TyeeTanic

Fleas ... why doesn't anybody in the shops tell me this stuff before I spend $80 on braided line????? How long do I have before I need to change out my NEW braided line??

Yes, thanks. I don't have downriggers as I use dipsey divers. However, I was thinking of getting a temp probe and putting a 5 oz weight on it to get it down. I supposed if I test for the horizontal thermocline in 150 ft of water, I should get a good idea of where it is sitting. Anyhow, is it worth it going to this extent, or do you kind of figure out where it is by looking for fish on the screen?

Doesn't the wire ruin the reel??? Any plastic parts will be gone in no time - right?

Hello All!!! I have a Lowrance Elite 5 Gold Fishfinder and GPS. It records temperature - but where in the water column?!?!? Is it surface water temperature. I don't think it can give me a temperature indication through the column, can it?? If not, can I still use it to figure out where the thermocline is, or am I guessing???? What is the cheapest and easiest way to figure this out?? Thanks!

Hey guys (and gals), I am currently using 40 lb power pro braid - and love it. But, I only started this season. I have heard a few people say that when the fleas come out, braid is useless - what the heck is everyone talking about - why does it become useless???? Also, when people say I should use wire - are you literally talking about steel wire??? I saw some spools of steel wire at LeBaron yesterday - it was a light gauge - but can you actually fish with something that stiff????? Finally - what are the real advantages of wire over braid, and vice-versa??? Thanks, Mark

Oh, by the way - I forgot to mention Canadian Tire has the 8ft Rapala rod and reel (w/ counters) combos on special right now - they are normally $100 and now marked down to $50 or so - which is why I took two!!

Okay - well you guys just cost me more money!! Haha, not too much. I ended up buying 2 Rapala Magnum 2 Dipsey Trolling Rods 8 ft, Medium to Heavy Action. The rods came with some heavy duty Rapala baitcast reels with built in counters and plastic line on it. The plastic line will need to come off. Now I have to take all my braid off my Abu Garcia's and put them onto the Rapala's before fishing tomorrow morning. I want to put 12 lb floro on the Abu's and keep that rod set for bass fishing or something. I run a small power boat 20 foot Tahoe, so the most I'm comfortable with is putting 3 lines in the water. I like the fact that I can push my two side lines out with the swivel on the dipsey - cool concept!! I honestly can't wait for tomorrow morning - I'm trusting there will be some good action on the North Shore!!! Have fun guys, tight lines...

I tried a size 1 and size 3 dipsey diver for the first time tonight - hooked into a steelhead within 10 mins of trolling at 60 - 70 ft. Anyhow, I could not believe the force the dipsey diver was putting on my rods!!! My medium action 6 foot rods were almost a full circle!!! One of my rods fibreglass actually started splitting at the top (thin) lenght. I have 40lb braid as a backing line on abu garcia reels, and 20lb floro as a lead. What the heck size and spec of rod would you recommend????

I use 40lb power pro braid. Main reason is my reel can only fit 300 yards of it, any larger test and I just get too little line on. I haven't lost a fish on the braid yet - but have to be honest, have not hooked into a mother bugger of a fish yet this year, all mine have been in the 10 - 15 lb range.

Fishing Report Your Name / Boat Name: Pirate's Cove ============== TRIP OVERVIEW ============== Date(s): June 23, 2011 Time on Water: 8 pm for 30 mins Weather/Temp: 64F Wind Speed/Direction: West, lite Waves: 0.5 m Surface Temp: 75F Location: Bronte LAT/LONG (GPS Cords): =============== FISHING RESULTS =============== Total Hits: 1 Total Boated: 1 Species Breakdown: Steelhead Hot Lure: Williams Daree 2 Trolling Speed: 3 mph Down Speed: Boat Depth: 130ft Lure Depth: 70ft ==================== SUMMARY & FURTHER DETAILS ====================

I know this has been a topic in the past but does anyone have any recent experience with the Fish Seeker from a company I think called Davies? My wife will kill me if I install down riggers on our ski boat so I have no choice but to use oz's of lead or something like the fish seeker. Davies recommends that I troll at 2mph but I like to troll at 3 mph. The Davies rep said it shouldn't make much of a difference but I have read some customer feedback where they dlsaid they just couldn't get the Fish Seeker to go down deep enough. I'm going to give it a try this weekend and might use some lead on the backing line just above the fish seeker to keep it down. Anyhow just wanted to know if anyone has experience with this product or whether there is some other similar product out there which is better. Thanks. [ Post made via BlackBerry ]

Yea, but take the square meter surface area of lake Ontario and multiply it by 0.025 m (1 inch) and you will find this is A LOT of water volume. [ Post made via BlackBerry ]

Thanks for all the help Ray! [ Post made via BlackBerry ]

Hey Guys, I tuned my fishfinder today and it seemed to be giving some better readings particularly if I used the dual view showing both the 83khz and 200 khz transducers. However, there are two settings I'm unsure of. The one is Noise Rejection and the other is Surface Clarity. I can set either of these to Off, Low, Medium or High. They are like a filter to remove noise. Should I just turn them off or should I keep them on medium or something. At the bassboat forum, one guy says they should be set to medium, but I'm not so sure. Thanks.

Thanks daker! I'll try finding youtube videos on lowrance structure scan - but is this the dsi unit you are talking about? I have a 83kHz/200kHz dual transducer sonar fishfinder (Elite 5 Gold) - so I get the regular cartoonish looking images. Will the structure scan videos be applicable to my unit?

Thanks Ray. In terms of setting sensitivity, I went out on Sunday afternoon and got out to 150 ft of water cover. Took the sensitivity right down and then brought it up looking for the second echo at 300 ft and took it all the way up to 100% without seeing the second echo. It was really choppy out there, wavers were +/- 1 meter, and in my 20 footer, I was going up and down, thankfully not sideways! I'm not sure if I was doing something wrong, or whether the waves were killing the technique! Also, my unit has color line - enhances the color difference between hard returns (lake bottom) and soft returns (fish). What should I do here, take it up to maximum??? The problem with the Lowrance fish finder is it has a million options, but the user manual doesn't have enough paper for me to even wipe my butt with - they did a crap job putting the manual together - so I'm sitting here trying to figure out everything. Anyhow, I'll try your advice and do the following: Run at 83kHz. Set to max refresh rate (chart speed) Adjust my sensitivity in 150 feet water cover until I get the second echo at 300 feet. Set level to 10 - 200 feet. Set colorline until I get good color difference between fish and hard objects. My boat comes out of the water in about a week for a service, so I'll check the transducer position then.

Hello fellow fish warriors!! Just got a Lowrance Elite 5 Gold fishfinder installed and used it for the first time on Friday. I used the "Fish ID" and "Fish Alarm" settings to fish Salmon and Steelhead at a total water depth of 120 - 150 feet. The unit went crazy over certain areas, indicating there were 30 fish on the screen at any given time over a troll of 1000 - 1500 feet travel. That obviously made me excited. We caught a few fish in the area, but was suprised after going through "so many fish" we didn't get more. So, I switched the "Fish ID" off and saw a lot of little dots on the screen, not too much that looked like fish arches. I still don't know what to make out of what I was seeing. Anyhow, after doing some reading I am confused as to whether I should continue to fish with "Auto Sensitivity" and "Fish ID" or whether to go for a manual setup. If I go manual what would be the optimal settings. I tried to google this, and after 4 hours I have given up on trying to find anything helpful. So, for manual settings what I really need to know is for fishing in 120 - 150 feet of water, trying to pick up fish at a level of 40 - 80 feet, should I use the 83 kHz transducer or the 200 kHz transducer? Secondly what is a good setup technique to help me resolve the sonar image into more distinctive fish arches?? Right now, trying to manually judge what a fish looks like on the cluttered screen is almost impossible. I tried to adjust the sensitivity (starting from zero) to pick up the secondary echo at double the water depth. This didn't seem to work as I wasn't able to pick up the second echo. I don't know if it was because the water was a bit choppy, or whether it is because the unit is too powerful (500W RMS, 4000W PTP). Any general guidance as to how to optimize the performance of this unit would be greatly appreciated.

Fishing Report Your Name / Boat Name: Pirate's Cove ============== TRIP OVERVIEW ============== Date(s): June 18, 2011 Time on Water: Start - 6:00 am, Finish - 11:00 am Weather/Temp: Sunny, 75F Wind Speed/Direction: No noticable wind Waves: None Surface Temp: 63F Location: Mississauga, in front of Refinery LAT/LONG (GPS Cords): =============== FISHING RESULTS =============== Total Hits: 3 Total Boated: 2 Species Breakdown: 2 Kings (1 lost just before netting), 1 Steelhead Hot Lure: Williams Dartee No 2, Red or Blue Lure Trolling Speed: 3.11 mph Down Speed: Boat Depth: 130 feet Lure Depth: +/- 50 to 60 feet ==================== SUMMARY & FURTHER DETAILS ====================

Name: Mark Bellino Location: Oakville Home Port: Bronte Outer Harbor Marina Boat Name/Type: Tahoe Q5 FS 20 footer I fish for: Salmon, Lake Trout, Bass, Pike ================== Hello Forum Members. I am a seasoned fisherman, however, that is on the rivers. Pick up my boat tomorrow, and that means first time doing some serious fishing on Lake Ontario's North Shore. Am hoping I can get some useful tips from my fellow forum members. Am taking the old man out for the July 1 long weekend, and want him to have some fun!!! Talk soon. Mark