jigstick

thats just a normal mark if you ask me.  big fish.  last year this time of year i was fishing out of Olcott and my entire screen was filled with hooks like that.  top to bottom.  Hundreds of fish starting to stage

I smashed walleye out of Barcelona on Saturday.  Kept my 24 keepers and threw a bunch back as well.  About 4miles east of the harbor.  90-130fow.  70ft down.  Any purple bait was on fire.  Harnesses, stick baits, spoons, spin-n-glows.  I had to zig around to find cold water, but when I found 68 degrees every rod would fire.

Correct.  I ground the batteries to each other.  then one battery also grounded to the block.

My problem came because I forgot to connect the ground going from one battery to the other.  And I tried to start the boat with the battery that wasn't grounded to anything.

Thanks PAP.  Im fairly certain thats what I did.  I reattached the ground that comes from my fuse panel. But not the ground that connects the two batteries together.

Is it bad for me to ground the batteries like that...to each other?  Only one is grounded to the engine.  I have the other battery grounded to the battery "grounded" to the engine.

So I think I "may" know the problem is.  When I store my boat I disconnect the ground wires from both batteries.  When I got the boat out of storage this year I remember putting the ground wires back on both batteries.  But heres the catch

On the battery giving me problems I only hooked up one ground wire.  Which I think goes to a fuse box up by my dash.  Im thinking I forgot to attach the ground wire that connects this battery to the ground on the other battery.

SO If I forgot to attach the ground wire, I'm guessing it would cause anything connected to that battery to not work?  The fuse panel that is connected to this battery has its + and - hooked up.  I would think those electronics should still work...even if the battery itself isn't grounded to the engine???

So I just took the battery to autozone. Their tester read 12.25. And tested "good battery" on their machine. Wtf. How would I have "shorted" the battery?  I think the battery is about 4 years old

Battery Issue help

Got to the launch yesterday and one of my batteries appeared to be dead.

I have 2 batteries.  A cranking battery, and a deep cycle battery.  Wired to a PERKO switch.  

Battery 1 is the cranking battery.  Battery 2 is my deep cycle.  all of my electronics and starter are fed off the "BOTH" terminal on the PERKO.

I flipped to my cranking battery and nothing worked on the boat.  No blower, starter, sonar, etc.  I flipped to deep cycle and got the boat running.  I switched the PERKO to the "BOTH" position to try and charge the one battery that appeared dead.  Trolled all day, 10 hours.  ON the way back in i decided to flip back to the "problem" battery to make sure it charged.  As soon as I did, I lost all of the electronics again.  I went back to the working battery and got off the lake.

I pulled the problem battery from the boat and stuck a volt meter on it.  its reading 12.26.  Now I'm not sure WTF is going on.  The fluid inside the Interstate Battery is above the electrodes.  The battery is maybe 4 years old.

Is my battery bad?  or did something go wrong inside my PERKO switch?

On 9/25/2015 at 11:26 AM, Gill-T said:

You might want to invest in trim tabs

The boat has trim tabs.  I can see them clear as day in the picture.    Like others have said.  The motor needs to come down for sure.  

Same on erie.  Ive had my boat out 2x this year.  And its just about August.  Total bust for me so far.

i spear all of mine, so I don't even need a net

South wind will be perfect. Start at 90 and troll north into deeper water. Drop Oscar down 5-10ft off the bottom and hang on

Are you going out this weekend?  Let us know how you do

I tie my own flys for stream fishing.  I want to tie some salmon trolling flys.  I looked over some info from the Purple Taco website, but I just cant believe that these salmon flies are held together with scotch tape.  There has to be a way to tie this that is more secure.  How are you guys securing your mylar and skirting material to the head?  Just Epoxy it on?  Snelling the hooks and making the tournament rigging is easy enough.  But making the skirts is my problem

My First Meat Rigs

I fished on my buddys boat on sunday, and was exposed to meat rigs for the first time.  The fishing was pretty hot so I didn't have a lot of time to pay close attention to the specific styles and brands of meat rigs that we were using.

Can anybody recommend some rigs for me?  Im looking for something that doesn't require a lot of tuning.  Also, the rigs that we were using had 3 "rubber skirts" on the leader, approximately 18in apart, running from the meat rig towards the swivel.  Im guessing those were "teasers"?  Do certain meat rigs come with those teasers?  And some don't?

Fished out of Olcott on Sunday.  The 27 line and further.  Flees were F'ing terrible.  5min soaks at the max.  Even the copper and wire was accumulating flees.

That is kind of what I'm trying to do.  Except Im thinking of mounting my reel and pulley both on the roof grab rail.  Pulley towards the bow, reel towards the stern.

Just how hard to these big boards pull?  Im looking at the Aurora Lites or Amish Outfitters composite collapsable boards.  Im guessing if my grab handle can withstand me hanging from it that it should be strong enough to pull the boards and 6 copper rods?

Not sure.  You could try taking the handle off and cleaning the clutch pads.  Check the spring in there as well.  Maybe your clutch pads are sticking?

I'm thinking of picking up two 300 copper setups. Would it be a stupid idea for me to run my coppers off the side rod holders on the inside. And my two dipsys on the outside on a 3.5 setting?  Or should I just pick up 2 more wire dipsy rods?

is it productive to run copper like this?  i.e. Not off of a planer board?

My go to spoon for lakers fishing between Barcelona and Dunkirk is the Moonshine Oscar spoon.  By the end of the year they are so beat up I have to toss them and get new ones.

My go to cowbell is the Green / Silver /  Black cowbells with a purple / yellow spin-n-glow.  

And Im fishing them the same way you are.  Down riggers along the bottom, and my dipsys a little above.  

You got it figured out pretty good man.  I launch out of Barcelona and head east into 100-130fow.  I troll slow with cowbells + Spin-n-glows and Moonshine glow spoons close to the bottom and hammer them.  If you want to get crazy you can run some magnum dipsys as well and get those suckers down deep with a Pro Troll + spoon or Pro Troll and spin-n-glow.  Seeing a big laker smack a wire dipsy down deep with get your heart racing.

I have manual Cannons with telescoping booms.  They get the job done.  I don't mind cranking them.  And i have had nothing but good experiences with Cannons customer service.  I managed to strip out the handles on both of mine, and they sent me 4 replacement handles at no charge.   I also managed to lose an end cap on one of my Cannon Dual Axis rod holders.  they sent me that replacement at no charge as well.

If you are going to go electric, then id bite the bullet and buy the stainless steel Cisco ones and rest easy knowing that your grandkids will pass them down to their grandkids.

Ive heard that they are slow compared to even other electric Cannon down riggers.  That the plane Jane electric cannons are faster at dropping and raising the ball.  And Im just not sure that bottom tracking would actually help me catch more fish.  Even when I troll lakers right on the bottom.  

Telescoping booms?  Im interested

what part of erie did you fish, and how big were the waves

how on gods green earth does one of our cutting edge destroyers manage to run into another ship.  hell in the gulf of Aden they can track skinny pirates in rubber rafts MILES away