Willy-C

That sounds like a 19 to 21 foot open bow with a powerful outboard and some canvas to close the bow and create a cuddy like steering house. don't forget an easily removable kicker.

You should look into some Grady White rigs.

Kinda like this..??

Glad to here they found them.......

Does the GPS/DSC enabled VHF radios work for relaying the gps coordinates to the coast guard on Lake O? 

I know they work on the Atlantic Ocean, but wondered if they use the same system in the big fresh water

thats not a laker

Maybe a silver laker..??...

Hey Spike, You be a day ahead of my crew, I'm also heading to Lake O that Fri am (26th).......I'm setting up a couple triple  rod holders mounted onto each end of a  big cooler......that will ride in front on my open bow 

Where are you launching out of, we will be in mexico bay

I have a 19' Grady with a new (last year) Merc(tohatsu) 8HP mounted on a garelick adjustable kicker mount, with 3 gal remote tank and steering bar

It works great for aux power and trolling.......IIRC max is around 5-6 mph......trolls down less than 1 mph

I justified buying new motor considering the cost of fuel, not the cost of the boat.......I troll a lot so the payback will be in fuel savings and/or a potential major engine repair from trolling my 150HP for extended excursions......plus I have a slow ride home if the main motor takes a vacation 

That's a good name Dennis, and very fitting. You have inspired me to name my rig. I was thing about calling her the "Catastrophy". What do you think?   

Great name if your dog named it........ "Cat-ass-trophy".......

I really look forward to all of this great information from you all. I'm travelling to lake Ontario from NH on May 1st for a week. We're fishing Mexico bay area towards Oswego. I would love to get into some kings along with the spring browns. I bought a new Lund 1800 sport angler last year and I just love it. It,s outfitted with a pair of STX 10 downriggers which makes going deep pretty easy.

I read the browns are pretty shallow so I plan to run flat lines. What are your suggestions for depth and any spoons, stix or flies. Years ago I ran some tandem flies on steel. What about speed, I can only get down to about 2.1 to 2.4. Now for kings. Where do I start? I picked up a few 8" pro trolls and dream weavers with a few flies, I also have spoons from NK mags down to 1" Long speedy shiners.

Thanks for any ad all advice you can provide.

Boat Safe

Egoody

Egoody,

I'll be a week ahead of you.....going out with a few friends in a couple of boats for a squeeze weekend in the same area

We'll be doing the same for browns and maybe some king action out in the deeper water if conditions are good

If you have a couple empty reels Rob, spool the wire on on first, then connect your mono and continue to fill the spool.  Then tie connect the mono to the the other empty reel, reset the counter to zero and fill the empty reel off of the full reel.  Note the footage on the counter when you get back to the wire.  Then you can get the same amount of mono on the rest of your reels.

Miss Em, great advice......I'm ready to spool up two reels and was wondering how...

I have a 16', 1994 and it has a hull identical to a 16' Starcraft of the same vintage...Good boat......I suspect they bought the raw hull from Starcraft in those days and fabricated everything inside for themselves

A good way to pass the winter when the creek's all froze up.....

Thanx Mike for chasing those toothy critters and helping out my furbuddies, they are my bunny chasers

http--,,--//

Thanx Mike,

Good info....I don't like the idea of smoking pc boards, I'll double/triple check the polarity

One d-rigger has the cable/plug and the other has just a bare wire with brittle insulation....it looks like the power cord is crumbling from long time storage.....I'll end up buying the replacement cable/harness from someone like Fish307 or others 

the d-riggers were only used a few times but stored many years in a barn, the original owner was suppose to find the manual but has not replied yet, so I'm anxious to try them out without doing damage

When the pc boards go out, do they quit working completely or just not return on their own?

My 27 foot Baha Cruiser and my fishing charter business is named MADSIERRA after our 2 golden retrievers....Madison and Sierra. One of them turned 16 in january and the other one will be 14 in march. If the boat is on the water the two of them will be on the boat!...actually told a client to find another boat to fish on when he said he didn't like dogs and did not want them on the boat!

I too don't mind dogs on boats.....Good choice....

Not very inventive to my boat name but it did get changed briefly when on my first trip last year on Lake O to the "Weenie-Sea" 

I lost my favorite hat to the infamous lake gods on the first day out so my immediate job off the water that day was to purchase the first hat I could get my hands on...the local tackle store had exactly what I needed...that hat would be soon be the target of my inability to complete the task of landing a fish without breaking off and losing the battle of the kings

At the end of the weekend I landed an 18# king literally on the last minute of our trip from the last pole in the water......so the name Willy-Sea returned back.......I don't have a big weenie but the hat makes up for it.....

So many choices...

I hear ya.......I need to do some "googling" to decipher some of these colors out....

I have a pair of Cannon Mag10a's  on my grady that work OK (slow but OK) and I picked up another used pair of Cannon Mag10's a got weeks ago

What I didn't get was an owners manual that shows wiring diagrams.....the power cords were bobbed off short......Hoping to tap the endless wealth of marine knowledge to answer a few technical questions

the newer Magnum 10's have "Positive Ion Control" on a sticker......they have the momentary up/down switches with circuit breaker push button...(no other knobs)...my older Cannon 10a's have the maintained up switch for retrieval, so I'm suspecting the newer ones have the internal circuit board to allow the auto-stop feature 

 I've read that the auto-stop senses the ball out of the water......does an extra wire need to go outside the boat (pos or neg)?

Can I test the operation of this function jury rigging something out of the water..( bucket of water/work bench/battery)..??.....(boat is currently under winter cover)

I've read that the circuit board is obsolete and I don't really want to do the smoke test quite yet.....can hooking it up by mistake with rev polarity do harm to the internal circuit board?.......(cut power wires don't show which is pos/neg)

Does the Positive Ion Control draw any/much from the batteries while trolling? ....can it be shut off?.....Does it work for catching more fish??.....(.I have dual batteries with a/b/both switch)

Thanx in Advance,

~Willy-C~

If you thought your 450 copper was down 90 feet at 3mph and then technology came out that showed the 450 copper was down 45 feet at 3mph, would your catch rate go up with this information?

Maybe the probe affects the diving depth and brings it up?

Kinda difficult to take the plunge in the hard water now......Think Spring (but not too fast  )

Is the controllking watertight..??

I have been running a Trollmaster Pro 2 last couple years.  Went with the digital as I thought it would give better range of control.  Like the idle feature and ability to dial in my speed.  Only negative I see is that it's not waterproof so you have to keep it protected.  Have gotten it wet a few days but have been able to dry it out.

I hear ya on the waterproofing.......this Itroll says it's watertight and that alone seems worhty of looking at, but the website says this hasn't even been released yet, and no price posted....I'm not big on being a guinea-pig but anxious to see if this itroll does what it says.......seems a little too complex to play with underway, IMHO simple sometimes is better

 seen one of these..??

http://youtu.be/nrjf9uffUmk

I'm all ears on this subject too...... ready to buy one but have the same questions

Colin,

Sorry, I don't mean to hijack your thread but figured more questions will bring out more answers for both of us......

My first and only trip out to Lake O last summer was near Oswego

The local fishing just ain't been the same since.....

One thing I noticed last summer with mag dipseys. If the currents are really bad, they don't seem to dig down into the water very well. A few times (when the fish were deep) I took them off and went back to the 00. Not sure if its the extra surface area or what.

[ Post made via iPhone ]

How big are the 00 ones......I have a couple of size 1 (luhr jenson), maybe about 3.5 to 4" dia.....are those good to start?

Thanx Hawkeye and MarkB,

Great info, 30 it is......Now just have to sort out the 7 vs 19 strand .......more reading and search will give me plenty to do till thaw

You want the size 1 dipsy, 30lb wire line - a 1000ft spool will fill a size 47 reels perfectly - gives you a more accurate reading with a full spool...........

As a newbie, I'm also setting up a couple of dipsy's

??I'm looking at these ( http://www.brettsplaceonthebay.com/2-pa ... ing-reels/ )

Would this reel be good for size for the 1000' spool??.....(the convector comes in 30 & 45 size)......Thanx ~WC~