steelfire

I have a helix 10. Turn up your sensitivity and turn on your switch fire to max. 

Fishing conditions have changed big time. The warm water is back with a 74 degree surface temp. Fishing is ok from 200 to 400 feet. 52 degree water at 85 feet down. Lots of small kings in the teens with a few adults mixed in.  Both atommik flies and meat have been working. Lots of big marks on the sonar down 200 feet. Can’t get them to go yet but I’m assuming they are big kings. 

Good info.   Thanks guys!! 

Yup. The lake has flipped. Survive temp this morning was 49 degrees.  Very slow morning. Only a couple small kings. 

Fishing has been good out of Fairhaven. Lots of kings of all age groups around. Temp has come way up since the south east winds have arrived. I had 50 degrees down 40 feet last evening and boy did the Kings want to play. Spoons are hot and we have taken fish on meat and Attomik flies too. 

6 for 6 This evening until it got to bumpy. 250 ish was best. Meat and Atommik flies did the damage. Nothing over 18 pounds for us. 

Glow stud, Hammer live lime, Kevins secret

Question. Im going to be running meat hard  the next few weeks. I have run it before but usually always off of copper rods. If running it off of the dipsy and I have a meet rig with attractors, do you guys cut the usual 9 ish foot leader to the flasher down some or run the the 9 ish foot leader plus the meat rigs long length?? 

Thanks

I spoke with a bunch of charter Boat Captains and once they see a current, they mark it on GPS and just keep criss-crossing through it. Kings love the current.

Thanks guys. Looks like I have been waisting fluro line. I will run straight to the flasher now.

Thanks Mr Clean

Mr Clean, does anyone in the bay rent kayaks??

Does anyone else run a fluro carbon leader from their main line (30LB big game) to the flasher/fly setup? Ive been running a 30 lb fluro leader, but many say they just run the main line to the flasher and they see no difference in the number of hits. Just curious.

 Thanks

On 7/5/2018 at 12:50 PM, Puck5760 said:

Care to share your settings?  I'm trying to dial in my helix 7 but I can't seem to get my 16lb torpedos to show up past 80 feet without the sensitivity almost being maxed

The best thing I can tell you to do is to go to you tube and type in your units name. There a bunch of "how to use your unit and its settings" Thats what I did and then I permanently saved them to the sonar unit. I don't think I could tell you how to do it unless I watched the videos again myself.

Iceman, If you look at the bottom picture the Thermal cline goes down to 15 feet. I don't have any pics of the current line but I'm headed up to fish Lake O shortly for three Weeks so I will take a pic of some and post it here for you.  The current usually looks like a cure line or just a straight line of clutter down deep. It looks just like the thermal cline on my bottom picture but just down deeper in the 100 + foot range. You can change the settings on the Humminbird sonar to really see it good or not see it at all.

Top picture is a big pile of bait out over 200 feet of water. You can see my three down rigger torpedoes at 60, 70 and 80 feet.

2nd picture was the mouth of the Oswego river last fall with staging kings piled up.

3rd picture is probably the best. Thats a sonar picture of us jigging two tiny shiners and a single split shot below the boat while anchored. We are fishing for suspended stocked trout. Its like watching a video game. You can see our shiners and watch the trout swim up to them and hit them in real time. Totally amazing!!

Believe me when I tell you, this is the most amazing sonar I have ever seen or used. I did not take any pictures of the down scan or side scan in action yet.

I'm using the standard transducer it came with which I believe is the 60/200 MGH Transducer.

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its freakin awesome!! I have always had Lowrance HD units  and this Huminbird unit blows Lowrance out of the water. You can watch the fish in real time streak up into your down rigger spread. You can see the thermocline and Lake O currents on the screen clearly. I purchased it because a couple Lake Ontario Captains bought it and were sending me pictures of how awesome the scree picture was. I highly recommend it!!  I can post  a couple more screen pictures if you want to see more.

I bought a new Humminbird sonar with all the bells and whistles. Now that I will be able to see the currents with my sonar and Fish Hawk. Whats the best way to fish them?? Do you guys troll with the current, against the current or zig zag in and out?? I know from the past I have done better trolling against the current as long as I can maintain lure speed at the ball. 

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On 5/16/2018 at 12:51 PM, Fishnut said:

is it worth having a 3rd down rigger? I would like to here the pro's and con's of having the 3rd rigger down the middle. Please.

I have a 19'5 foot star craft islander. I always run 3 riggers. I usually run the third rigger down the middle with a clean spoon tail gunning what ever I'm running on my other two riggers. (Usually flasher fly's or meat) It can be killer some days when nothing else is firing! That spoon all by itself dragging behind the rest of the spread  is just asking to get hit.

thanks for the replies guys!!   . I will salt my meat this summer!!   I never know what to believe so I ask the pro's here.

I was told  that if you put salt on your herring strips that it will make the skin tougher and make the piece last longer in the water. Any truth to this or is it Bs?

On 3/26/2018 at 10:33 PM, VooDoo said:

I have Big Jon Captains Pak electric riggers.  Does anyone know how much weight they can handle?  I thought I read somewhere 20 lbs but can not find that anywhere and

the owners manual doesn't say.   Thinking of trying 12 or 14 lb fish.

I run 4 of the older Big Jo Captains Pak. I have been running 4 14 pound torpedo weights with out much issue. However I did break a rigger Boom last year. Probably just from years of stress. Motors handle the weight fine

Great info! Thanks guys!!

How often does everyone change their dipsy wire line and copper lines ??  Ive gone 3 years with mine with no issues. Just wondering if its time.