jekyll

Don't need flouro to a Spin Doctor. Adding a flouro leader just adds an additional, and unecessary, failure point.

NEVER connect the copper to the release. It will break the copper.

Torpedo; best I've used!

My memory may be off a bit I've slept a few times since then. I had 2 to fill so I spooled one up in reverse and measured the amount of mono when I spooled it on the second reel. I've played it all out to tighten it up and the counter was over 1600 feet. I had one big, ferrocious king get into over a hundred feet of mono backing last year before I got it stopped and turned. Came to a stop and backed down on it. Normally 1000 feet of wire is sufficient on the Lake but, every now and then... Reels work better when full.

Depth Raider antenna works just as well with Sub Troll.

I keep my probe in a cool dark place so it will find the colder water more quickly.

For riggers, mono to a snap swivel hooked to the SD. They work great any where from 5 feet back to 100 feet. Dispy, use wire to the dispy and then 8-10 feet of 30# mono to a snap swivel. Copper/lead core. Use a 30 foot leader of 20-30lb mono or flourocarbon to a snap swivel. I run mine set on fast turn for 2.2 and under.

I put about 100 yards og 30# Big Game under 1000 feet of 30#wire. This fills the spool.

You don't need to be a member to read the forums and use the search feature. Look at the bottom of the forums and see all the guests that are on at any time. Not everyone is willing to make posts and prefer to use the search function to find the info they want. Then comes a day they want to sell something and they go to the site they frequent and must now register in order to make that post. I assume Blue Eye get advertising revenue based on the number of visitors, registered or not. More visitors means more revenue which makes this a better free site for all.

Don't slap a wire line on the surface, only mono or braid. I found my wash down hose is good at removing fleas on swivels and other confined areas. They seem to let go and "go with the flow".

Reason #1: Fleas. By using a larger line such as 30 lb Big Game as a main line, you reduce the amount of fleas you attract. Fleas latch on the vertical run of your main line. The down-sized leader will be completely behind your rigger release in a horizontal attitude and no fleas (well, extreamly few) will collect. Reason #2: Heavier line such as 25-30lb Big Game takes more abuse than does 15lb line between the rod tip and release when set. Reason #3: Lighter leaders and swivels result in more spoon action.

A board in that close puts your long lines right over your dipsies. Hit a fish on the dipsy and it has a good chance of raising up into your long lines. Boards are good for getting those lines far enough to the side to miss avoid tangling with your dipsies. You can also tangle your long lines by popping your dipsies for retrieval. Don't be affraid to run them out to the sides. Your learning curve will be less frustrating if you aren't undoing tangles on a frequent basis.

30lb braid has a dive curve that is nearly identical to 30lb wire. To go deeper, use a mag dipsy. Fleas, fleas and more fleas. Other options for getting deep with your braid: Run it as a pump handle off an in line board. Run a smaller dipsy off your rigger ball on the braid and then, stack another rod a bit higher.

Yakima bait

I've been spooled on 1000 feet if wire. Not only did I come to a full stop, I was backing on him. It may be rare but, here are fish in the Lake with the size and power to do it. When you find one, you'll appreciate some reserve. [ Post made via Android ]

Ifin ya bought 2, then attach the wire to the spool of reel # 1 and spool it up. Connect yer mono and crank it on till the spool is full. Take reel #2 and connect the mono from reel #1 to the spool of #2. Set the line counter of #2 to 000 and reel it in until you get to the mono and take a reading. Then finish spooling on the wire keeping it all nice an tight. Go back to reel #1 and using the line counter, spool on the same amount of mono as you had on reel #1. Add your wire and you are done. Last step: post how many feet you used on the line counter;)

Vince: Yeah, that is why I gave the specific model I had trooble with. The dipsy don't seem to as many difficulties. I bought mine after Okuma said they had fixed the eye insert issue but, I guess it wasn't fixed. One lost an eye and the other snapped at the ferrile on a fish.

Bluewater was thinking faster than he was typing Yes, he ment to say to connect the flasher to the leader coming off the back end of the dipsy. Your fly goes to the swivel on the back of the flasher. Couple of points to consider: Fly leaders should be about 3 times the length of the flasher. 8 inch flasher gets you around 24 inches. Longer leaders for faster trolling and shorter leaders for slower. I've found that if I pinch the leader at 22.5 inches from the head of the fly and do an overhand knot, I get a knotted leader just about 22 inches from the top of the loop to the top of the fly. Seems to work well for me when trolling from 1.8 to 2.2 mph. 11 inch flashers need a longer leader. Snubbers are one of those things that will never be settled no matter how many beers you add to the arguement. Many of us use snubbers and many don't. Clear, single strand snubbers such as Opti are good. Pass on the bright, large Lure Jensen style snubbers. As Bleuwater says, mono is a poor choice for anything but a short, shallow dipsy. You must be able to give the dipsy a sharp yank to release it. Mono will stretch, stretch and stretch some more and you won't be able to pop the dipsy to retrieve it until you reel it in closer. Not fun. 30# wire and 30# braid dive almost the same amounts per given lenght. The braid is much more forgiving than wire and may be a good starting point to learn with. Its main drawback is that it collects prodigious amounts of fleas, as does wire however; it is rather simple to remove fleas from wire while braid causes one to contemplate suicide. The leader between the dipsy and flasher should be at least 30# mono. The total lenght of your terminal tackle from the heavy swivel at the end of your main line to the fly should be about as long as your rod. You can go longer if you have a tall boat and a long net. For spoons, use a fluro or mono leader long enough for your spoon to reach the end of your rod when your dipsy is at the rod tip. Whether you go with braid or wire, ensure you fill your reels to capicity by adding backing. Line counters work much more accurately when the spools are full.

Shure can. In fact, a MUP rig is a small spoon off the ball and a mag spoon fixed about 5-8 feet above it. Mag UP. You can even fix a small flasher/fly as a cheater. I've seen it done and it worked.

They need to rethink these rods. I added two 8-6 rigger rods last seaaon and they both went back for warrantee replacement. I also bought two pf the GLT rods at half the price and they held up great. [ Post made via Android ]

Thanks Jar Head. Great post. I always tell anyone who will listen that reels work best with full spools. Semper Fi [ Post made via Android ]

Best "intro" down rigger reel in my opinon is the Daiwa Accudepth Plus 47 size. There are about half the price as the Sealine and are bullet proof. Put Sealines on your dipsies and Accudepth Plus on your riggers. Buy linecounters for everything so you can run your rigger rods off boards when the time is right. Convector 30D hold a lot of wire. You will need some backing to fill it with a 1000 foot spool of wire. Sealines seem to have been made to fit 1000 feet of 30# wire. Linecounters are more accurate when the spool is full. Heartland are great rods for riggers and dipsies. Fishusa.com will combo about any mix of rod and reel you want. I have found Convector reels to be tricky for beginners on dipsies. The spools have a lot of space between the sides and the spools. This allows the wire to get under the spools requiring dissassembly to fix. After having several beginners do this, I switched back to Sealines for dipsies. Convector 30Ds make great rigger reels. You can get a lot more mono on them than with the Daiwa 47s. I installed Okuma handles on my Sealines this year. Makes about a perfect reel IMO. Daiwa drags are MUCH BETTER than Okuma. Better for dipsies when the drag is smooth. [ Post made via Android ]

Fishing was great all last weekend. Riggers down 60-90. Dipsies back 250 plus. 400 and 600 copper. Kings, steel and browns. 150 to 200 fow. Flees and flies starting to show. Add some flashers and flies to your spread and you will find some 20 lb kings. Lots of skippies arond 40 to 50 down so, you might stay clear of that zone. Free sliders took to many skippies so I took them off. Therocline starting to set up abouy 65 feet down around plant. still good brown fishing in 50-60 fow. [ Post made via Android ]

Trouble with this is that the screen will always show how far the ball is from the transducer, not how deep it is. A 12 lb ball with a probe can have lots of blow back, raising it up quite a lot. The sonar will still say it is 70 feet from the transducer. I ran a Cannon probe for a season which has a depth sensor. A .2 mph speed change would change the depth sensor's readout by 5-10 feet. Here's a test for you. Get set up in stable water at trolling speed and drop your probe to 70 feet with a line attached. Take a temp measurement. Then come to a full stop stop and raise your probe to the temp you had when trolling. That depth should aqpproximate the true depth at which it ran with the blowback. Do this at several different depths and you will get a good idea of the amount blowback raises your ball. You can also buy a Fish Hawk TD which is a small unit you can attach to your line to get a depth reading.

Sounds like this is your problem. Work the tails of the pancakes so they track the way you want with the Blacks releases. Pancakes will run significantly differently when using a Blacks releases off the rigger cable versus an off shore release off the back of the fin. Stacking shouldn't cause too much impact once you get your balls adjusted for the Blacks releases. If you want new balls, the 13 lb topedo balls are great. They track nice and straight.