Mickey Finn

I do have a temp probe right now but I fished for almost all of my life without one and I caught just as many fish as the next guy. The thing that Skipper talked about works but the problem is you'd have to drop it so many times to figure out where the temp change is that by the time you figured it out, it would be time to go home. Also, I've noticed since I got my probe that the depth of the temperature break changes as you troll along. Before I spent money on a probe, I'd save up for a used downrigger. Play with the sensativity on your fish finder and you may be able to see the thermocline but if you can't, just fish at the depth where you see fish on the screen and you should do fine.

Can anyone tell me the width of the Bert's Tracks? Also the spacing of the mounting wholes as far as width goes? Trying to make sure I have room beside some other stuff I have on there.

Your Lowrance gives you temp at the transducer (Surface temp). In the beginning of the season, the colder off shore water and the warmer inshore water meet and kind of form a verticle thermocline. As you cross this, you should see the temperature reading change on your fish finder. This moves further off shore as the spring moves into early summer. In the summer that thermocline becomes horizontal and generally moves deeper as the surface warms. You can not see this by looking at your temperature reading on the fish finder. If the thermocline layer is significant enough (the difference in density of the warmer and cooler water), then you can often pick this up on the fish finder if you have the sensativity turned up enough. It will kind of look like a line running across the screen. A lot of guys have probe units that send a speed/temp probe down on the downrigger. This sends the speed and temp reading to a display on the boat which lets you find where the temperature break is.

OK, thanks. I'll get a couple short tracks. I want them for dipsys, so I want them as strong as possible. I thought maybe if they were bolted right through with backing plates, they might be stonger than in the tracks but I've never seen the tracks either.

Does anyone have the Bert's Ratcheting Rod Holders mounted without the tracks? Just wondering if you need the tracks to mount them. I want to put a couple on the boat but don't really need tracks.

I had a guy make me a pair of small ones.

Two smaller bags are better than one larger one. If you have one on each side, it makes steering much easier, especially on smaller boats.

I left them a message and they called me back. They tracked the order and said that it looked like they never got delivered. They shipped me out a new order and I received it within a few days.

I use a section of 1/8" line with a dog snap on one end. The other end is attached to a cleat on the boat. I use this line to pull the clips to me when I set the fishing lines.

Depth Raider

I'll take the 10 spoons. Sent you a PM.

I used those drill ones for a while too and you are right, they suck!. I found it to be much quicker and just as easy to use the brass hand pump. I've never tried the "built in motor" ones.

Not sure if you totally got the free slider right. Let your bottom line all the way down to where you want to run it first and then clip on the free slider and carefully toss it in the water. It will slide to the back of the belly in the line which is about half way to the ball. rshubuck, I like the idea with the offshore. I think I'll give that a try. How are you using the roemer? Are you attaching the fixed slider to it or just adding a second rod?

Has anyone used this feature yet? It was in one of the updates and according to the info on the 4.0 update they made improvements to it. I pulled up my chart on my HDS5 and moved the cursor around the screen. I set the cursor on a known location and checked the coordinates. The lat/lon coordinates were right on but the Loran TD coordiantes diplayed were off by about 5 miles. Just wondering if anyone else has noticed this?

A friend told me he got some lakers at the Lane during the Henderson Derby. They were not as thick there as usual but there were some there. They were on the bottom as I'm sure most of the ones on the finger will be. That shoreline laker fishing at Galloo used to be smoking hot quite a few years ago but I haven't heard anything about it in recent years.

I ordered some NK28 spoons from their web site back on April 30th and got a confirmation that day of the order and it stated " We will be in touch as soon as possible about your order." Never heard anything more nor did I ever receive anything. I emailed them again on May 10th and got no reply and I still haven't heard anything from them. What's up with that? Does anyone know if this site even works for placing orders?

I can attest to the Brown Trout fishing. It was awesone!

I think there might be a gremlin or something in my LMS520. On my recent 3 days of trolling browns on Lake O, about 4 or 5 times my LMS520 went into these chirping fits that lasted like 10 seconds. I would have sworn there was a bird in there? Anyone ever had this happen? I wonder if it's about to crap out?

Great. Sounds like you got it.

We just returned from three days of fishing browns. We used planer boards with great success but I also ran one flat line off each side of the boat. We call these weight rods. I let them out 60 feet, then pinch on a split shot (about 3/8") and then let out 60 more feet. I have about an eight foot floro leader. These rods were pulling different spoons like stingers, Dream Weaver super slims, NK28 lite spoons. They were deadly! Only thing is you have to have someone available to squeeze the split shot off while bringing in the fish. I use the reusable ones and just pinch it with my teeth to remove it from the line. I have the guy with the rod walk back in the boat so I can reach the tip of the rod and remove the sinker. If you don't have enough guys in the boat to do this, you can place the sinker just ahead of the leader but it's not as stealthy. Also, you will want a smaller sinker because if you use that same 3/8" sinker and let it out 120 feet, it will be much deeper and you will probably snag it on bottom on your turns if you are fishing shallow. Just a side note: we ran no weight on our planer lines which were also pulling the same spoons mentioned above. The fish were almost all caught in 7 to 10 feet of water.

Well, our back-up plan worked out great. We had great Brown Trout fishing on the East end. I don't know what we missed out on at the Bar over the last three days but we did 80 Browns up to 12.5 pounds and a 13 pound Atlantic. Tuesday was very windy but we got the whole day in staying next to shore and we did 30 Browns up to 10 pounds. Weather was better on Wednesay when we did 29 Browns up to 12.5 pounds. Today fishing was tougher this morning with flats seas and sun but we did 8 Browns in the morning. Then we made a move south about 5 miles and picked up 13 more Browns and a 13 pound Atlantic in an hour and a half. Then got chased off with a T-storm.

We had a couple guys who couldn't change their dates so we changed my plans and we are going to fish the East end of the lake for browns or walleye. At least the seas should be better. I'll have to give the West end a try later.

We had a couple guys who couldn't change their dates so we changed my plans and we are going to fish the East end of the lake for browns or walleye. At least the seas should be better. I'll have to give the West end a try later.

Couple of the guys couldn't change their dates so we opted to fish the east end of the lake. Guess the browns and walleyes are still going good there and we can get protection from all the predicted East wind. Really wanted to fish the bar but I think it would be a mistake to try it this week. Thanks so much for all of your advise. Love the info from all you guys. Hopefully, I'll be able to get out West soon.