also, there are different opinions on best way to fight the fish or handle the rod. Some say: Leave the rod in the rod holder and turbo reel to get the slack out before removing from the rod holder. With lead core/copper, don't pump and reel, do a steady reel. Don't hold the rod off the back of the boat but rather off the side with the rod parallel to the water. With regard to trebles vs. singles, that's another big debate. I think the general opinion is that you'll get more hook ups with trebles but with singles you'll lose less fish once they are hooked. I know the Best Chance guys feel strongly that treble hooks will get you more hookups and I don't think anyone can argue with their success. Their logic is that three is better than one. Good subject. I'm interested in hearing other thoughts. Joe
  5. There have been previous threads on other message boards debating this subject. Some guys say they run partial cores without any problems but many more say they have the lead core eventually break at the rod tip. My personal experience has been that every time I've tried to run lead core with some of the lead line rubbing on the tip, the line broke. Tried twilli tips and it made no difference. Each time it breaks you're talking about $50 in tackle. As far as running the rods angled to point toward the in-line board, I've never seen anyone do this. You'd have to have your rod almost parallel to the water like a dipsey rod and even then, it would be difficult to rotate the rod holder for-aft to have the rod pointed exactly at the board. I think this is almost impossible especially if you run more than one lead line on a side. You will end up having the lead line rub against the rod tip. As the in-line board moves due to wave action, the lead line will keep rubbing against the rod tip. If you're asking for opinions, I couldn't recommend running lead core this way. As far as having two segments of five colors with enough mono spliced in between so you can run either a half core or full core without ever having lead line rubbing on the rod tip, I've tried this and it works O.K. especially with in-line boards. Doesn't work as well with the big boards. I would have enough mono in between so you have all of the second five colors on the reel when the first five are all in the water. Good Luck. Joe
  6. I'm the Tournament Director for the DAS and sometimes we have difficulty identifying a fish between King and Coho especially early in the year. Some kings, especially one and two year olds, do not have well defined spots on the tail and sometimes it's difficult to tell by the gums. Kings have 15-19 rays on their anal fin while Cohos have 13-15. If the fish has 15, you can't be 100% sure. See attached for a fish I.D. chart. http://www.great-lakes.org/fishid.html I'd bet both of the fish in the pictures are kings. Also, the scales of Coho come off real easily during netting and hook removal. Joe, "Sloppy Joe"
  7. Wolfe99, I submitted the previous post without reading the second page of this thread. I tried the Big Jon otter boards. They were O.K. but I didn't think they tracked any better than home made wood boards. Also, I found if you troll real slow like for Lake Trout or Walleye, they don't track as well. They don't collapse so if you have a trailerable boat, it's a real storage problem. They might work O.K. for a charter boat but I still think you'd be better off with in-lines. If you still want big boards, the attached are plans for planer boards. http://www.mssfa.com/stplaner_board_plans.htm You should be able to improvise some hardware to make them collapsible. Joe, "Sloppy Joe"
  8. Wolfe99, Running lead core down the middle, you'll eventually have problems when you get a good fish on another line. There are pros & cons between using the big boards vs. the in-lines. In-lines are less expensive, easier to use, work better in rough water, and some say catch more fish. Also, if you catch a fish on the outside line, you can put it back in the same position without pulling the inside line. You can't do that with the big board. Most guys have found you're better off running your most shallow line the furthest outboard from the boat. Also, the big boards take up space when you're not using them, and with in-lines, you can run a wider spread. I'd recommend the Walleye Board, (it's what most charters use) and adjust the lead weight at the bottom all the way forward. It'll track better. Joe, "Sloppy Joe
  9. I highly recommend you attend one of Lance Valentine's seminar's on fish finders if you ever have the chance. I've used several different ones over the years starting with the paper graphs to my current Garmin color unit. Going from memory: 1) Always have fish I.D. feature turned off. 2) Don't use the auto settings. 3) Manually adjust the gain as high as you can. If you don't have some interference showing, then your gain isn't high enough. 4) Large hooks (horizontally) don't mean large fish. It just means the fish moved within the cone. 5) Thicker marks, (vertically), means bigger fish. 6) Bait fish will show up as a blob, not small hooks. 7) If you see a blob with hooks around it, it's predatory fish feeding on the bait fish. If you have a good quality fish finder with a color display, with the gain adjusted properly, you should be able to see the thermocline. What you actually see is the tiny zooplankton stuff that ends up at the thermocline. The thermocline is where there are two different densities of water that won't mix. When I first got my Garmin, it was awesome to go out in the morning, see the thermocline on your screen with a bunch of hooks just below it, drop your riggers just above, and slam the fish. What's also amazing is that once the sun comes up, the hooks disappear. Joe, "Sloppy Joe"
  10. Just registered a couple of days ago. I'm a member of the Detroit Area Steelheaders and fish their club tournaments regularly. If you're anywhere in the Southeast Michigan area, come to one of our monthly club meetings. They're on the last Tuesday of each month. Check out our website for more details. http://www.detroitsteelheaders.org/index.html We fish both Lake Huron and Lake Michigan ports. I've been salmon fishing for over 20 years now. Have a 24 ft Lund with hardtop, "Sloppy Joe". We'll be in Ludington the next couple of weekends. Joe , "Sloppy Joe"
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