Tyee II

My 7 footers are medium power, fast action Talora roller rods. I extend my Cannon rigger arms to 3' and turn them back on a 45° angle, and my dipsey holders are far enough forward that the short wire rods are not an issue. I usually don't go less than a 1-1/2 setting on those dipseys.

The only drawback for me is if I want to dredge a dipsey off the bottom, it's much harder to differentiate between a bottom bounce and a strike with the short rods. To compensate, I have a 10' Talora wire setup for dipsey dredging only.

I think the shorter rods make for a better experience while fighting fish too!

I use 7' Talora roller rods for both my wire and my wire slide diver rods. They work great and much easier to net when solo.

On 12/23/2019 at 11:14 AM, greenboatluke said:

Weird thought... Has anyone ever attached 2,3 or 4 colors to say 300 (or so) copper to achieve depth and get the action of the lead core? Would it even work? Sort of like using a SWR on a downrigger.


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Not a weird thought at all. All of my coppers have 2 colors in them. It really helps rookies set coppers and, I believe, imparts a more desirable action to my coppers.

4 hours ago, HB2 said:

Didn't they over stock Lake Michigan a ways back and it took a long time to recover ? And I believe it has recovered from what I have read . 

No, the Mussels hurt the baitfish populations so they reduced the predator numbers to compensate. The baitfish have rebounded very quickly since the lake came back up and the Zebras tapered off.

Lake Huron was over stocked intentionally to eradicate the Alewives. They still plant hundreds of thousands of Chinook in there even after the crash and count them towards our stocking quota in Lake Michigan.

Just saw this Boats For Sale forum. What a great addition! 

The best I've seen is on the Musselhead rigs which is a small peice of tubing inside a crimp sleeve placed over the line and crimped. You can easily adjust your twinkie flies, but they stay where you put them.

7' light or medium light Ugly Stiks are my favorite BT rods. The 8'-3" Ugly stiks are perfect too.

You won't be disappointed. Been using mine all summer and I agree...almost as good as my AA. Let's hope they're as reliable.

Good deal for a great knife. My American Angler knives have served me well for many years. I would buy this if I didn't have two of them myself!

Did you get a Bubba cordless?

Grady White 232 Gulfstream with twin 150 Yamahas. Lowrance outboard pilot. Trolls great in anything under 5 foot waves. Struggles going into big waves, but works fine going with them. The lazy S turns have caught me lots of fish on tough days, and the circle back has helped me recover lost tackle.

7 minutes ago, Rookie Fisherman said:

The brackets are nice but limit your ability to move & position the riggers where you want them. For us Lake O guys who fish with many poles & presentations a track system is a much better option. IMO

The Michigan Hewes dealer orders all his boats with the brackets deleted for this reason. 

 

I agree. My buddy has a 22' Sea Runner and would like to add 2 more riggers but doesn't have many options for doing that with those brackets. He saved a bunch of money though, buying a leftover boat from the west coast, and does just fine running 9-12 rods with his rigger placement.

The new Hewescraft boats have those rigger brackets welded on right from the factory. Theyre quite rugged just like everything else on their boats.

What I was saying was the Alewives were not interested in the Perch eggs close to shore because they were out in 350fow eating shrimp, so the Perch were able to have a strong hatch...

I forgot to mention, the return Garry got is red on his HDS. wouldn't that signify a pretty dense return that wouldn't be red if it were just a thermocline? I mark thermal breaks all the time that my probe has proven (to me) to be and they are always just dotted streaks on the screen. Garrymny's return is darker red than his rigger ball just beneath it.

On 9/13/2019 at 7:37 AM, Lucky13 said:

Big schools of baby perch would correlate with a greatly reduced adult Alewife population.

Not necessarily true. The year of the perch (2015) was the year prior to the shrimp explosion we had. The next spring the Alewives were out in 300fow and didn't even come in to spawn until the middle of July because they were too busy feasting on the shrimp buffet out there. When they did come in there was an upwelling close to shore right after, and there were ****loads of Ales trapped in all the harbors (almost jumping in your boat) and a dieoff slick from Milwaukee to almost Chicago close to shore. Hardly what would make me think there was a greatly reduced Alewife population...and after they spawned the bait went right back out to the buffet far away from the Perch eggs.

Just when you think you have it figured out, Mother Nature throws a curve ball at you. 

Look in the plumbing department at a hardware store for silicone spray or grease, or even faucet grease made for faucet o-rings. 

3 hours ago, Chowdaire said:

How about this one from a couple of Septembers ago. Looks like braided rope.




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I was getting this exact return on my HDS about a month ago on Lake Michigan. Perfect horizontal spirals. Might be a coincidence but the fleas were horrible every time I was getting those returns.

Yeah, definitely not gonna break the bank, lol. Even if it did start to corrode, you could just sand and paint it. Once again, great idea! They probably make them in stainless too.

That's a mineralac clamp. Great idea but it will eventually start to rust.

If you catch any fish in the area, check stomach contents. A few years ago we had a similar phenomenon on Lake Michigan. We cut some fish open and found them full of baby Perch that were schooling up suspended over deep water. Dense schools that showed up continuously like you were seeing.

We also had the same thing happen with misis shrimp.

What model digitrolls are they and do you have any pictures? Thanks

I'll take lot 5 if you'll split them up. PM me a price.

What typically is your setback from the downrigger ball? I'm assuming it's pretty short for that to occur regularly like that. Maybe try longer setbacks, increase speed, and/or make sure you aren't turning when setting rods?

8 hours ago, rdebadts said:

Slice the gills, head down in a cooler for 5 mins, then gut them and clean out their abdominal cavity. I immediately put in ice. It is excellent, if done properly!


The Fishin’ Physician Assistant

So....you gut each fish as you catch them? You're making a mess on the boat every time you catch a fish? Seems like more trouble than it's worth...I don't even bleed mine and my fish are delicious. 

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