I went fishing Monday and the weather was beautiful. Smaller sized lake and I fished for about four hours with diddly squat for results. The winds were calm and the Sun was shining. I sat there trolling around and around hoping to get a bite. Then I started thinking about my rod arrangement and decided that it was time for a change. When I got home I removed the six rod holders from up front and relocated them to the back of the boat.
I used Starboard, which is a very heavy and dense plastic material. The piece I had is about 5/8” thick. I cut two strips about five inches wide and a foot long and mounted those to the boat. Then mounted the rod holder bases to those. This saves a bunch of holes from being drilled into the boat.
So with the new design all ready to go…. I went fishing Tuesday at a different lake. This time the winds were blowing fairly steady from the South. So I motored to the South end of the lake and trolled with the wind helping to push me along. This reduces that slap sound of waves hitting the hull, and makes steering a lot easier to manage.
Before I lowered the TM to start, I had dangled a couple of jigs over the side. These are my close in to the boat jigs and as I was getting the other rods deployed, WHAM a nice one hit. So that saved me from the superstition that starting the livewell before starting is bad luck. It isn’t.
The new system worked pretty well. The lines only crossed up once, and that is great for a windy day. Instead of lines running down the length of the boat on each side, now all are at the back. It made sense to have rods up front because I have a hand controlled TM, but now I see that was only an illusion. I can still sit up there and face the rear, and can still respond in time to a bite. Only now I can see all the rods at one time, 10 of them, which is probably best for my old neck bones.
I found that I was standing a little more which is nice. I was walking around more which is also nice. My biggest concern was would a fish get fouled during the attempt to land him. Being as I do not stop the boat for a fish, they come in at an angle and end up at the back corners of the boat. I like to keep this area clear of lines. I can still have a line there so long as it is running deep. It was a little tighter with the new arrangement, but I didn’t have any fish fouling on me. They came in at the angle and I lifted them in.
The fish cooperated to an extent as I caught ten in total. All released. These were solid fish to be sure, with most around 12” in length. Nice healthy looking devils. My wife was going out to dinner with her sisters, so I wasn’t excited about cleaning then grilling some fish. I made myself some Mac & Cheese that night instead.
It felt good to catch more than six, which has been my average lately. It also felt good to be catching some nicely sized fish. Not sure why I didn’t take any pictures for you guys. Maybe if someone were interested, they could have asked. I will probably take pictures next time.
All of the colors were getting attention, so long as they were Tickle Me Elmos. Once again these bladed jigs were the hot ones. I really like the new design I created a few weeks back. The Screw Lock feature works great as none of the baits slid down or wadded up on me. That old man told me that little blades work great in that particular lake and Tuesday seemed to bear his words out.
I imagine it is possible to have lakes that have fish that want something different than the fish in other lakes, although I don’t see how that is possible. The water appears to be the same. There may be differences in the forage available. Maybe some lakes have more of this available than that, and vice versa. The bigger the lake it seems the more they like a spinning blade design.
I like to tell folks that they should have been here yesterday as that always seems to upset them. :)
Here is a picture I took of some of the locals watching me troll past with the new rod setup.
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