(Downriggers/Tackle Continued - Page 2)
Fish Lies!!
I know this is a no brainer but, especially for you guys who have a "little" trouble guestimating weights of fish, or even their length, here's a simple tool to have that will keep others off your back! Princess Auto has these aluminum, plastic coated yard sticks on sale, I believe they were a whole 3 bucks or something, and have standard and metric sizes on it in numbers that I can even see! I screwed mine to the cleaning board on my boat but, you could just as easily attach it elsewhere or even just lay it on the floor of the boat. This makes it fast for measuring the fish and if necessary have a soft tape handy to measure the girth. This will keep those non-believers off your back!! It don't get much simpler than this!!
Downrigger Wires
During the creation of my Drowning Man's Butt Plug I came across the need for a chunk of small cable to attach to the plug and, while looking around also discovered that my rigger wire needed some replacing. The amount I cut off the "ball end" was just right for the plug, and stainless steel to boot! For those of you that use your rigger's as much as I do, one season of fishing can make some ugly kinks in that line and eventually it will shred, and there's nothing worse than getting stuck with those tiny shards of wire when your rigging your balls up!! Its quick and simple to fix it up, just make sure you have some of those small wire crimps that Scotty puts out for just such a fix, get a pack of the double wire and single wire crimps. I cut my wire off right above where I always attach the clip, that's usually where the most where occurs. You actually won't even notice it until you do take the wire off or its slack, and then it'll all twist up, that's the beginning of the end for the wire and there's nothing worse than making field repairs on this stuff. I always carry extra crimps and wire cutters with me just in case! The photos below show what the wire looked like before and after and how I crimp my stuff. I also put a small piece of electrical tape on the tag end of the wire just so there's no sharp pieces to stick myself on after its cut. Quick and simple, and with wire left over for the DMBP!!!!
Braided Lines
For those of you who have never tried some type of braided line I'd suggest you spool up one of your reels with it and give it a whirl, you might be quite happy with the performance it can give! I've been using Spider Wire although there are many different brands on the market and you'd have to research it all if in fact there is something in particular braided line. With this type of line you can put out those longgggggggg line behind the boat and with minimal to no stretch you'll have much better hook sets on the fish. As well, once the fish is hooked you feel every ounce of energy the fish is putting into not getting to your boat! With mono there is so much stretch sometimes you have no idea if the fish is even on and it can take much longer to get that fish to the boat. There is however, a couple of "problems" with braided line but these can be overcome with a little care. With no stretch line it is imperative that you have a rod that can handle the pounding even a small fish can give when hooked up! Even with small bows in the 2 lb range, they can really work a rod/reel setup over and if the rod is not supple enough you can be sure the rod or the line will break. The drag on the reels must be set just right so that the fish can take out line easier than with mono, but not so loose that they can spool out so much line that they can spit the hook. You'll notice that you have alot more line capacity with braided as it is so thin, so spooling up 300yds on a regular reel isn't a problem, if you need that much! I have one of my level winds spooled up with 150 yds of 30 lb Spider Wire, along with 100yds of mono for backing. On the end of that line I put an 8' leader of 20lb fluorocarbon line, and this brings up another miner problem with braids, the knots! If you've ever tried joining mono and braid together or just tying knots in the stuff it can be a bit tricky, but after a little research I found a website that showed some nifty knots! Thanks to www.fishsponge.com for the info!!
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Uniknot to Uniknot Splice The best way to connect braided line to monofilament of similar diameter. 1) Pass the braided line and monofilament at least 12 to 18" past each other so that loops can be formed. For a stronger knot, double the braided line. 2-3) Starting with the braided line, make 6 to 8 wraps through the loop and pull to tighten. Do the same with the mono except 4 or 5 wraps are enough. Pull on the tag end. Look to see that the wraps don't cross over each other. 4-5) Pull on the standing lines to jam the knots together. Trim. Note: This information adapted from the Power Pro website |
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The above line is simple to tie and according to their example gives almost 100% of the line strength! The strange thing about this knot is that it is the same one as we used on the Dive Team for tying life lines together, that's how strong it is!! This second pic is how you could tie right to the hook or to a swivel, and then tie your mono from swivel to your hook.
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Uni Knot This is probably the most common knot for tying braided line. It can retain almost 100% of the line strength.
1. Run at least six
inches of line through the eye of the hook, swivel, or lure, and fold to
make two parallel lines. Bring the tag end of the line back in a circle
toward the hook or lure. |
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And, last but not least, a little picture of how I know how much line when I use the braid. I normally run 200-250' behind the boat and rather than always counting or guessing, a small piece of bright Dacron tied to the braided line using a Bobber Stop Knot stays on the line right at whatever length I've measured out. One thing about this knot, its there to stay and if you use it on mono, don't slide the knot up or down because it'll curl the line from the friction generated, its that tight!! I use the same knot when I use a slip bobber but tie it a bit looser so as I can slide it up or down. Here's the knot and the knot on my line!!
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Bobber Stop
Knot This is a specialty knot for bobber fishing. It has the advantage that the stops moves readily over the rod guides, but grips the monofilament line tightly enough that it will not slide over the line. It should be made with about 5 inches of line, usually the same or larger diameter as the line itself. |
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The "Put 'Em Back" Fish Release
Anyone who has fished for lakers that are at depth are aware of the problem that arises when they are brought up to the surface and unable to expel excess air from their air bladder, as that air expands on the way up. Scuba divers doing this are subject to barotrauma and can die from this, as a result of them breathing compressed air from their tanks and that air then expanding in their lungs as they ascend. Fish are the same way, breathing compressed air at depth that then expands in their air bladder but, fish are a bit tougher than us humans and wind up "barfing" their air bladder out or as cod do sometimes actually barf their insides out!!
I have been doing some Internet research on this subject and there is quite a bit that has been written up on the subject of barotrauma in fish. "Fizzing" is a technique used by some but something I wouldn't feel comfortable doing to fish. It entails using a hypodermic syringe that is pushed into the fish and into their air bladder, thereby allowing the excess air to "bleed" out through the syringe. No doubt works but, if you miss the air bladder and hit the gut or something worse, heart/liver, you'd wind up killing the fish rather than helping it. The technique I've been using via the downrigger ball has worked OK in the past but that "ripping" the hook out of the fishes mouth at depth is not always that tender on them either. What I did find on several sites was what others are referring to as a "fish descender", simply put, a device to put the fish back down to the depth it was caught at, and it releases itself, sort of! My design is my own, being careful of course to not breach any patent pending device that may be out there, good grief, heaven forbid someone bends a piece of wire the wrong way and copies someone!! Whatever.
Here it is, simply made from a halibut spreader bar that I picked up at Wholesale Sports for four bucks. I took the swivel assembly off the one side by bending the wire and then sharpened the end of the bare wire. The rigging simply hooks onto the downrigger clip with the cannon ball below the device, to give it weight to take the fish back down. Now, some may think that taking a wire and poking it through the fishes bottom lip is cruel, I'm guessing its no more cruel than over handling a fish, dropping it on its noodle in the boat or beating it with a net numerous times in an attempt to get it into the boat. This device is quick, simply poke that hook through the bottom lip, get some weight on the fish (holding it by the tail) and slowly let the rigger ball down. The fish follows right behind the ball, mouth open so it can breath OK, and lower it down to the depth you caught it at. Once you reach that depth just reverse the rigger right away and that hook slides up and out of the fishes mouth, its just that simple as Shell Buzey would say!! Hey, us humans are sticking stuff through our lips and other weird spots so a wee hole in the fishes lip is nothing as compared to floating around on the lake surface and being pecked apart while still alive! Also, there's no doubt that fish get the odd hole poked in them somewhere from the stuff they eat, so again, I really don't feel a hole in the lip is going to cause any long term damage. In any event, I'm gong to be using this all the time now and in fact just leave it hooked up on the rigger wire as shown in the pic, that way your not scrambling around putting it together if you do get a "bloater"!
