Dukdog

2 - 8 ft. Shimano Talora roller guide rods,  TLA-80-MRG-2 with Okuma Convector CV30D line counter reels loaded with 30 # Moss Green Powerpro line   $120 each

2 - 8 ft. Shimano Talora Trolling rods, TLA-80-M-2,  with Diawa Accudepth 47 LC line counter reels loaded with 25# flea flicker Mono.                                   $90 each

All rods and reels in very good to excellent condition.  Lightly used but never abused!!

Special :  Buy the all for:  $400  Buyer Pays shipping

Fishing Lake Michigan back in 08, I was 7 miles out of Manitowoc, Wisconsin about an hour before dark. Shifted from the kicker to the main and as I went to put the motor in gear, the shift cable snapped and stuck in reverse!! I shifted back onto the kicker and away we went! Got in later than I was planning to but we got in!! Best money I ever spent was on that 8 horse Yamaha!

A top, sides and front for my 18' Lund Alaskan was $2300 this spring. Really love it!

Looks like I need to pick up my speed. I've been successful with other gear at around 2.1 so I've been reluctant to change. I need to embrace some change!!

Every year when I make my annual run to Lake O, I hear several guys extolling the virtues of trolling meat. Over the last 3 years, I've acquired several paddle, twinkie rigs, heads etc. I've been buying precut filets at the bait shop and to date, have had nary a hit!!

Having learned how critical speed and rotation are when fishing sewn smelt here in Maine, I'm thinking that those are the factors that are screwing me using meat!!

Here's what I've been doing that hasn't been working for me: Trolling speed 1.8 to 2.3 focusing on 2.1 as my go to number

I've been trying to tune my bait to rotate as slow as I can get it, usual 1 to 2 revs per second.

Any suggestions on what I can do to improve my tactics??

I know our landlocks over here don't like a spinning bait at all! The bait needs to run pretty straight with an occasional flick to one side or the other. If your bait goes to spinning on you, your hit rate will plummet! They want to see a crippled looking bait that is upright and trying to go along but falls over because it's hurt. We try to maintain 1.5 to 1.6 mph.

Blue Label and the new Seaguar salmon on order!

Excited!!

Yes, it was the Vanish that broke at about 12 pounds!!! The 2 spools of leader now reside in the trash barrel. I've got some 30# Seaguar Salmon and a spool of blue label coming from fishusa.

It was frustrating breaking off so many nice fish last year. I was dreading going back over and having a similar experience this summer. I never had this problem in the past. As I recall, I had run out of good leader material and tried using up some I had in the tackle bag instead of ordering some. Here in Maine, it's tough to get the stuff to use on the big lake. Most of our stuff is geared for landlocks and togue.

Getting ready for a trip in August and started readying my rods.  I had a disgusting number of leader break offs with fish and gear loss last year,  I thought is was a knot problem but discovered today that it was probably my leader material.

I decided to rig up everything and do a static pull test to 25# on all my new rigs downstream of the main line..  Everything I've tied so far using 30# Ande Mono and 30# Vanish Flouro that I had on hand was failing miserably in the 10 to 20# pull range!!!  No knot failures just failure of the leader material itself.  I lost some big fish last year that I didn't think we should have.

I've got new material on order and will try that and see what the results are.  I'm thinking the material I've got on hand was old and degraded.  Any thoughts on this???

They are running right now in our ponds in Maine! We dipped limits on Tuesday evening. Beautiful sewing size 4 to 5 inch! Our landlocks are very near the surface after ice out.

Sewn smelt is the bait of choice over here! We only fish something else if we can't get smelt.

!

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I like your rod holders Rocko!

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The bimini and sides and front were all built by Waterville Upholstery in Waterville, Me.

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Made the maiden voyage of the season on Sebago Lake here in Maine. Went 2 for 3 on landlocks in 37° water trolling sewn smelt on sinking fly lines off big boards.

Still way too cold and the smelt run which fuels the salmon and togue fishery is just starting. Large schools of bait just out a ways but nothing entering the river.

Anyway, the little boat fished great! This year's mods proved to be excellent. Thanks to some good suggestions from my previous posts on here, I moved my planer board setup to the launcher frame and positioned the reels crosswise.

I love the Burts reels and pulleys!!

Having the new setup allows me to reel the boards up and out of the water without having to lean out and lift them by hand. The reels are smooth and fast. No more mother line slipping off the pulley and jambing like my Cannons did.

I looked into a dodger also but the price was more than I wanted to spend this year. I only make one or 2 trips to Lake O a year. If it's bad enough to take them over the bow, I not going to be out there.

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I had some great comments on  my original post which caused me to think of what else I could do to make my Lund Alaskan 18 fish better!!  Here's some updated photos!  New Top and the planer boards have been relocated to my Rocket Launcher!  Top is by a local shop in Waterville, Maine.  Planer board reels and pulleys are by Burt's Tackle.   

I'm very happy with both additions!  Also purchased but not installed yet is a Mac's Prop Saver for my 8 HP Yamaha kicker.

Good article from Great Lakes Fisherman made me aware of that product and it sounded to me like keeping wire out of my kicker wheel was a good idea!!  Low cost insurance!!

Burt's Planer board reels and pulleys

Rocket Launcher folded down for travel

Front Door rolls up and snaps for stowage

I hung up a 15# shark weight in Lake Champlain on something 60 feet down in 80 feet of water!!! Had my clutch set a little to tight and before I could react the STX and 2 rods, 2 rod holders, 2 Chamberlain releases and other associated gear

Was ripped out of the base. This happened at 0430. I spent an hour jigging my anchor hoping to snag the cable. No luck of course!! By 0630 I was back on the trailer headed for home. About $800 to replace all the last gear! It sucked!

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Well I folded and just ordered reels and pulleys for the rocket launcher uprights!! Boards will be easier to put in and out from inside the handrails. That will elimiate one more opportunity to fall down in rough water!!

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Lund makes a mounting plate that fits their track. You can attach a rod holder base to them if you want to but you may come to regret it!! I attached this Scotty base and was trolling a 10 ft Talora roller rod dragging a dipsy on SS wire with. Flasher and fly. The rod took a hit and the Lund plate fractured and I watched my rod and rod holder fall in sink out of sight!! That sucked!

As luck would have it, as the rod sunk, the reel handle hooked itself on the downrigger cable!! The fish had come off and when I pulled the downrigger, I discovered the rod and recovered it!!! My lucky day!! Lesson to self!! If fishing Kings, Never put your good rods in anything but metal holders securely attached!!

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Drum Rock FisChic!! Outstanding!!

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We dip them along the shore using lift nets on long handles. We use a mantle lamp to draw them in and when you get a charge of them over the net, you lift! We can take 2 quarts a day. Makes for a fun evening.

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Mine are track mounted on Cannon pedestals! The way I look at it is, What good is a $30 lock if they've got a 50 cent Allen wrench to remove the hold down bolts on the pedestal?? Locks just keep the honest people out, for a while!!!

The plugs are the weak and expensive link!! I've got the flush mounts and have broken 2 plugs by bumping them. I may have mounted them too low but once they crack, you're screwed. It's not easy to get them straightened out enough to work again. I've ended up cranking my STXs up from 120 feet with the emergency handle!! That sucks!!

I hope you have better luck getting info on smelting than I did over here in Maine!!

It's a secret society here and almost impossible to break into!! Took 10 years before someone felt sorry for me and took me under his wing!!

Sewed smelt is the A#1 salmon and trout bait here! It outfishes everything else!! Affectionately known a "Togue Candy"

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I always ran snubbers on my dipsys on wire line. Last year I read a post about getting better hookups without a snubber so I eliminated them. All my break offs came on dipsys!! The snubbers went back on and I went to 50# to atop the wallet bleed! The combination worked!

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No! I need to take it apart and drive down to my son's in N.H.

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I don't fish the big lakes a lot but I'd been running 30# flouro which is what was recommended to me for Lake Michigan when I was working out there. Last year Lake O's big kings tore the crap out of it and I lost a lot of tackle within seconds of being hit!!  We had several big boys on and only managed to land  3 over 20 including a 32#!!  That's because I switched all my leaders over to 50# the second day of our trip!  I found out 30# is just to light for me!    The new Seagar Salmon leader is nice,  I have some but haven't run it yet,   too much ice here in Maine yet!