Gill-T

I think I would have tipped my hat to the dogs and said "you won today". Got to admire your tenacity thou.

Bingo....that is great advise.........or you could just use an otter boat and not worry about diving boards, freespooling kings etc. etc.

I have ZERO experience trolling a 600' copper.

Just like wire, it is always a good idea to let out your braid and reel it back in under tension so it lays on the spool tight with no binding. You can do this on the water with a 1 lb ball, a dipsy or at home at the local school sports field (attach a swivel to chainlink fence and walk 800' back...and crank it back in tight). If you rely on how the braid lays on the reel the first time you loaded it......you will be very disappointed.

Your bait on the 600' copper is 300' away from the bait on the 7 color. The only way they will get together is if the 600' Cu pulls over into the lure on the 7 color. Very possible for this to happen if you do it long enough.

F'cked up beyond any recognition. Isn't this site informative?

Most of the boats I know (esp. on the east end) in the summer are running only three long coppers at once. One on each side and a chute copper.

I am not making a commentary about if it can or can't be done with a small boat, rather if you had to untangle a mess in the back of the boat with a small vessel....it shuts everything down. God forbid you are untangling copper when another rod goes off. There is a big difference Paul.....and yes I fish out of my friend's 16' Polar Craft, my 23' boat, as well as some of the largest in the fleet. Maybe as part of the presentation Paul you could give suggestions on what best to do with a copper FUBAR at the LOTSA lecture as I am sure there is a trick to it. I look forward to the lecture. The original poster's questions are about using his otter boats.

I would keep in mind how big your boat is. Having the space and transom width of Paul's boat is one thing to run multiple junk lines. Having to untangle a FUBAR copper in the back of a Lund is an entirely different beast. I have an eight foot transom and limit myself to two junk lines per side Max. I use linecounters for my leadcore and have the exact distance to the lure figured and written on each reel. As others have said, the outer lines are run higher and further back. In the spring my 4 junk line spread is usually all leadcore. One side will have a five and seven color core, the other side will have an eight and a six color (run off Otter boats/double keel). So .....say the starboard side will have a five color with a set-back slightly longer than the seven color. Let out all the 5 color and then backing until I have gone at least 20' longer than the seven color+50' of backing in the water. The effect is two spoons running approx. 10' apart vertically and say 20' horizontally on the planer line. To reset the outside line back over the inside core....I take the inside core off the release and place in on a release on the other side of the boat temporarily or you can keep it down the shoot and temporarily send it down with a torpedo diver attached to an OR-16 to get it out of the way from your reset. Let out the higher core and send it out.....let it ride a little, then swap out the inside core back into its original position on the original side. This works the same for a leadcore on the outside/ copper on the inside - 4 junk line spread. Know your depths of the junk lines and know how far back the stuff is running and you will go tangle-free. If you are going to add divers to such a spread, I would recommend using Mag divers without a ring to power the diver rig deep and close to the transom so you are less likely to catch any falling junk lines.

Pull a piece of gasket out to look at the cross section design. You may find a match at suppliers like West Marine or take it to your local boat marina/repair shop and see if they can match it up. The stuff is expensive so get it right the first time.

Les, the DEC trailer they have now can fin clip the adipose fin and place a "tag" in the nose of the fish I imagine not dissimilar to dog microchips. Nothing is visible or impeding with those tags unless you feel like myself that shoving a piece of metal into the head of a fragile young fish has potential pitfalls.

You can transport your cooler via car as long as your observer stays with the cooler and the cooler stays closed

These are not 12" fish, they are YOY and tiny. Would be difficult to have a "tag" not alter the survivability. I wish they would stop handling them all together. Charter captains will hate me for this, but I think they should suspend the Pen projects until they figure out the disease process. Hatchery-to-piers....dump them in at night and walk away. Especially after cold winters, the band of warm water along the shoreline is very tight. Every Brown and Coho in the system is probably waiting to eat the baby salmon.....never mind the hordes of Lake Trout waiting just outside that shoreline band. Perhaps, instead of asking our baby Salmon and Steelhead to try to make it thru the gauntlet of waiting predators present in such a tight window of warm water in early spring, we wait until the end of May to release the fingerlings when the predators have begun to disperse lake-wide (water temp permitting). Just some thoughts.

Mostly late summer Steelhead off dipsys. Will catch big ones. At Steelhead speed a sutton will spin out. Northern King 28 size work well.

DJ, I will run a longer 4' leader to a spoon because it has its own action. Both Steelhead and Kings will hit the set-up.

I use a Weldon pad release attached with a stainless split ring to a "dog snap" (no PIA shower ring). The pads hold great and I am a nut for metal anything over plastic. The dog snaps are heavy so they slide down the planer line easy. The heavy snap "show" small browns and cohos that are too small to pull the line out of the release. The snaps make it true one-handed endeavor which speeds up the process of setting out a line with cold hands.

My contacts in Canada told my of a 5-6 mile long school of YOY alewife on the surface over the "blue zone" in late August 2013. That would place them in the zone for steelhead to go crazy over the fall and winter of 2013/2014. Emeralds are WAY down in numbers but I have been finding steelies with gobies in their stomachs which are suppose to be a good source of Thiamine and counteract the Thiaminase effects of alewife ingestion. ?????? lots of questions.

Bottom coat?

Maybe hooking up a scotty pad on the back of a rigger ball and attached to the lower jaw of a fish to send them down? Of course they would need enough energy to wiggle free once down at depth.

You ain't kidding! First attempt on Sunday had group after group fly over the meager 6 decoys we had out and hover just out of range. VERY WARRY BIRDS. We were REALLY well concealed.

I am new to this game. I didn't know they were even around in huntable numbers. I have obtained permission to hunt geese on a farm where there are good numbers landing in corn stubble and clover. My question is what is the minimum amount of decoys I am going to need to have success?

I believe that is the 8" model. Guys did well last year with the 8" version. I would say if you are going to run some long 3-fly twinkie meat rigs use the 11.5 model. Flies I would lean towards the 8" model.

Fish are stocked in the river. You can catch some as high up as whirlpool. Most are caught drifting a minnow or spinner worm harness behind a three-way. Drifting the area in front of the green-can (buoy) off Fort Niagara you will have pickin's of many species until the moss shows up at the end of May. Sheephead, Bass, Lakers, Steelhead, Browns, Walleye and occasional Coho or King even. You really need a bow mount electric motor to do it right and keep your boat over your bait.