jekyll

double post

You can go lighter with spoons off riggers. Many start at 17 lb and go up to 30 lb. Took a mature king last time up on a brown trout rig using 12lb. It raises the stakes but you just need to pay attention to the drag. There's an long-time charter captain on the East end who specializes in light tackle king fishing. He has gone as light as 4 lb with good success. Drag setting is critical. Flouro carbon is not nearly as critical for kings down deep wherre the light is dim. You can tie direct to mono or add a short flouro leader off a swivel. If you use the swivel, tend your lines a bit more during flea season as they can lock up a swivel quickly.

Like Tim said, it is not a stealth presentation. It is a noisy, whirling dervish down below. The noise, thump and flash attract the fish. They are not going to see the leader with the tilt-a-whirl in their face. Additionally, you have $25 of tackle behind the dipsy. $40 if you count the dipsy. Not many of us can afford to lose these rigs on a regular basis. It's not like dropping a worm over the side of the boat. River fishermen report catching kings 10 miles up stream trailing dipsies, flashers and flies. I've seen em but, I 've only recovered flies. I'm stilll looking to catch a flasher.

I've been looking for the handle for years without luck. Check yer speeling.

Let's see, if it was in the Gov's office on June 22nd, then it should go into effect on June 32nd, if I did my math correctly. I'm a simple Marine so...I took my shoes off to do the math.

Giving credit to Chromeslayer for this... You need the HALF KEEL when adding the second keel. I ordered a set from Big Jon yesterday for about $45 each. They come with the attaching hardware. Kevin in the Service Dept. will tell you how to modify the boards when installing the half keel. The half keel is a full size keel but has only 1/2 of the lead wieght. The boards will sink with double full keels but, not with the half keels. Thanks Chromeslayer!

A picture is worth a 1000 words. You have the fly skirt on backwards. Flip it around and it will have more bulk. What kind of fly is that? It has the wrong hook style and it is not snelled. Go to fish doctor's web site for a video clip on how to snell flies. I suggest buying ready-made flies untill you learn a lot more about salmon flies. Big Weenie, Siggs Rigs and A-TOM-MIK are great. I'm an A-TOM-MIK fan myself. Get the Tournement rigs which have both a trebble and a single hook. The fly skirt should end at the bend of the hook. Add colored beads between the top of the hook and the skirt to get the right distance. Color is your prefference but a green, blue or red bead would be good for that fly. Use a clear snubber as stated, Opti and Dreamweaver are both great. Both are solid, clear plastic. Your snubber is attached to the wrong end of the dipsy. It connects to the back end towards the flasher. Did you say you were having speed control issues (or was that another new guy)? You are using the holes in the SD for higher speeds. At your speed, I suggest a 27 inch leader from the clip on the back of th SD to the tail of the fly. If you get your boat slower, shorten the leader to 22-24 inches and use the other holes in the SD, front and back for more action. I suggest you use your dipsy on a braid line or stainless steel line, not copper (do you mean you are using copper colored stainless steel which is called camo wire?) The diver does the diving, Copper wire is very thick and may even restrict your depth. I'm not sure how that would effect the dipsy. I do know that the traditional dipsy dive curves will be worthless by changing to 45 lb copper. The depth difference between 30# braid or wire is about 30% over 30# mono. This is due to the drag of the thicker line. Copper is 3 times as thick as mono and woulld have even more drag. Don't take this wrong but, you have been hitting the forum with a large number of very basic questons on a number of topics. This method of learning doesn't work all that well. There is a substantial knowledge base in the archives and most of your questions can be answered using the search function. Take a day or two and research the data base and you will be able to resolve many of your issues. There are a number of good sources such as At The Oak, Fish Doctor Charters etc. which have great printed and video tutorials. The best way to learn is to get on a boat with an experienced angler and spend a day watching, asking questions and learning. Do this on several different baots and you willl learn different things. You will get the best headstart this way. Offer to pay for gas and I'm sure you will find several guys willing to take you out for a day and teach you the basics - I would. Learning to catch salmon with regularity is a multi-year process. It doesn't happen over night. I suggest learning one technique at a time. Start with riggers and spend a season learning how to fish them effetively with spoons and flashers/flies. You will learn boat control, wind, currents, using electronics and fish characteristics at the same time as you work with the riggers. Add dipsies the next season or once you master the initial lessons. Save copper and lead core until you master both riggers and dipsies. You will never catch up if you try everything at once. As you've likely noticed by now, Salmon fishing is a highly technical and costly mental illness. Spread the learning curve over several seasons and your wallet and sanity will thank you.

You don't need flourocarbon for leaders between dipsy and flasher; you can use regualar mono. I use 30# copolymer Yozuri myself. I use 25 to 30 flourocarbon for dipsy to spoon leaders for kings and 12 to 15 pound for browns.

Mexico Bay is the south east corner of the Lake.

Troll with 1 motor, put your trim tabs all the way down (nose down). You need a trolling bag available at http://www.amishoutfitters.com/. You probably need 2, 28 inch Beefy Bags. These will be just the ticket. You can call and talk to Tom Kittrick and he will help you select the right size bag for your boat. A good speed test is to zig-zag. If you start taking fish on the inside of the turns, you are going to fast. If they fire on the outside, speed up.

Where are you located? My boat could use a scrubbing this weekend. PM me.

If you have his tag #, report him. A visit by the Coasties may not end in a ticket, but, it may make a lasting impression that saves someone else's life in the future. There are a number of reasons for this type of action: 1. Ignorance. This can be easily fixed. 2. Stupidity. You can't fix stupid. 3. I'm special. This needs to be stomped on to make an impression.

I'll take em Bill, PM Sent.

Braid and wire both load up with fleas but, (and this is a big BIG difference) fleas are very easy to remove from wire. Grab a handfull and slide them down the wire and it acts like a saw and cuts them off. Small amounts will be cut off by the twilly tip on your rod (if you install one). YOU CAN'T DO THAT WITH BRAID. They can be a bear to remove from braid. Tripping dipsies is equally easy with Braid and wire. Braid is much more forgiving of errors than wire and is therefore a great choice for beginners. Fleas come out for about 4-6 weeks and we should be seeing them soon. You can use braid during the flea season but, you need to tend your rod more often to avoid heavy build ups - nip it in the bud.

Wierd. I visited it earlier today when I replied to your post.

Visit the A-TOM-MIK web site. Tom sells complete copper set ups. You can buy the following: -Ready-to-spool copper comes with backing, copper and leader built up so you just tie it to the spool and reel it on. You can order a ready-to-spool set up for any copper-capable reel. -Copper loaded reels ready to use. Add a rod and a snap swivel and put it in the water. -Rods for copper rigs

Yer killen me here Jarhead. I never thought I would hear fat-chick similes used to explain rigging fishing tackle. Semper Fi.

Fishing Report Your Name / Boat Name: Dapper Dan/Break Time/Littleboat ============== TRIP OVERVIEW ============== Date(s): 17 - 20 June Time on Water: Weather/Temp: Wind Speed/Direction: Waves: Surface Temp: Location: LAT/LONG (GPS Cords): =============== FISHING RESULTS =============== Total Hits: 83 Total Boated:73 Species Breakdown: all types of salmon and trout except Atlantic Hot Lure: all sppons:most everything worked except for Wonderbread. Good spoons were Greens, blues, orange, reds, Chicken Wing, Die Hard, Kervorkian Trolling Speed: Down Speed: 2.2-2.7 Boat Depth: 90 -165 Lure Depth: 90 - 25 ==================== SUMMARY & FURTHER DETAILS ==================== Great weekend of fine weather, friends and fishing. I had Break Time and Littleboat aboard on Saturday and Sunday. Fished on Break Time Monday morning. We had more lakers on the boat in one day than over the course of the last several years combined (not that we wanted them). They were suspended anywhere from 30 feet to 90 feet down. Fathers day was the best. 4 fathers on the boat enjoyed the day with 46 hits and 40 fish in the boat. We did best in 90-110 fow and then again at 150-170 fow. We fished from Catfish Creek to several miles west of the Green Can (west of Oswego). We seemed to find skippies around 100 fow and browns from 90 to 165 fow; lakers were everywhere. Riggers, cheaters dipsies, copper and cores. The best rig was 300 CU with an NK-28 white back, blue dolphin. We ran two 300 coppers and they took nearly 1/3 of the fish. Riggers were much better than dipsies but that can be due to the cheaters. I had an NK-28 Kervorkian get stripped of paint (it saw a lot of teeth last weekend). Temps are starting to stabilize. Got reports yesterday of major kings in the Oswego area. Seems a charter did a box of adults. I'll be switching over to my king program on my next trip. Watched a boat on Saturday night running close to shore in front of the Nuke plant. They then turned around and trolled east in tight to shore. We watched a security gun truck follow them along the security fence and finally, 30 minutes later the Coasties showed up and pulled them over. I was a bit surprised they relied on the Oswego Coasties. I thought they might launch a response from Scriba; although, I must admit, I was secretly hoping to see a squad of armed men come charging out of a hidden tunnel on jet skis. I bet there are 2 new names on the National Do Not Fly/Terrorism Watch list now.

The "Pros" I know use 20lb wire while most of us lesser beings use 30lb wire or braid (30 to 50 lb).

-Rod to dipsy can be wire, braid or mono. I use wire. -Dipsy to flasher can be mono or flourocarbon (or copolymer). The length should be as long as your rod allows you to net a fish when the dipsy is reeled up to the rod tip. I use about 8 feet of 30# Yozuri copolymer -Flasher to fly is about 3 lengths of the flasher so, for an 8 inch SD or chip, about 24 inches as a starting point at about 2.2 mph. Faster trolls need a bit longer fly leader and slower trolls need a bit shorter. Anywhere from 20 inches to 27 inches. Your 16 inch leader is far to short except for a 4-6 inch flasher run at slow speed. I suggest you retie the fly with a longer leader using 40-50 lb flourocarbon. Fish Doctor's web site has a good video on how to snell flies. I use 50# seagar to snell flies. I've settled on 22 inch leaders on my flies from the ring on the flasher to the top of the fly head for the majority of my salmon rigs using 8 inch flashers at 2.2 mph. -Dipsy to spoon should be flourocarbon and anywhere from 4 to 10 feet, with the length no more than you can net a fish with the dipsy reeled up to the rod tip. I use 20-25# flouro for salmon and 12-15# flouro for trout. Spoons and flasher/fly are both effective off dipsies. Choice is up to the fish so, try them both on any given day and see what they want.

Well Jarhead, didn't you learn anything from your time in the Corps? Keep the old boat and drag it out each day as you go to the slip where your new prime mover (water-borne dragon wagon) secretly resides. Better yet, sell it and get a 12 foot john boat at a yard sale and tell her you downsized so you could take her on that dream vacaton she probably wants. She may forget after 10 years or so. It will be more efficient to trailer to the slip. Remember the lessons of Sun Tzu: secrecy, camouflage and misdirection are important ingredients for a successful campaign. It is better to seek forgiveness than to ask for permission. Semper Fi,

I use they Elberta Clip-ers and they work great. I recommend using the white ones (Sinker Clip-er for snap wieghts) for fixed sliders. They are a bit strong than are the gray clips.

If you're scared, call. That's what we pay taxes for. Better to call and not need them than to hold your call and not get it out before the electrics short. VHF seems to work a bit better above the surface than below. Pan, pan, pan is appropriate for possible distress while mayday, mayday mayday is for actual distress. The Coasties can always ask another nearby boat to take a look and stand by.

It helps to go fishing with an experienced salmon angler. Pay for the gas in exchange for a day of schooling on how to rig and run different techniques. Until you start learning the specifics such as temperature range and feeding habits, follow the fleet. I always suggest new guys stay to the edges of the gaggle until they gain experience. Unless you have your own dock in a remote location, there will be a fleet congregating within several miles of any slip/launch site on the Lake. My first time on the lake was in my own boat out of Sodus. I knew how to use down riggers from fishing on Seneca but knew nothing about kings. I stopped in at one of the tackle stores in Sodus and told them what my experience was and what I wanted to do. He sold me 2 spoons, told me the depth to target, speed and lure depth. I caught a 29lb 14oz king that day just where he said to try. It is on my wall.

I've used Fire Line and Power Pro and have learned PP is better in my opinion. I use PP on slide divers and have spooled my rigger rods with it as well. I tie on 30 to 50 yards of Big Game at the lure end to keep fleas off the PP. I've been spooled to many times with straight mono on rigger lines so, I wanted more backing. The PP allows me to put over 1000 feet of line on my 47 Diawas. I replace the Big Game each season and the PP will last many seasons. My pike rods have braid and I've never had to replace it.