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I have fished off charter boats in sheboygon numerous times, but not in the last several years, just couldn't make dates work with fishing friends. Retired last fall, want to rig my boat for trolling. Want to start out with two downriggers and maybe one planer. Have not done this on my own, but am willing to learn as I go. What would be a good basic reference for someone to start with? My other question is what would you suggest for lures and other tackle items I might not think of? Have electronics, saftey gear, rods and reels, just need thoughts on stuff you don't want to be without.I would also like to hear of any oother good locations besides sheboygon. Most of my fishing has been on river systems. Thanks in advance for any advice. Glad to see this forum started, hope it becomes a success.
mattie, I'm rather new to prepping my own boat but here's some thoughts......
I'm running Cannon downriggers and a nice addition is a "stacker release", allows you to run2 lines off each DR. Check out captgarys.com(good prices and fast delivery)
A good selection of flashers, spoons and flies. My friends "secrete weapon" is a "pearl(pink) j-plug"(must have one). The type, color, style of lures always depends on the bite, so check out lake-link.com for fishing reports.
Locationof the bite changes(see above)
A "really slow" kicker or "drift sock"(chute)
What kind ofboat do you have?
Oh yah.......Steve here!
__________________ Any Port in a Storm!....currently seeking shelter.
Are you going with electric or manual downriggers?? To start I would get a selection of spoons. Dreamweaver, Stinger seem to be prefered by many. There are so many choices I would start with the following
several orange and orange and silver for Steelhead
Natural born Killer, Blue Bubble, Green Bubble glow, Bloody Nose and Mixed Vegetables has been hot on the big lake.
Flies, ATomix flies I think are the best but there are many others
Run with two spin doctors or one spin doctor and one flasher.
Depending how many rods you are going to run I would also get two Dipsy divers to run off the sides and perhaps a lead core set up which I will send you the links
Great Lakes Angler has a website with tons and tons of info on it
Trust me on this GET THIS BOOK!!!! "Great Lakes Salmon and Trout Fishing - The Complete Trollers Guide" by Capts. Dan Keating and Chip Porter. This book will come up on this site sooner or later and I can tell ya its a must have for anyone who Trolles the great lakes for salmon. Do a google search and you will find it. After you reed that Dan keating wrote another book call keating on Kings its good too but the first one is a must!. Check it out.
To answer your questions, I have a starcraft islander 19' cuddy, plan on buying two mag 20 downriggers that I can tie to my humminbird matrix 47 3d gps/sonar. I thought of trying dipseys, but decided I will probably be too busy for them, between running the boat, and takeing care of the poles, as I don't have an autopilot. Figure to start with threee poles{2 downrigger} and go from there. Will have more equipt with me, and add as I get a litttle confidence. Ghostship, I will go right by you to get there. Have seeen ads for keating's book, since you guys reveiw it favorably, I will buy it. Thanks,
Newcat we will watch for you. Based over at North Shore Marina. 66' Ocean Super sport, " Knot Normal and usually on channel 68.
Mattie,
I agree on the Dan Keating books, also he has a new CD which I am anxious to see if it has anything new that was not in his books. Also I think he has a seminar over on the west side of Michigan which is coming up. I would try running a dipsy. some days the riggers are just not producing. We tend to get a good percentage of our bites on the dipsy with a fly flasher combo. The mag 20's are great you wont be disappointed.
I think maybe two downriggers, one dipsy and perhaps one other line you will be able to work but if you run 3 then you present a bait in a larger water column
Ghostship, it's a 3.0 liter 4 cyl. with alpha drive, I know a lot of people think that size mercruiser is underpowered, but it has all the speed my wife and I need. I got it up on plane once with 7 people, but I had to get out and push to do it. We might be able to set up something this summer if you are interested. T218, I guess dipseys will go on the list too.
Dan Kea ting will be the guest at the salmon unlimited Indiana February meeting every one is invited www.suindiana.com
he will have plenty of his DVD troller series on hand for sale
great speaker
Have been looking at a few sites to see some of the lures mentioned and spent some time on lakemichiganangler.com that rrrwel recommended. Appears to be an excellent site.
my favorite site is the educated angler site
bunch of guys from the salmon circuit on there and often in the winter months there are people in the fishing chat room, have picked up lots of good information in there over the years www.educatedangler.com
2 downriggers
2 stacker releases
2 Dipsie Divers (use with braid and not mono)
Some flashers and dodgers
Big net with a long handle
Some Howie Fly's or Atomic Flies
As many different spoons as you can afford. The bite always changes and you'll never have enough of the color that's hot at the moment.
2 metal rod holders (like Big Jon's) for the dipsies. The dipsies are generally dun straight out on the sides and the plastic rod holders can't handle the torque.
A simple spread for running 2 riggers:
Dipsies straight out the sides. We usually run both with a flasher/dodger and Howie Fly's
Downriggers off the back corners with stacker releases. We usually run spoons off the riggers.
It's nothing fancy but it does put fish in the boat. Keep things simple untill you have the routine down. Your better off using less lines and keeping them in the water than wasting time dealing with tangles.
cousin eddie, my thoughts exactly about keeping it simple-that tangled line thing could sure wreck a day on the water in a hurry. Would a person be asking for tangled lines just useing a stacker? Another question is if you thought you wanted to make another run at a spot, how big an arc would you have to make to be reasonably sure you kept your lines clear of one another? I spent the summer of 2001 up your way working in Minneapolis, had my camper at the fairgrounds in farmington, very nice area. Fished the little river that goes thru northfield a few times, one night something took my hook and ran off all my line, never slowed down. Always wondered if that would have been a muskie, never had an experience like that before.
It depends on the time of year and how deep the fish are. If they're deep, I suppose you could just stay with the stackers but in most cases I would prefer to run 1 line on each rigger and then a dipsie off either side. The stackers are a nice way to add lines to the riggers but can be a bit of a PITA. Every time you get a release or want to switch out baits, you have to pull and reset two lines. Not a huge issue but just something to consider. Dipsies and slide divers a both great producers and some days the fish really prefer them so it's best to have a little variety in your spread. Setting the dipsie on the 3.5 setting (bottom of the dipsie) will get them the farthest out to the sides of the boat.
You had also mentioned planer boards. A lot of guys have switched form the big planer board mast systems and are now using inline planer board. In the spring we run a lot of surface baits for Coho so we use the inline planer boards to spread things out. The rest of the season, they're usually the last thing I add and I'll typically run lead core off of a board outside of the dipsies. If the fish are biting, I prefer to keep it down to about 6 lines as I find it makes the spread much easier to manage. If the bite is slow, I'll start adding more lines.
As for the turning, Just keep an eye on you lines as you turn and try and keep them behind the boat opposed to angled out to the sides. The more angled off to the side your lines are, the more risk of a tangle.
If you thought that Musky was fun, wait untill you get 2-3 kings on at the same time! Last summer we had all 6 lines hit with kings on every line. I don't expect that to ever happen again but fish on 6 lines with 3 guys fighting fish and no one driving is about as fun as it gets!
A lot of good info above! Only add that you might consider Big Jon downriggers. Have used them for 24yrs, great service. All the sites and Keatings book are great.
I used to get Great Lakes Angler mag, has a lot of info. I do know that Honda Cat knows his stuff and if you could make that meeting, it would be worth your while.
Hey Honda Cat, Know who I am??? Hint! 200hp ETEC (Still running great)
lake michigan trolling 
