Sk8man

He does a beautiful paint job on them and they hold up better than a lot of others. I purchased a couple to try at the Watkins show a couple years ago and they have performed well.

I guess I should have been more specific The one I caught was down 40 ft over 200 ft. When I used the term deep I meant as in Lake O deep 300 -700 plus

Sometimes "old school" can be the best school Ray Netcraft has served me well too over many years

And the puzzle continues..... I haven't seen anything on here that indicates that the browns are being seen in numbers near or in tribs after the rainbow eggs either. Puzzling but disturbing as well. The only time I have ever caught a brown out in the real deep water was here on Canandaigua Lake during the month of June and it was on a Seth Green rig and the fish was about 40 ft down. They are much more "home bodies" than Atlantics etc. Especially troubling is the lack of small browns being caught for awhile now. The uptick in the cormorant population in last few years taking its toll? Any relationship to the dwindling population of smelt in the shallows at this time of year (ongoing for quite a few years)?

I don't have a clue about the smaller browns but I think Brian may be right about the larger ones. Even in the Finger Lakes the browns often can be found in that 30-80 ft or so right near bottom and near pods of small alewives with perch also mixed in feeding on them. The common mistake is to think they are lakers on bottom much as the case for mistaking kings near bottom for lakers in Lake O during the summer in the ice water. The browns have a pretty varied diet too so shad, fatheads emeralds etc. may be out there deeper too so they may be getting a break from the gobies.

Every species has its proponents and detractors

I hear you on the bending of blades Ray. I still do use the smaller sets on riggers or the #4 hammerheads. I also have made my own smaller ones from large willow leaf and Colorado blades and downrigger wire

Looking good

I've fished for lakers for well over 50 years on the Finger Lakes and Lake Ontario and I've owned and used about every type of cowbell setup (Millers, Luhr Jensen Dave Davis, Les Davis and 3-7 blade) run from hand, rods, victrola, A and S automatic etc. and used peanuts and Spin N Glows behind them since the 1970's. The Hammerhead cowbells with less drag in the water with Gambler rigs behind them are hands down the most effective weapon against lake trout and although the attractive color patterns may be a factor ANY of them work on lakers. I don't even bother running my heavier "old school" cowbell setups now. You can trust Brian for the best info on use of laker setups and he takes a lot of pride in his products. For folks unfamiliar with "old school" cowbells here are examples:

It would be nice to get a repeat in the derby

Nice going Mike

Thanks for the info and I appreciate you taking time to respond but I think the price is higher than it was brand new. For now I've cobbled up my old one

Maybe they will re-position the line counter on a new model and that would be sweet.

If just running the riggers I run it at 83 khz much of the time. If I use my Fishhawk I switch the finder to 200khz and if fishing shallow it usually marks the riggers and when fishing deep I just go by the Fishhawk and the counter on my riggers.

This is the one:

The transducer can be mounted on the same block with no problem mine shares a screw with another transducer. Running on 83 Khz while the Fishhwawk is on will usually make the Fishhawk go on "random program". the 83 Khz will work fine with the Fishhawk off and you wouldn't be running it while on plane anyway. The 200 khz is usually best running 0-100 ft in fresh water. It has a narrower cone angle than the 83 khz so not great for marking downriggers in deep water either as they easily go outside the cone angle.

I have no idea why but even on the Fingers as well it has always been that way for me. Unless during a derby etc. I don't even bother fishing in an east wind and I don't think it is just "superstition".

Don't give up on it Stan It is coming along tough part now is pics, tables and diagrams etc. and I've taken long breaks away from it to fish

As with much of fishing there are a lot of assumptions being made in lieu of being able to directly observe or interview the fish. The video above is instructive in a lot of ways. It illustrates the fact that going with the current kills the action of some if not most lures. It also reinforces the fact that when in such a state increasing speed can accentuate lure action in a down current. Underwater currents are complex in operation and not always easy to figure out from the boat as they can go in multiple directions at once too and we make a lot of inferences or assumptions about what they are doing to our tackle. The Fishhawk assists in making a judgement about where the lure is running and the speed of the downrigger weight through the water basically and this can be compared with the GPS speed of the boat over bottom so an assumption can be made about strength and direction of underwater current. The desired speed of trolling is often taken for granted as being the effective speed that we think the lure operates say 2.2 mph, but that speed may affect a given spoon or stick in radically different ways under the water in the various currents where it isn't actually visible to us and also back from the weight because of the distance placed there (e.g. long setback and bow in line etc.). All the while we are assuming the lure is operating at whatever speed we had desired without any real evidence that it is actually running at that particular speed that the weight is OR that is running optimally action-wise. The video approach can help clear that last thing up but it isn't practical to do with every lure either. I use a Fishhawk X4D along with my depth finder as tools in trying to figure things out, but I also recognize the limitations in totally relying on any of them in figuring things out down there. People often want to simplify situations by limiting their input of information and this is one of those circumstances. A lot of time can be spent fixating on these electronic devices and forgetting to fish comprehensively and that is more effort paying attention to detail, monitoring the wind and water conditions, observing objects on the water and their path, observing changes in equipment, and many other variables that can be just as important as the data from the devices. Bottom line: all these devices no matter how sophisticated are merely "tools" with which to make "assumptions"or "estimations"and some are more reliable than others but none of them should be treated as "gospel" either. One of the things I found of interest in this video and many others I have seen is the apparent difficulty that fish often have in grabbing a lure in front of them traveling sideways and I am wondering if it is because of the positioning of their eyes which doesn't afford them binocular vision which is required for depth perception and maybe not related to just the speed factor.

Northern King?