Holland 06-21 - 1 for 1

[zgrinder on Fin Warrior]

The lake finally laid down, actually flat and was thinking about a dusk run but with the storm coming in, settled on pushing off just after 3:00pm and fishing till the front moved in at 7:00pm.  Set up in 130 FOW strait out of the harbor and headed south to SW.  Two Ninja 3-set slide divers and one rigger.  Just after getting lines in the water and before adjusting the depths, the SB diver down 41' with a mag Green Hulk RV spoon took a 6-7lb king in 136 FOW.  I released it expecting better things to come but I could not stir up another bite.  Chased some impressive marks with the SWR on a rigger trailing a mag DW Soda spoon but no takers.  Moved the slide divers between 40-55' down with no luck.  The Blue Hulk RV spoon on the Port slide diver did not get touched.  Ample marks between 130-140 FOW so I stayed in that water for the evening trying to make it work.

First time running the DW Ninja slide divers.  My slide diver reels are set up with 30lb Power Pro tipped with 8' of 25lb fluoro by way of a small Spro swivel with the diver running on the Power Pro.  What I like about the Ninja slide divers is it holds the braid without sliding down the line once deployed.  The UC slide divers would not hold the braid line so the reels had to be configured with mono and the mono was prone to breaking - ALOT.  The Ninja release is very easy to set and holds tighter than the UC product so it requires some fine adjusting to get it to pop open which simple to do with the screw setting in the back.  Last, the weight dial adjustment clicks nicely into place and can be tightened with the screw so it will not move out of the chosen setting.  I could see myself moving away from running conventional dipsey divers other than I have a bunch of them and they are quicker to get in the water.

[Reel-y-hooked]

I agree with your analysis of the ninja diver. They do work well, but a little more care and concern is required on setting them up and deploying them. 

[jdh]

Wonder what the difference is on the issues we all have with line/tackle failures.  I've been running slide divers for 12 years, and never had the mono break.  I did lose three of them running braid before that though.  I've also had too many experiences with braid braking on downrigger releases / planer board releases.  

I'd like to see some ninja diver reviews after a full season.  Generally it looks like people are liking them so far.

-JDH

[zgrinder on Fin Warrior]

My UC slide divers have the spring inserted through the release arm.  I suspect that is where the break in the mono occurs but I have yet to prove that.  With running Smart Troll probes on these lines, I get a bit worried of losing a probe when a break off occurs.  I have dropped one probe to the bottom with a standard dipsey diver before I improved how I secure them to the line with two OR-16 clips.

The only braid type line I have ever used is Power Pro.  Started using it 30 some years ago and never found a reason to move to something different.  Use 30lb test.  I had straight up braided diver set ups at one point in time but found wire divers did the same job.  Don't recall ever having a break off on any of these lines nor with OR-1 & OR-8 clips.  However, I never could get PP to hold well in these clips.  All my long lines use PP for the backing with a 8' section of mono between the two segments to attach the OR clip.

I did experiment with PP in place of wire downrigger cable.  Worked fabulously going up and down but after dropping a ball or two, I gave that up.  Don't recall what test I used but it was beefy.  Not to say I haven't dropped a ball with steel cable however, I can spot a frayed cable easier than I could find a weak spot on braid.