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Questions with releases


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I don't fish Lake Ontario but I have fished on Lake Michigan since the late 60's when I was a kid. As such I have seen or used most of the releases and to be honest they pretty much all work. That said there are limits to how well they work and how you set them up. I use Off Shore releases on most of my setups because I prefer the pinchpad release I also use Blacks on a couple of setups and have them on 2 of my downriggers. I will probably put them on the other 2 riggers for next year as I liked the option. The trick is knowing how to set them up which will change from setup to setup. I allways use either a medium or heavy tension release. Medium tension for spoons and plugs heavy tension for flasher fly combos or cow bells. Every setup pulls differant so it takes time to learn to match the release setup to the presentation. If something is messing with my lure I want it to trip if I get a couple false releases on the same pole I will either set the release tighter or put less rod tension on it. If a release won't hold it goes in the trash and a new one goes on but the only way to eliminate false releases is to set them too tight but then you drag small fish around for hours can't even guess at how many times I have pulled a rod that was unproductive to chk it and found a shaker hooked on it. Once this summer we were pounding them fast and as my wife was reeling in her limit fish I saw one porposeing behind the boat and I realized in all the action I had not chk'd the starboard rear rigger in a while so grabbed it and release was stuck so brought the ball up and un tangled the release and reeled in the 8lb Salmon that was on it. That was shear luck both bad and good I did not see the release spin when I set the line so it went down tangled and when the fish hit the J Plug the front hook was in his upper jaw and the trailer hook was in his left eye so he did not even fight.

We all have false releases the better you know your gear and setups the more you can eliminate them. But the only way to totally eliminate them is to rig too heavy and then you drag small fish around.

Tight Lines

Jim

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  • 6 years later...

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