Gill-T

No problem with my 25# trilene green. Fleas not a problem, break-offs not a problem, and in the green water.....invisible. Don't need extra snaps, fluorocarbon leaders etc. , just dunk it and go.

I have to go take a shower.

Madam Bluegill, what were you wearing at the time?

Tim, Your first thought is why the thread got started, to try to make it common knowledge. Yes, If you are running 600' copper in the trench in late August.....you deserve to catch someone elses downrigger ball. These fishing sites reach a large audience. Does not hurt to try. Maybe, even get acknowledgement in naviagation regulations. I know fishing the Niagara near the border, I have been boarded by the Coast Gaurd three times in two years. Once when I was fully deployed and trolling! I don't think the general public knows what we are pulling or that we can't stop and change direction on a dime esp. sailboats. If we can agree on a flag system I will personally leave notification at all the local sailing clubs on the west end regarding the matter. I am sure sailboats would not want their precious keels to get damaged by wire line.......they just don't know how we are fishing these junk rods.

I see at West Marine the small triangle flags that are not too expensive. We might have to take a poll on color. If LOU can produce them....that would be great also. I think this needs serious consideration. If you hook copper with a lure and pull on it, it is going to unwrap/straighten/kink etc. and could become useless in the long segments it was intended. Lets face it, the stuff ain't cheap!

I am talking about communication between boats. Signal flags.

I was at my kids school down the road, using the green space and the chainlink fence to tighten my 400', and 600' copper on the reel. As I am unloading the copper while walking backwards across the soccer field, across the basketball court, across the parking lot.....into the neighborhood down the sidewalk I am struck with two thoughts, one, "I must be crazy", and second, that is a s#*t load of wire!!!! To truly see it strung out is unbelievable. Then I started thinking (dangerous usually), would it not make sense to develop a flag to fly off the antenna to let other boaters know you are running copper or wire etc. to prevent FUBAR's from happening. Maybe, we could all agree on a color flag and spread the news on all the fishing sites for all great lakes anglers.....and maybe even.....dare I say SAILBOATS.

You can run your flys with a glow stick as the body instead of beads. It will glow REAL bright. Just thread a piece of clear water line tubing behind the fly head, insert the glow tube and slide the fly down over the glow stick.

When expecting to change lures....Optitackle's duolock snap, married to a spro SOLID ring swivel. If I know what I am using, I just use the spro barrel swivel on the split ring.....less to break...no clasp to open up on you when the big boy hits.

Classic!

I run them a lot. Use a longer leader from the flasher than you would with a fly......three or even four feet if you want. You can use mono instead of a fluorcarbon leader. I like the smaller 3.25" spoons like R&R's, NK's, or Northport Nailers. I run these on Ontario also and placed a steelhead in the ESLO with a chrome e-chip with a blue dolphin/glow cup R&R last year.

In heavy waves I run one pancake deep, and the second ball is a shark or round......no problems tangling with this set up, even with Niagara currents.

My home port is Youngstown, so I fish the bar all year. There are ALWAYS shakers to deal with. The currents and bait there make it an ideal rearing ground for the little ones. I have tried Mag spoons with large siawash hooks.....that just ended up killing more dinks. If I had to pick a pattern that was more for large fish it would be paddles/flies, paddles and whole herring, or size #5 J-plugs. Otherwise, you catch what is bitting.

You answered your own question. They prevent line creepage on the dipsys. You want the drag light enough because wire or braid has no stretch and you will tear hooks out easier than mono, so the releases allow you to keep the drag lighter than normal without the reels bleeding line while trolling...esp. in waves. The releases also help keep wire tight on the reel when fishing is done or when changing a wire swivel.

Since the new no cull rule was designed to save fish during later warm water events, maybe, the Niagara and Orleans should allow culling on the amateur side with the water temps good for releases.

I spent approx. 40 hours on boat projects this weekend, and while cleaning up and organizing my boat wires, I realized I did not have the bare ground wire on my Lowrance fishfinder attached to anything. What should I do with this wire? The wire is too short to run to my behind dash mounts. Do I splice in and run it back to the engine ground or can I just wrap it around any present mounting screws?

Now that actually looks like a Goby. Dreamweaver and NK's version look NOTHING like a Goby.

I hit a 30' log that was submerged just below the water off Niagara, and I was REALLY watching. It broke my drive shaft on the outdrive. The good news is insurance will pay for these things.

I run 30# fireline...no problems with fleas on the west end, but I mostly fish the Niagara water plume which is water from Erie. I would imagine on the east end of the lake with the prevailing SW winds, the fleas get pretty thick over there come summer. Try running the braid off the inside divers and the wire off planer boards to get them away from the downrig lines.

Quality fish!!!!!!

We discussed those old Mag NKs on my boat last year. I still have two left from the early 90's. Thinner, silver face, bronze cup......it will be a sad day when I loose my last two. I wish NK would still produce those blanks.

Nice to hear you got out Adam, what mag spoons were working?

I agree with everything everyone posted, just wanted to try to simplify the process by thinking in terms of strong winds move the upper layers. The take on the east winds working against the normal current mixing all the water strata, screwing up the fishing is dead on. I do not go fishing on Ontario with a east or northeast wind unless it is a tournament or derby and you have no choice.

You can keep track of how wind and waves effect the water temps, by following N.O.A.A.'s site on the internet. You can pull surface temps and more importantly, look at the temp transects for the lake, which will give you a "slice" view of the water column. Follow it all season and watch what happens to the water at different wind blows. If you don't have a speed and temp monitor, the N.O.A.A. site is a must before heading out. Was that slow enough for you Ray?

Think of light warm water sliding over dense cold water. Think about what happens when a wave hits a shore line. For example, a strong north wind in the summer will push all the warm surface water in towards the south shore. When those waves tumble and mix at the shore the temps get warm from top to bottom. You may have initially the same temps from surface down 90'. Then as those warm surface waters are all pushed off the middle of the lake, the cold deeper layers of the lake further north are now at the surface and begin to push to the south. The result can be 40 degree water right off the shore in the middle of summer. So, when you are fishing the begining of a north blow, you may be fishing on the bottom in 65 degree water, and by the end of the day you could be fishing planer boards with surface baits.