Man I hate this forum at times… Was just finishing a fairly good write up and it froze up and lost the whole post… now the motivation to make a good post is gone, so, sorry you just get the readers digest version…
*Wednesday I took my SIL and his pop up to Porcupine, we had a little mishap on the way… Someone I can’t mention might have left his bimini top up for a couple miles before I remembered and by the time I looked, it was tore off and flying like a kite behind… haven’t had time to see how bad I tore it up, but do know I broke all the attachment hardware and straps, so I’ll have a fix needed… *
Anyway, the road up to the launch is rough and narrow when towing an 18’ boat, but launch was okay… I had the lucky rod to start and after catching 5 bows, 14.5" was my best, I passed the rod to my SIL… He continued the streak and caught 3 bows and a koke, then he passed the rod to his pop, who got a koke to finish our day… For some reason one of my lead core set ups was the only rod that would catch fish… We fished another lead core set up and the down rigger and could only get fish on that one rod… Sad part is that rod is so heavy duty that these fish could hardly be felt, it was way too heavy for smallish fish, but I couldn’t figure out how to get the light line setups to work for us… Fun day with only a few kayaks and toons out fishing with us, but the paddle boards and swimmers really rolled in about 11:00, so we cleared out at 12:00… Might have had something to do with no functional bimini top and too much sunshine… Later J
What area and depth were you finding the kokes this year? I am thinking of heading up there for the kokes and wondering about this year’s size and numbers.
I had my plastic connections break where they attach to my Bimini top last week. I called Fred’s marine and they had the pieces I needed for a quick fix. While on the phone he said that Brian’s canvas in the Freeport center also would have the parts, and I know they could fix your canvas top as well. Just an option for you.
Thanks Jeff, that helps. I might just try my old fashioned method of trolling with dipsy divers so that I can send them out to the sides. Sounds like keeper sizes though. Last ones I caught out of there were 10".
Thanks Jeff, for getting thru your post. The pig is a fun lake to play and catching adds to it. I went thru several postings lost and like you I would get frustrated. I found a way to cure that by hitting the “save as draft” tab below as I went along creating those longer posts. Then you can go back into “edit draft” as need to continue draft & post. I’m sure there are others here on this forum get pissed off too for losing their posts.
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Unfortunately, the transfer also carries all of the word formatting shown highlighted above and you will have to select that and delete it before posting. But you won’t lose those long postings that frustrate you. If deleting the formatting carried forward is too much of a PITA, you can also write up your post in Word Pad or some other text app that doesn’t have all that formatting attached to it, but the edit functions like spell check and grammar are mostly gone.
Porcupine has been great to me this year. I’ve fished it three times for kokanee. 14, 16, and 18 fish on each trip. I was reluctant to post until someone else did. Best fishing was VERY early morning until about 9:30-10am. 30’ down (probably deeper now) and about 50 feet behind the ball. Squids and dodgers. Fish aren’t huge (12-14" but perfect for smoking and eating. A football player from USU drowned up there on Saturday.
As to the setbacks. Its personal preference mixed with some science. The fish do scatter when boats are above. How much they scatter depends on a combinations of several-to-many things (what overall depth of the water, what depth the fish are at, how clear the water is, what type of rock walls/cliffs are close to where you are trolling (sound bounces off those rock walls and we were fishing very close the walls), and how many other boats are trolling in a particular area. Personally, I RARELY fish shorter than 50’ behind the ball and at Bear Lake in the shallower water I will run 150-175’ back! In the deeper water I “only” run 80-120’ behind the ball in water 70’ and less. Over 70’ depths, I will shorten that up to 60-80’. I challenge people to measure out 30’ in their yard, then go 50’ back. Then just look at it. It is pretty dang close to what would be the surface. Anyway, I SOLELY run superline (braid) on ALL my trolling rods and about 90% of my casting rods. I use a 6-8’ piece of mono or flouro as a leader. The superlines basically have no stretch so running back further doesn’t have any impact when it comes to hooks up compared to mono where you might get 2-3’ of stretch in 50’ of line. I also like slow action, medium weight rod for trolling for both kokes and lakers. When casting I like the fast action rods much better. The slow action rods allow you to fight the relatively soft-mouthed kokes without ripping hooks out. There are many people who like the noodle-soft koke rods, but I want to land fish more quickly than the noodle rods permit. Each to their own, but those are my reasons.
I get it, our personal experiences - what has been successful for ‘me personally’ gives us confidence in how we approach situations including how we fish. Same reason some have favorite colors and some prefer sling blades and others like dakota or skate board dodgers. Thanks, for the ideas. I always like to learn new techniques so when others do things significantly different from my "go to’ I like to hear their reasons.
Setback issue for me is resolved by using snap weights. Typical 35’ setback and another 50 to 75’ of line gets the lure where I want and a long way behind boat. If I have someone else in the boat my other two lines will be on downriggers with a 35’-to-50’-foot setback depending on fish depth. That’s just me. I’ve fished with shorter setbacks on the riggers and not really seen a big difference in catch rate. I will say snap weights tend to outfish the riggers. Livescope shows a lot of kokes passing by then turning around to chase the lures so the “boat scatter” may not be as big an issue as we think. Just an opinion. We fish what we have confidence in.
So a question I have with set backs is how much does your lures drop from the ball to say a 50’ set back? I’m sure that depends on the lure, so probably no correct answer, but just looking for a ballpark idea? For instance if you use a dodger and squid will it drop similar behind the ball as it does on the same line out the back of the boat… at the surface? If that’s the case I imagine they drop maybe 3-5’ per 50’ back depending on boat speed… So if the fish are between 30-40 foot deep we should run the ball at 30’ and lure will drop into the center of the zone… does that sound correct??? Thanks J
Many studies have shown that fish do scatter when a boat passes over them. Some species more than others. Walleyes are indeed boat shy. Trout and kokanee, not as much as walleye. But what I have observed over many years of trolling is that I almost always see fish directly beneath the boat displayed on my sonar. The top 5 to 10 feet of the water column directly under the boat has a lot of clutter that masks any fish that might be there, but below 10 feet, I mark a lot of fish as I troll over them. I do not have any of the newer sonar systems like ‘Livescope’ but know folks that do and have fished with them. You can see that fish are there.
I almost never use a setback greater than 50 feet as measured on my digital line counter reels. Most of the time at 25 feet down or greater, I might use 10 to 15 feet of setback. At 10 to 20 feet down I’ll stretch that back to about 30 to 40 feet. I catch a lot of fish. One memorable outing on Echo, a friend and I caught and released 60 plus trout in 4 hours at a depth of 15 to 18 feet and 30 feet back from the riggers. When fishing the Gorge for kokanee at depths of 40 feet or deeper, my setback is 10 to 15 feet. I get limits most of the time in 2 to 4 hours. I’ve fished on friend’s boats where they like the 100 feet setbacks and we both get limits.
My experiences over the past 40 years of fishing in Utah, doesn’t convince me that setback distances are critical to my catching success. Lure/bait type, presentation, color, and weather conditions concern me more. And beside that, the less line I have to reel in to catch and/or release the fish, the better it is for me and the fish if released.
Unlike Scott, I prefer the noodle rods and the 4 on my boat are 7’ Ugly Stik Ultra-lights with Abu-Garcia digital line counter reels. The rods were under $40 each when I bought them 5 years ago. Still catching fish. I use medium/medium-heavy fast actions rods for catfish, wipers, walleye, etc. My tackle may not work for you and that’s fine. Part of the fun of fishing is figuring out what does work for you. Tight lines to one and all.
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