Spring Fishing 2010!

After a year of anticipation, the annual spring fishing trip is finally within “striking distance”. On this seasonably cold Saturday morning, I sit here amongst a cornucopia of old and new gear all awaiting inspection, rigging and finally integration into this years fishing outfit. On the top of the list are several exciting new items purchased or gifted throughout the course of the year and have lain dormant in the dark recess of my basement. Springs early arrival flirts with my senses and a primitive calling awakens my inner fisherman, driving me to rally the troops and prepare for the annual migration to the Grand Lake Stream water shed.

Added to this year’s arsenal (and pictured to the right), will be the Penn 209 “level wind” reel, Rhino medium weight 8 foot trolling rod, weighted lead core lines, Luhr-Jensen’s mini-dipsy and 5 blade Dave Davis in 50/50 nickel-gold. This outfit once rigged, will function as my deep water outfit to target large lake trout (togue). My secondary outfit, will consist of a Pflueger Medalist 1495 ½ Diameter Fly Reel, Eagle Claw 7 weight 8 foot fly rod and loaded with Procasts floating hi-vis yellow WF7 fly line. This basic outfit is identical to what I used last year for fishing the top of the water column to target salmon.

This seasons gear list, is almost as exciting as the new deep water trolling techniques I have been studying in various online sources and journals. After last years efforts, that produced mixed results, I thought it would be fun to experiment this year with sewn on bait, new knots, varied depths, lures and boat trolling speeds. Due to the thousands of variables it will obviously be impossible to draw any definitive results as to the effectiveness of last years (old) compared to this years (new) techniques BUT it is still FUN to try new stuff!

Here is a quick list of a few things I have been researching:
Sew on a Smelt
Trolling Techniques at Luhr-Jensen
Trolling Techniques
Fishing Knots to Know

So, with the stage set lets take a look at how everything went together. First, one fun thing I recently purchased was something called the knot tying game. The “Fisherman Version” of the game came with rope, dowels w/eyelets and 50 cards with instruction on how to tie various fishing knots. The “game” is played, by turning over the cards one at a time and attempting to tie the knot that is depicted. Players get points for being the first to tie the knot successfully. More difficult knots are assigned a higher number of points. While I have yet found anyone with a “geek factor” high enough to actually want to play the game with me, I have found the cards fun to review. For the purposes of preparing the line on my reels I used the knots outlined below. Secondly, to combat twisted lines we will be fishing with two down rigger directly off the back of the boat this year and the use of a mini-dipsy to pull one of the floating line to the far left or right to fish close to shore and outside of the fish disturbing wake of the boat.

Deep Trolling:
Reel to 100 yards of Backing – Tie over hand knot in backer, then thread backer around reel and tie to backer with two overhand knots.
Backing to Lead Line - Pull out 1.5 inches of lead from lead line and then secure to backer using a Blood Knot (See Picture).
Lead Line to 12 lb Mono - Pull out 1.5 inches of lead from lead line and secure to mono using Leader to Line Knot (See Picture).
Secure 12 lb Mono to Lure using Blood Knot or Palomar (if using braided lines like Firewire).

* Throughout the course of the adventure, this set-up will be modified with the incorporation of the Dave Davis, sewn-on-smelts and various lure classics as the Swedish Pimple, DB Smelt and Mooselook Wobbler). When this occurs the Dave Davis will be tied directly to a barrel swivel attached to the lead line. To the end of the Dave Davis will secured 16-18 inches of leader and a sewn-on-smelt.

Surface Level Trolling:
Reel to 100 yards of Backing – Tie over hand knot in backer, then thread backer around reel and tie to backer with two overhand knots.
Backing to Floating Fly Line - Secure backer to fly line using a Blood Knot (See Picture).
Fly Line to barrel swivel to Mini-Dipsy – Secure using blood knots.
Mini-Dipsy to 12 lb Mono – Secure using blood knot or Palomar
Secure 12 lb Mono to Lure using Blood Knot or Palomar (if using braided lines like Firewire).

* Throughout the course of the adventure, this set-up will be modified with the incorporation of lures including Gray Ghosts, Black Ghost, floating 6 inch Rapalas and DB Smelt.

As Mainers start fishing the cold waters of the state in pursuit of Lake Trout and Salmon I hope you enjoyed this brief synopsis of trolling techniques. If you use any of them and catch a MONSTAH please send me a picture and story as it would be great to post to the blog. Thanks for stopping by and good luck this fishing season!