Sk8man

Many people frequent this site and some are new to fishing in general, boating, or fishing in Winter or early Spring conditions.These comments are directed mainly to them but also apply to the rest of us as well. The early season fishery can be very exciting and many posts recently have accentuated this coupled with the brutal long winter we have had this year. It is understandable that everyone is poised like race horses waiting to get out of the starting gate and go after the browns and early kings and whatever else can be caught in the shallows of Lake O and the Finger Lakes. Ice out and the days and weeks following it as the ice cold water is warming up are indeed exciting times but they are also the most potentially dangerous of the season. Each year folks drown, need to be rescued or have so called "lucky" scrapes with danger on the water. Some folks go out there in the excitement either totally unprepared or ill prepared for the conditions they are entering (e.g. not wearing life jackets, or not even having them aboard, outdated or absent flares and signaling devices, no back up means of propulsion should their engine give out or run out of fuel, not properly dressed for conditions possibly leading to hypothermia especially with unexpected rain etc. Those folks most eager often take chances and over ride their common sense and good judgment by going out there as if it were summer and launch full tilt out of the chute wide open headed to their intended spots. They fail to perceive or else over ride their survival concerns in he excitement and fail to notice big ice floes in the channel behind them or out on the lakes proper feeling that they can navigate around them, they don't think about the fact that ice can be one of the most destructive forces on Earth and it routinely takes out metal boat hoists, and docks and strews the remnants around like straw in the wind. The rivers that empty into the lakes during melting and overflow situations empty their contents into the lakes which can be anything from small sticks or boards with nails in them to floating logs, railroad ties and telephone poles (often from break walls that have disassembled) some of which are vertical in the water with only the tips showing. This mess sets the stage for potential disaster especially with people going at high speeds and preoccupied with various preparations in the boat. The bottom line advice is this : Be alert, be prepared, be cautious, go slowly and enjoy yourselves so that you can return home safely to your family. Good luck!

The Scotty's are good downriggers and the only complaint I have is they are a difficult shift for us dinosaur (vertical) Cannon users to get used to (the horizontal layout) when all hell breaks loose on the boat and you're trying to figure out how to get them back down to the action but I guess that doesn't have much to do with the product though does it?

Thanks for the vote Tileman Dan.... good one !

Lakers and rainbows as well. Thinking about it makes me kind of glad I held onto all my old Cleos

Looking in from the "outside" of the issues here it appears that some of the frustration is coming from customer service concerns as much as the specific product concerns. It would seem possible that in the manufacturing process a rod holder or two could have been missed in the gluing process and hookedup may have been the unfortunate customer that received it. Quality control no matter who the manufacturer is is far from perfect. Th crux of the issue is the response from customer service to Sean's concerns...he feels he was treated poorly and we all can certainly relate to that feeling at one time or another these days. Cannon wouldn't still be in business if they had sold "crap" products but in every manufacturing process there are a certain amount of "flawed" units. For most of us the bottom line is what was the company's response to my receiving one of them. Perhaps issues such as the one Sean brought up should be looked at from that angle in terms of correcting that particular specific instance of a problem to that customers satisfaction....a new part shipped free of charge would have gone a long way and certainly wouldn't break the bank at the company.

There are two modes of operation for the TD - depth and temp. If it is used in the depth mode it measures in 1 ft increments in the temp mode it measures in 5 ft intervals with temps at each 5 ft marker down to the max depth you run it. I'm not sure what the auto shut off is set to kick in at for each. If it is on the rigger and sent down it will record the data and even if it does shutoff after a certain period the data is still there and can be looked at when it is returned to the boat by pressing "view".

It says "PRE-ORDER" on the website at $799

With a 16 ft boat and reasonable speeds you should be able to troll just fine with 10 lb weights. Blowback also depends on what you are running on your lines (e.g. single spoon vs Spin Doctor or flasher with something on it) and the speeds you are running. Submarine currents also influence it. I eyeball the angle of my downrigger cables continuously to keep them where I feel confident it is about where I want to be and I coordinate things with my depth finder as well. Sometimes I ignore the counter on the rigger and just adjust by the depth finder. Guys on big boats may have to be more concerned about blow back and thus the use of greater weight because of the greater "pull"and lift through the water. Before switching to 10 lb weights I ran 8 lbs for many years successfully but I used the riggers for less than 100 ft of water and used other stuff down deeper than that. Heavier weights also help in very deep water presentations and especially with the bigger boats.

You may want to reconsider running 12 lb weights off the minis they will be struggling and extremely slow. I think 10 lb is the max on the older motors anyway.