FishingFool34

If they come on the spoon I use them, if they don't come on the spoon I use them without it. If they came on the spoon I just assume the manufacturer saw a need for it so I use them and vice versa. I've caught lots of fish on Dreamweaver spoons with split rings and lots of fish on Michigan Stinger spoons without split rings.

Gonna be combat fishing that time of year in Mexico area, if you're fine with that head to mouth of SR and jump in the pack. Otherwise you could head about an hour north to the Henderson Harbor area and fish the trench. Less traffic and fish that are still biting.

Yeah, 45-48 is a good starting point. I'll find that temp and start spreading lines around from there, have had goodluck with a meat rig well below temp. Once I start seeing marks I usually adjust to the marks even if they are out of those temps.

2.2-3.0 down speed for salmon, I usually start at 2.5 and adjust from there. Some days they like it faster other days slower. Spring time trout 2.0-2.5, lakers 1.5-2.0. Personally my downriggers are usually my deepest lines as they can get there with much less line out than anything else. I start out with a pretty wide depth spread and adjust it as the day goes on. Marks on the sonar and bites will help you narrow down the most productive depths on that day. Hard to give exact numbers as it depends on what depth your fishing and the water temps at those depths. Something to tell you down speed and temp will really increase your catch rate imo. Down speed is the most crucial I think, finding the thermocline is a good place to start but not as important as knowing if your trolling speed is correct. I set my spread initially according to temp but I adjust based on where I'm seeing fish on the sonar. Lots of good reports from just about any port on here, which should give you an idea of where to start but things change fast. Where ppl found fish yesterday, isn't necessarily where you will find them today. Cover ground, change things up until you find what's working. Goodluck!

I use Star Brite gel hull cleaner. I'm bottom painted but since installing the kicker and bracket one side of the boat sits lower in the water now and I get a scum line like 2-3" above where the bottom paint ends on the kicker side. Gel is easy to control and doesn't run as much (that stuff will remove bottom paint just and instantly rust a galvanized trailer just fyi). Wear gloves when applying and have a hose handy.

That's a solid list right there! I had pretty much the same list when I was considering going aluminum (Lund Tyee and Sport Angler were on my list also). Those are all hard to find models but goodluck!

I do something similar but clip my dipsey onto the braid and then remove it as I'm reeling the fish in just like you would do with an in-line planer board. Seems to work well, tried slide divers but the lack of an accurate depth chart and the issues I had with the divers not sliding down the braid led me to my current setup. Also makes rod storage a lot easier.

Find a nearby boat that you can pace, that's what I did on my old boat a lot of the time before I got my fishawk. Another option is to do S turns, if you get hits on the inside of the turn then you need to slow down and speed up if you get hits on the outside of the turn.

I thought it was pretty straightforward when I did it on my old Magda reels. Just get yourself a good size area to work and layout everything in the order that you take it off. I took a bunch of pictures along the way just in case I needed something to refer back to. There's a couple helpful videos on YouTube showing the process and having a parts diagram on hand (easy to find online) can't hurt. I remember reading a big write up on facebook from Rochester Reel Repair about changing the orientation of 3 curved washers, that supposedly solved the problem ppl had with needing to fully disengage the drag and then re-tighten to make adjustments. I think someone even posted the write up on here as well. Its maybe 1-2 years old now and depending on how old your reels are they may or may not have that issue. But you will be removing those washers during the swap so its something to check while your right there.

We had good looking screens all morning in 160-180. Getting them to do something more than streak thru the gear was the hard part. Went 3/5 Twinkie rig with Socco bait strip (we forgot the real stuff in the fridge) took 2 fish down 80, other came on a 10 color with NBK stingray. Bugs were annoying but not terrible, thermacell in the cockpit helped a little I think.

I have 1 color of lead with flouro leader on my leader spool with a micro swivel on one end and a snap swivel on the other. I'll usually run it on one of my full mono BT setups. I'll tie the mono directly to the swivel, reel it on top of the mono and attach my lure to the snap. Simple and I don't have to have a reel dedicated to it, anything 3 colors or more I have dedicated reels for.

Depends on the reel you're using... easy way to check. Measure off 100ft in your lawn and walk it off and see what your line counter says at the 100ft mark. If it reads higher than 100 it means you need backing.

8' ML Shimano TDR

If by combo you mean sonar/gps then yes it is.

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sorry I mis-read it.