Holland 08/14 Evening - Solo 1 for 1

[zgrinder on Fin Warrior]

Set down @ 6:30pm in 150FOW north of the harbor and pointed the bow south.  Ran two Ninja divers with 40-50' leads tipped with reg and superslim spoons for SH & coho down 30 & 45' and a 5-color LC on a aft DR with a mag moonshine spoon; bait down 65-70'.  Marked a good number of fish in the bait range and up higher running with the waves into 135FOW.  Friday night in August = lots of boat traffic so zig-zagging or making a big push to go shallow or deep was not an option.  Kind of a 'stay in your lane' night.  Sun got behind the cloud cover about 8:00 and made the switch to Green Hulk & Raspberry Carbon RV (back charged) on the Ninjas and a green ladderback J-plug (charged) on the deep line now up about 60-65'.  Green Hulk down 44' took a 6lb king almost immediately in 130FOW but nothing else.  Before reaching Saugy, made an 8:30 turn to a north troll in 125-130FOW and ran that direction until ripping lines at 9:15.  Fair amount of boat traffic on the inside trying to get into the harbor.  Was able to pick out the traffic with radar and able to spot all the running lights.  But of course, there is that rush to push into the mouth of the channel and lack of 'give way' that you have to keep your antennas up for.  Nice night to be on the water regardless of the lack of catching.

[littleboat]

You are a brave captain to deal with that much traffic especially at the channel. I salute you.

Another note, I have yet to get a hit on my ninja diver 124. Are your leader lengths really 40-50ft behind the ninja diver itself? Is that the only length you run behind your ninja diver? What is your troll speed using them? Are the leaders all braid as you talked about earlier in the season?
Mine is the typical mfg setup and I vary the leader, but I'm ready to throw their leader setup out the window. I have varied my length but never over 25ft. I feel a change maybe coming.

Am I fishing on the wrong lake?

[zgrinder on Fin Warrior]

Hey my friend.   I run my Ninja divers on Power Pro with a Seaguar fluoro leader.  A micro swivel connects the two lines and a small bead prevents the diver running past the fluoro leader connection.  I was running 30lb PP but lost a set up.  I retooled both my rods with 50lb PP a few days ago, feeling better about not losing gear.  My leader is down from 9' to 7' of 25lb test Seaguar fluoro.  As you know, fishing solo is a chalange at the net so I shortened the former leader by 2'.  My reels are fully loaded and I have measured the accuracy of the line counter at full load and it maps to the line length close enough.  So when I put out 35' of line that does not include the 7' of fluoro leader.   I have trolled this set up 2.1 to 3.1mph.  My rods afford me to put an OR-8 clip on close the the reel that I can hold the line a bit if the pull takes out too much line on the drag setting.  I have been running these a lot only from the point to understand how this could be better (or worse) than my short leader DW dipseys.  Plus, not a fan of hand pulling in a long leader dipsey  line with a fish on - frankly I find that insane but Charters do is so more power to them.

[littleboat]

Thank you for your setup information. I shall make some modifications, comparisons and see what happens.

I didn't get out this past week, because I got busy installing a radar system less signal cable (waiting a special order due to 5m length), then I got cellulits in my wrist again. I couldn't even pick up a net. But I'm on the mend(antibiotics).

[zgrinder on Fin Warrior]

Get well soon my friend.  There are fish to be caught.