Wissota

Worked in Chippewa all day Saturday, saw lots of big boats behind trucks with out of state licenses around the Wissota area.

Took the new boat out to play today. Stopped at Gordy’s to get some minnows and they were out, apparently quite a run on minnows Saturday. I did some trolling. I tried the two drift sock under the boat technique and was able to get down to about 1 mph. Without the socks about 2.9-3.2. The boat didn’t manuver all that well with the socks, so I will save up my nickels and dimes for a kicker.

Caught 7 walleyes in the short end of the slot (14-15.5″), one shorty, maybe 12 inches, and lost one while I was reaching for the net, that might have been an over. Not sure what happened. Most of the fish were on cranks, but a few were on a jig and crawler chuck.

Would have liked to have caught a few more fish, but spent alot of time playing with the electronics on the new boat and just running around the lake. The boat handles really nice compared to my old one. It was a beautiful day to be on the water. I got there late morning and seemed to have the lake to myself, but that changed by late afternoon.

And a beautiful day it was Dave. Even if the fish are less than cooperative, it’s great to be out on days like we had this weekend!

Would have liked to have fished today, but ended up just kind of tooling around out there. Last night got into the smallies pretty good. I will give a better report later, right now it’s time for me to hit the hay. Back to Wissota tomorrow night!

Dave,

So you didn’t have luck with the 2 drift socks? I had thought about trying that and just hadn’t gotten around to it. I instead repeated the Sullivan recommendation and just use one drift sock off the front of the boat and have been able to get the speed down pretty good on my rig. That is with a 36″ drift sock. Kicker would be the best solution, but I am just getting by for now.

Why did you get a new rig when you might win one soon?

Tim

Tim,

I did exactly what it was suposed to do. It slowed the boat down just great, but it seemed like I was always oversteering. It wasn’t very responsive and then I would over steer and looked like a windshield wiper going back and forth.

I can probably attribute a little of that to operator error. First time in the new boat and all, getting used to lots of things.

I’m fishing as a co-angler, so the boat I will win doesn’t come with a motor. With my new boat, I can fish as a boater next year if I want and then win one with a motor.

Dave, glad to hear you got the new vessel wet.

That’s good feedback on the two sock system. I slow down enough with one sock, but have always wondered how the two sock system would handle.

Sully

I have had the same trouble with over steer when trolling with one sock off the front. I have been messing around with pulling just one sock out the center back. This has taken the over steer out but limited my ability to turn sharp without getting tangled up in the prop. I have been using a V-connection with a float like you would use for pulling a tube or a skier. As long as the motor is trimmed all the way down I have no problems. This gets the 150 2-stroke down to about 1.6 mph.

I have a bass boat…..some times you have to improvise.

This may sound tacky, but what also works pretty well for speed control are 5 gallon buckets. Take a small drill bit and drill 5 holes in the shape of an “x” right in the bottom. I will run them on the SIDES of the boat. Works very well for slowing the boat down. They don’t store as well as the socks, but they are a less expensive alternative. This is a little trick I learned aboard charters on Lake Michigan

A 2″ coring bit drilled in bottom works too. Or no holes (unmodified bucket) works as well. Used this on Mille Lacs prior to getting the kicker.. Worked great to get down to 0.8 mph!!

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Tim,

I did exactly what it was suposed to do. It slowed the boat down just great, but it seemed like I was always oversteering. It wasn’t very responsive and then I would over steer and looked like a windshield wiper going back and forth.

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Something wasn’t quite right with your setup on those two socks. You should have been very steady on a heading with the ability to turn on a dime. The wandering you described is not what I’ve experienced using this type of trolling set up. Quite the opposite, actually. Where did you secure the socks and how much rope did you have to the nylon webbing of the harness? With a little tinkering you should be able to get the bugs worked out while you save those nickels for a kicker.

James,

The boat is a Lund Mr. Pike 17. The front cleats are about 7 feet back from the front of the boat. I looked at the link to Lindy that you posted and think I followed the directions. I tied a rope under the boat from cleat to cleat, crawled under the boat and marked the center(keel) and measured I think it was 14 inches from the center mark on each side. I took the rope off and tied the bags on at the 14″ marks. The bags are Minn Kota 30″ bags. Out on the lake I tied off the fixed end and looped the rope and bags over the bow and tied off the loose end to the cleat on the other side. I snugged it up about as tight as it would go, so am sure the bags were under the boat.

I just got back from 3 days in the Dells area. We fished Lake Wisconsin, Castle Rock, and the river near the Dells and it seems to me that the new boat steering isn’t very responsive, or I need to get used to it. (It certainly doesn’t act like the tillers I’ve run for the last 15 years.) Some of this might have been the issue with the bags. Maybe I was turning on a dime as you suggested and only wanted to turn a little bit and overcompensated and then started the oscillating back and forth, never quite getting things to settle down the way I wanted.

I’ll keep playing with it and see what happens, but still think a kicker would be nice. Sent the son off to school right from the fishing trip and daughter is getting married next year, so I am sure there won’t be many nickels going in the kicker jar for a while.

Dave