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kingpossible

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Everything posted by kingpossible

  1. A friend of mine just bent some 1/8 aluminum to fit over the lip of the transom and hang down into the water. Shape is like a "J". He uses it for his Fishhawk transducer.
  2. I run braid backing on my rigger rods, with 120 feet of mono on the front. I change the mono out once a year, but I will cut 5 feet off the end and several times each season.
  3. I've done this on the tohatsu. I bought a kit from Boats.net and installed it. I did have to remove the flywheel. I used the alternator kit and the rectifier kit. Cost a little under $200. The relevant parts numbers are listed on this website: https://www.tohatsuoutboardparts.com/Electrical-Kits.html I'm unsure if they will work with the Mercury, but my guess is since the motors are the same, they might.
  4. I'm planning to try it this spring on Lake Michigan once the alewives show up. Going to net some at the pierheads and then head out to deeper water and send em down.
  5. Walloholic - Take the reels apart yourself and clean off the drag washer that are in there. I've soaked them in dish soap and water for a few days, rinsed them off and let them dry. Might be worth a try. The thing is that these reels don't have the largest drags to begin with. I think these washers have then felt drags? If so, put a drop of oil on them before reinstalling.
  6. I don't change the diver-to-attractor leader distance. I like longer leaders in general. You might need some help netting a fish though - my leaders are all too long anyways so I need to handline the fish in every time even with a spoon behind the diver.
  7. I think most hooks are size 2, 1, and 1/0. It has been tricky to find a brand to get the replacement hooks. Ideally, you want the replacement hook to match the weight of the hook you're replacing to get the same spoon action. I've used VMC 9650 hooks for some stuff, and have bought some Owner ST-36's (pricey). I wish I could get some of these hooks in silver, but have not been able to find any.
  8. I have an overfilled spoon. What I do is measure 50 ft in the driveway, pull the cable to 50 ft, set the counter to 50 feet, and fish it from there. It will read negative when i bring it up, but I make my adjustments based of the 50 ft baseline.
  9. I always use a quality swivel to connect to the spin doctor swivel. With the two, I've never had a problem. I wouldn't direct tie only to the spin doctor swivel.
  10. Definitely an exciting trip! I can see trouble from running a longer core down the chute - especially when the fish this year have been tangling up with my board coppers that I have out 60 ft+ on each side of the boat!
  11. My favorite is a Luhr Jensen Coyote 11" Paddle, with a Big Weenie Brand Poofster Fly (a white fly) 38 inches back from the paddle. Set 25 ft behind a downrigger down 70 feet or deeper. The non-agitator paddles will occasionally change direction mid spin. You can experiment with speed to see where the action seems best. I like 2.5-3.0 mph at the ball, but I've had it work anywhere between 1.8 and 3.2 mph. Sometimes if you're going slow, the paddle will wobble back and forth. This can be killer near the bottom for lake trout.
  12. One is you only need 150 feet of copper, vs 225 feet or so of LC to achieve the same depth. But be careful deploying in shallow water. The 150 copper will hit bottom quickly.
  13. King Possible - Fish Hawk Calibration Method.pdf
  14. I'll put some more details on the calibration in a bit, but here is my experience: On several different Fishhawk units from the factory, the speeds vary! Switch probes out to another head unit and the speed changes again. Unless you calibrate your unit together with all the other fishermen on the lake all your units will read slightly different.
  15. You should calibrate downspeed with GPS! And the surface speed with GPS and downspeed too! BUT... Make sure there is no current where you do the calibration. I calibrate going about 3 mph GPS. To check the water is calm, I go in one direction set the calibration, then troll back the opposite direction and make sure the speeds match. If it's slightly off you have current (if it's not much you can figure out what the difference is and factor that into the calibration. Make sure to calibrate water temp at the same time too.
  16. I have two 15" strips of king salmon soaking & 1/4" of meat soaking in brine right now. I'll see if I can get them stiff enough to run.
  17. I've been running 300 ft of Mason Multistrand Leader wire in the 125 lb weight. The 125 lb wire has a thinner diameter and has less blowback than the 150lb test wire. Been running it for several years now, but I do re-tie the clinch connection once a year and cut back 2-3 feet of cable.
  18. Right track. Don't know about running 15 lb leaders on a 300 copper or full cores. I've been running 25 lb on the longer coppers and cores this year. Lots of big fish on Lake Michigan - same on Ontario?
  19. I mainly fish lake Michigan from St. Joe to Muskegon. I've fished a few smaller 1 day events, but once the entry fee increase from $20 to $30, it just wasn't worth it to me. I know that's not much, but here are my concerns: 1. Shot gun start - I have smaller boat, and with a shotgun I have to stay inside the pierhead to avoid getting swamped when all the big boats take off. I also am slower than some of the big boats. I'm losing prime fishing time getting to my spot. 2. Start time - some of the best fishing can be before the tournaments even start. In the summer that can be 4:30 - 6:30 am. 3. End time - If I've found a bite, I don't want to abandon it to go weigh fish. I'd rather catch more fish while I'm out. Or in other words, I've invested a lot of time to make it out. I don't want to cut a trip shorter than it has to be if my crew is cool with fishing until 3 or 4 pm. 4. Port restrictions - If there are good fish 10-15 miles away, I don't want to have to run that many miles to get on to fish. I would rather just hop a port over and get them from there. 5. Weather. Tournament says 1-3 foot forecast is ok to fish. I'm only comfortable in my boat with under 2 foot waves. 2 foot and above just isn't fun. Boat can handle it, but boat control becomes an issue. 6. Money - When the winnings get into the good money category, I'm out. Tends to bring out the worst in people sometimes. I'm not fishing for the money but some people are. 7. Info sharing - when a big tournament is coming up, people tend to hush up on the reports. It's really hard to get any info. I can't compete fairly when people are pre-fishing for 2 days and don't say a word. 8. Big tournament behavior. One example - I went to a shop to get a second stinger spoon that had been good for me the past few weekends. Guy says that someone came in and bought every one of several good spoons. No way someone was planning on running 15-20? of the same spoon? People will go around and buy every one of the hot baits in local shops so other tournament fishermen can't buy them. Seriously?
  20. I spool each rod with mono backing, then 150 yds of power pro, 10-20 ft of 30 or 40 lb mono, then specifically a number of colors of lead core (be it 5, 7, 10 colors etc.) and then 20-30 ft of 20 or 25 lb flourocarbon. When attaching to the planer board, I let all the lead core and 5-10 ft of the heavy mono.
  21. Here's the image for wave height. They do include the belly of the wave, but as rolmops included in his post: "Individual wave heights may be more than twice the significant wave height." The buoy is reporting the significant wave height. And yes, a reported wave height of 2 ft. on the buoy will probably look rougher on the water.
  22. Electrical issues on a boat are trick. I second disconnecting the charger and seeing if it still happens. Also get a multi-meter and check for continuity through the Perko switch - could be there's something off with the switch.
  23. Ok, make your own decisions of the following, but this is my take: In clear blue open ocean water, most colors penetrate somewhat until about 160 feet (50 m). But keep in mind that the stronger colors at that depth are blues and greens. In the coastal water (think greener water), the stronger colors are greens and yellows. Maybe this is why green is a more popular color in Lake Ontario vs. Lake Michigan. I was also reading that UV penetrates well into very clear water, but hardly at all in dirtier water.
  24. Definitely slim pickings on the kings - they seem to concentrate in certain ports more and those ports seem to vary year to year. I will say I did catch my biggest king on the lake this past summer. I like watching the strategies from the show though.
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