Sk8man

Thanks Kevin. I forgot to mention that with some of those pretty rusted flutter spoons you could paint either the whole thing or the tops or undersides black and put a diagonal "slice" of reflective tape on them...they will work good on lakers and salmon especially

I'd hold on to one of those spoons the Blue Mullet Pfleuger #4 (looks like) because that is pretty old and is a classic copper jerking lure...one of the best ever made...may be worth money now and certainly will be in the future. It is in the last pic at the left of it with the little fly like thing at the back. Some of the others look like Northport Nailers and Southport Slammers, Northern King, and the ones on the blue hanger are a wide variety of flutter spoons with a few Suttons (thin silver plated ones with copper solid rings). The ones at the extreme right of the last pic look like home made blank flutter spoons from the pic (somewhat hard to tell exactly from the pics/lighting. If it were me I certainly wouldn't "scrap" them especially the Suttons. The Sutton's are real silver plating but have a protective lacquer coating...they do tarnish fairly easily but sometimes you can bring them back to life a bit with jewelers rouge or silver polish. Even if the finish doesn't come back real well on them they can still be very effective. I use nail polish on many of my old lures especially silver and gold glitter and then coat it with a top coating of acrylic. For the spoons in worst shape I'd use reflective tape on them after replacing the other hardware. In my view it is mainly the ACTION of those lures anyway that is most important. Replacement of rings and hooks is a good suggestion. On the Sutton's though I would not replace the solid rings only the treble hook with a single salmon siwash hook about the same size or weight as the treble on it and cut the treble off with wire cutters to save the solid ring which I feel contributes to the action of the spoon.

The old Downeaster clamp on rod holders used to clamp on my little aluminum boat pretty good in times past but I would recommend that you install some VERY sturdy rod holders with bracing underneath if they wobble at all on the gunwale. The equipment we usenow puts a lot ofstrain on the rodholders and bases and when you combine that with a Chinook salmon your equipment could be "history" if you have flimsy rod holders.

Almost Ed only 6 months away this year

Great job on the video Vlad!. Looks a lot like the scenery around here except for the good looking ladies Thanks also for answering my previous suggestion of more "chicks" in the video Les

Right now I'd settle for the green grass in hose pics....nice fish!

Just make sure everything is fastened to the boat real well. When the weight is suspended or even when up in the air there is a lot of torque at the base from the weight dangling not to mention if the weight should get hung upon bottom. If you plan on using dipsey divers the rod holders will also have to be fastened down real well for the same reason as the downriggers -torque. I'd practice a bit with the downriggers to get used to them If going out on Lake O you will have to choose your days (wind and waves etc.) and Stay relatively close to shore. In the Spring the browns and other fish will be close to shore so you'll be fine and you might want to start out with a combination of stickbaits and medium sized flutter spoons run 30-60 ft back behind the downriggers and experiment with the distance of the leads (shorter and longer). If you have Yellowbirds or small inline planer boards and relatively stiff action rods the boards can be run right along the shoreline with floating stickbaits (floating to keep from hanging up on bottom and rocks etc.). Sometimes the fish especially browns will be hugging the shore in very shallow water especially in the early morning before things get too bright and when there is a chop on the water. Productive areas include river or stream mouths especially where here is a mud line....fish the edge of it where the color line is. go back and forth in it with your lines. Troll in "s" curves and vary your speed up and down intermittently. Other folks may have additional suggestions or different ways of doing it but this is some basic stuff to start. Good luck with it. Have a great season.

First of all welcome to LOU. A couple questions to start - what kind of pole holders and how sturdy are they? and...what specific downriggers and releases?

That is a real bargain....they still work well when used right and sometimes even when Spinny's and Flashers aren't doing it....glad I held on to mine from the 70's and 80's

Also known as Seth Green rig....wow I guess I am getting old