slowing down the boat in high winds

[hudnut]

I hear about people putting out chains behind their boats to slow them down in high winds. What weight and length chain is used when doing this? I am told they work better than windsocks. Is that true??

[Brush Buster]

I use wind socks and they work good at times. They are not good if you are in current and the wind is in the same direction. The current will take the wind sock full of water and acutally pull you faster. This happend to me yesterday on the TN river at Clifton.

I have never tried chains but have read some about them. Ths issue i see with them is that once you come over a brush pile or stake bed you are ampt to get hung up with the chain or at least run off the fish.

[hudnut]

I use wind socks and they work good at times. They are not good if you are in current and the wind is in the same direction. The current will take the wind sock full of water and acutally pull you faster. This happend to me yesterday on the TN river at Clifton.

I have never tried chains but have read some about them. Ths issue i see with them is that once you come over a brush pile or stake bed you are ampt to get hung up with the chain or at least run off the fish.

Makes sense to me. That's why I'm confused on what to use.

[Fish Hog]

A chain works real good if your in a lake without a lot of brush in it. It will climb over logs and stuff and not get hung up. And when you catch a fish you may just have 2' of chain out, You drop the rest of it down it stops the boat and if there are serveral fish there you catch them pull chain and move on. With different wind you put down a different amount of chain to adjust your speed thats what makes a chain better than a sock to me, it's just more micro-adjustable for slow speed crappie but it really works best in a lake with a pretty flat bottom, Put a rope lock on the back of your boat so you can lock your chain off at different levels, Works pretty Good.
3/8 chain about 6' long, coated chain or you can paint it if you want, If you don't it will get your carpet rusty. Good Luck.

[ceb]

Fish Hog is right on. The chain allows for better boat control than a drift sock. You can also fish a stumpfield with a chain. It may get dirty occasionally on mucky bottoms, but I just rinse it off a little before bringing it in the boat. Then again, my boat won't win any beauty contests...:rolleyes: The chain is best used in lakes with little depth variation, the prime example being an oxbow. This wouldn't work in many of the big AR lakes, unless you were just driftin' a flat.

Some will criticize draggin' a chain because it disrupts brushpiles. I believe that this is unjust reasoning for knocking the guy that drifts with a chain. I haven't found that to be true at all...as I have pulled a chain through my own brushpiles many times without problems. In fact, I can drag over a brushpile and come back on the same path the next drift (maybe 10 minutes later) and pick up more fish. That being said, I have hung brushpiles that the TM couldn't pull off, but I just pull it in until I'm right over it...and then just lift it straight out of the pile. It may happen every 3rd trip, but is really lake dependent for me. Everyone can tell you about the number of piles in the the pool at Conway, but I haven't hung a single one out there.

Now for my setup. I have about 75' of rope (fish some places 50+ feet deep) attached to a SS shackle. I now have 3 pieces of chain of varying lengths. You can just add/remove the pieces as needed. This allows for even more precision (in addition to the micro-adjusting with length of chain draggin' bottom). I currently just have a series of loop knots in the rope to place over the cowling of the motor...but I do plan to upgrade to a rope lock one of these days.

Now for my technique with draggin' a chain. If it's during the winter time, I go slow, slow, slow. I want the chain to hold me just well enough to endure the wind gusts. I can then control my speed with the TM, just as if there was no wind. Once I locate fish, I will either let off the TM and just "sit" on top of 'em, or if they want it moving, use the TM in reverse to kick the bow side to side.

That's about it. It may not be for everyone, and it certainly isn't meant for everyday. But believe me, it can really salvage a windy day. And better yet, when it is cold, you always have your back to the wind!

[hudnut]

thanks for info. fish hog. I appreciate it.

[hudnut]

Hey Ceb. thanks for the info. and pics. I'm defenitely going to try this.

[rockmike]

I was using two big drift socks on Washington this weekend----man it was windy. Saw a lot of folks using chains.

[TreeMyDog]

Some will criticize draggin' a chain because it disrupts brushpiles. I believe that this is unjust reasoning for knocking the guy that drifts with a chain. I haven't found that to be true at all...as I have pulled a chain through my own brushpiles many times without problems.

Chris,

I am honestly having a hard time believing that you are not disrupting your own brush piles with this chain pulling.

If you will send me the GPS coords for all your brush piles, I will keep an eye on them to make sure they don't get disrupted and report with pictures so the whole crappie.com AR community will be sure that no disruption has occurred. Please do not post these coords publicly, to eliminate any probability of any boat bumping accidents occurring during verification.

Thanks,

Tommy aka Treemydog

[ceb]

Haha, no problem Tommy. Just make sure to keep those tater-chips off those brushpiles...don't want the big mamas to get crowded out!