Month: November 2010

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New Tackle Design

Well, I’m on lock-down here at the house. I’m nursing a cold and some kind of deadly lung funk this weekend. The boss says I have to stay in so I’ve been down in the shop and out at the pool for the last 2 days on a R&D (Research and Development) mission. Since I can’t chase stripers this weekend I’ve designed a surprise for little Mr. topwater striper when I get out of lock down. Since the topwater stripers are whacking the 1/2 ounce bucktail, I’ve decided to double my odds and I’ve created “The Double Bucktail Rig”. Check out the video I made of my newest creation and stand by for the field testing results next week. These rigs are available on my website.

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Friday 11-19 Trip

Got out this morning with Mike D from the Oakwood club. I met Mike a few weeks back when he bought some tackle, and I found out he’s an old retired Navy guy like me. I invited Mike to go out and check a few of my early winter holes. It’s still a little early but we managed a few fish. We got over a nice school and I hooked up on a downline and he broke me off. When we got over the school with the planer boards Mike brought one in off of a large trout on a planer board. We left that hole after a while and ran north to pulled a long flat. I thought maybe we could get one decent fish off the flat and darned if Mike didn’t catch another one on another big trout on a planer board. It was a good morning on the water. We just fished a few creeks from Browns Bridge to Gainesville Creek. All in all it was a slow morning but nice to get out after making tackle for the past 2 weeks. Here’s a picture of one of Mikes fish.

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Video of setting up the planer board spread

Here’s a short video of my planer board set up. Something not mentioned in the video is my trolling motor speed, generally it varies from .3 mph to 1+ mph while pulling planers. Some baits will get a bit stressed at higher speeds so I’m usually moving pretty slow.
Another note is the length of line between the planer board and the bait. If I’m fishing in shallow water with big baits I usually don’t go any further back than 10 feet behind the board. When fishing open water like down the middle of a deeper creek, I’ll go back as far as 80-100 feet behind the board.