Is the 2.5 mph your speed at the surface or at your rigger ball? Dodgers spin out at that speed unless its an opti. If I’m running a ton of dodgers/fly rigs, I’ll keep it at 1.8 or 2.0 at the ball.

Are you planning on fishing Kings at the Harbor entrance? If so, I have simple spreads that work great for small boats. 2 riggers, 2 dipseys, and 2 short cores or yellow bird rigs with snap weights. Its important to keep everything tight to your boat as fall fishing is combat fishing in close. J-Plugs and mag spoons are all you will need. I can provide detailed info if you like. These are all things I learned as a first mate and would be happy to share. I agree with sticking with power pro for all your dipsy’s and although I love my wire dipsy’s, they can be dangerous. In my opinion, Diawa Heartland rods are the best bang for the buck and are cheap. The best deal I have found is at bobsoutdoors.com. Good luck and good fishing.

Fish are still biting. Kings are getting ready to rush the river and are starting to show up in skinny water. Nate is fishing this weekend while I am stuck finishing the basement. Fish are plentiful but not as big as I would expect. 20lb fish are rare now. Plenty of fish like the one Nate is holding though. Pictured is a King that ripped 425 ft. of 7 strand wire line (dipsy fish) on a straight run. I thought I could smell it smoking the reel.

If you would like a simple solution. Go to biglakeoutfitters.com or google leadcore combos and pick up a prerigged combo. I bought a couple of the Penn 330GTI/Shimano TDR 8ft. rod rigs this year. They worked great. My best full core setup this year has been a 8inch (white crush ice glow back) blue bubble spin doctor flasher with an Action fly blue bubble fly. Make sure your fly leader is 22 inches. Leader length is vital to the action of the fly behind the flasher. Silver bullet J-Plugs and 8inch pearl glow fish catcher flasher (aka hoochie mama) with mirage trolling fly have also been great. Also 8 inch Glow Mountain Dew Spin Doctor with Action Fly pickled sunshine fly has been hot. Once again I ramble, good luck.

Cal, Nice fish, looking forward to hitting the ice this year. Nate and I spoke about it today. Heres a spring King that had a smallie like that in its stomach.

I use leadcore on the Great Lakes for Salmon and Steelhead so I am not sure if this will help you if this is a walleye question. I use 27lb. leadcore from Cortland. Your reel size will depend on how many colors you are going to use. A full core is 10 colors of leadcore and is 100 yards. Every color is 10 yards and will get you 5 feet of depth, so 10 colors will get you roughly 45 to 50ft. deep. I use a Penn 330 GTI reel for full cores and use 30lb power pro for backing with a 50ft. 20lb. mono leader. I use albright knots to attach everything together. You can also use very small spro power swivels if your level wind is big enough. For a half core or 5 colors, I use a Diawa 47H level wind, and for 2 and 3 colors rigs I use Diawa SG47LCA\\\’s. I always use 30lb Power Pro to maximize backing ( you need it if a 20lb. king smacks a full core going the other way. You can get away with mono backing for 2 and 3 colors. I also use Church Tackle Walleye boards for all my leadcore inline planers with running as many as 4 on each side depending on what the fish want (these boards will also hold 45lb. braided copper line rigs). They track well in waves and you can really tighten the release up to get the board in right away without allowing it to fall back to the fish. You could use Daiwa SG27LCA\\\’s for walleyes I assume. Not sure if a SG17LCA would be big enough. There are days when the sun gets high and cores will out fish wire divers, braided divers and downriggers combined. One way to pack backing, leadcore and leader on just right is to use 2 reels and put the whole setup on one reel in reverse. Put your mono or flourocarbon leader on first then wind on how ever many colors you are going to use and then add your backing. Pack the reel as full as you can go and then attach it to the other reel and wind it on the correct way. I always let my core out until the knot attaching the backing and the leadcore hits the water and then attach my planer board. Make sure to test your knots as they can look good but pull loose. If you ever pull more then 10 colors of lead core ( some pull as much as 20+ colors, which is no fun) good reels are Penn 345\’s and Shimano Tekota 800\’s. Just make sure someone else reels that fish in. Sorry to ramble on, hope this helps you out. Leadcore is really a simple and effective presentation in controlled depth trolling. Good Luck