There are very few heated fish cleaning stations at marinas or access sites around the Great Lakes. Many marinas and access sites don’t even have a dedicated facility to clean fish.
My fishing season starts long before the cleaning station is open and I’ve seen and used plenty of innovative ways to clean the fish I catch before heading home. Over the winter I got a new one – a tailgate sized cutting board.
I’ve used the tailgate of my pick-up as a work bench many times and as a fish cleaning station a few times. It’s the perfect height, but the downside of using it as a fish cleaning location is the clean-up. Even when laying the largest sized cutting board I owned on the tailgate, there was always some blood or other, slimy fishy-stuff that drips off the board onto the tailgate.
Sure, that can be cleaned up, but doing so without spraying or sloshing water into the truck bed or onto the gear stowed in the bed is tedious. That’s why, when I saw the tailgate sized cutting board from North Lake Outdoors, I realized this two-foot by four-foot cutting board was the perfect answer.
When my fishing partner and I were back at the dock with our limit of cohos (including a bonus brown trout) in early March we lined up our fish on the board for a hero shot and then I went to work. By positioning the board with an inch or so overhanging the open tailgate the blood and slime just dripped off onto the asphalt. When finished, I leaned the board against the open tailgate, dipped a bucket of water from the lake and cleaned the blood, slime and scales off the cutting board, gave it a final rinse with bleach-water I’d brought from home and stowed it in the back of the truck for the next trip.
North Lake makes a slightly smaller 48” X 19” model and a “miniature” 16” X 32” board – all made in America, all made from food-grade polyethylene. Check them out and order one for yourself at www.northlakeoutdoors.com.
Long ago, every fishing line company jumped into the race to produce their own version of braided line. Some of it was very good, some was very poor and history is littered with examples of both. One of the first brands to surge to the forefront was a brand called Power Pro. It’s early version dates back to 1997 and surged to the forefront in the fishing world.
For a while Power Pro was like Kleenex, in that when you ask someone for a Kleenex, you may get a Puffs, Ultra Soft or some other brand. Anglers often just called the braided line on their reel as Power Pro, even though it may have really been spooled with SpiderWire, Sufix or some other brand.
Most of the major line companies now offer several different versions of braided line, sometimes just to offer something new, but usually it’s to provide options that are created for special fishing conditions. Power Pro is no different; now offering versions designed for various conditions and in a variety of colors.
When I was respooling my reels with braided line this spring, when I got to the Shimano Tekota A that I use as my “braid” dipsey I immediately thought of the Power Pro Super Slick V2 I’d spotted at the ICAST show last summer. (Shimano has been making Power Pro since 2008 when they acquired the company that developed it originally.) This is the line that won the prestigious “Best New Product” award at the show.
I’ve been using braid on some of my diver set-ups for decades. Braided line is super thin and super strong and it has zero stretch. I can trip a diver (and so can a fish) whether there’s 20 feet of line between the rod tip and diver or 200 feet.
The Super Slick V2 is the smoothest (slick) eight-strand braided line I’ve found, so besides being thinner than most, the line passes through the water with less drag. I use 30-pound braid for diver trolling and I’m confident I’ll be getting the maximum depth with the minimum amount of line when using this Power Pro line.
Of course the color of the line makes no difference to the fish, but I like an easy-to-see line on my diver set-ups and the Marine Blue color fills that order quite nicely. Power Pro lines are available in a variety of spool sizes, colors and other options at retailers and online sources. Check them all out at www.powerpro.com
One of my most exciting finds at the 2024 ICAST show was at the Rapala booth when I spotted a new lure they call the Gold Miner. At first I thought it was another variation of the Rapala’s Deep Husky Jerk, Pradco’s deep diving Bandits and others of those types of lures, but then I noticed one thing that set them apart. The lip at the front of these lures are larger than most other deep divers and indeed they do dive deep. Like a miner digging deep to find gold nuggets or veins of ore, the Gold Miner easily dives to 30 feet to get down to walleye gold in Lake Erie and other deep lakes.
I was able to score some of the Gold Miners and put them to work during Lake Erie’s Fall Brawl in early November last year. The marks on our screen showed far more fish deeper than 30 feet than in the 20s. The only way to get our Bandits and other deep divers down to them was to go with the 50 + 2 method and even then we were putting out 100 feet of line after clipping on the Snap Weight.
Gold Miners haven’t yet been added to the Precision Trolling Data app, so we were deploying them the old fashioned way – trial and error. The first thing in the morning the Gold Miners started scoring with only 100 feet of line behind the planers. By mid-morning we were setting them back 120 and our final fish at high noon came on a chrome/blue Gold Miner set back 140 feet.
Check out the array of available colors at www.rapala.com. They will soon be available everywhere Rapala lures are sold (if they can keep them in stock.)
I edit a column for Great Lakes Angler Magazine called Basics and Beyond in each issue. The B&B column features tips about fishing and gear hacks submitted by readers that they use to make their life easier. Few of these tips are more frequent than the ways GLA readers have devised to store their fishing rods back home, on their boat or in their vehicles. Most of these tips feature rod storage designs made from everyday items usually used elsewhere including PVC pipe, clothespins, pool noodles, milk crates, five gallon buckets and other supplies. There are many ways to produce innovative projects to safely and compactly store fishing rods and reels.
Face it, there are plenty of people that don’t have the time or tools to complete DIY projects. Some don’t have the skills. Luckily, there are plenty of commercially made rod racks or other storage solutions. These vary from flimsy racks that I’d never recommend to pricey racks that I’d never advise anyone to purchase.
One I’ve found that does pass my muster is the Trac-A-Rod system from Dubro. I call it a system because it comes in two-foot lengths which will hold six rod and reel combos so it’s easy to customize it to most any space you have available. If you have a large space available and lots of rods to store, they also come in four-foot lengths. I’ve put two of the four-footers to put on the pole barn wall where I store my boat.
When I say, “any space” it’s because the Trak a Rod systems will fit on ceilings, walls (either vertically or horizontal) and on any kind of surface. The actual hangers fit into an aluminum track so they are adjustable to fit combos of any size.
If they are going in a storage area, the color of the tracks or hangers isn’t an issue most of the time, but in a den, man-cave or more public area, choose from silver track/white holder, silver/black, black/black or my favorite (as a Purdue grad) the gold track/black holders. Trac-A-Rod Fishing Rod Racks are available direct from www.dubrofishing.com, at retail outlets and many online sources including Amazon.com.
Silver Hoard was one of the originators of the “cut-plug” design of artificial lures made of plastic. The original plugs Silver Horde plugs were modelled after hand-carved, hand painted salmon lures. In the 1950, the founder of Silver Horde lures was the first company to make lures of this shape from plastic. Hand painting the lures at home made the company into a family business.
Still a family run business, the Silver Horde Company still offers their original Ace Hi plug and the slightly fatter Silver Horde plug along with spoons, dodgers, flashers, trolling flies and other tackle. One of their most popular colors in both their spoons, plugs and dodgers was one of their original colors – green spatter.
The Green Splatter pattern is still available, still a favorite on the Great Lakes and out west, but it’s now painted with what they call Double Glow pigment. This color as well as a large number of other permutations of Double Glow have proven to be absolute king killers in August and September on the Great Lakes when some of the best action occurs in the dark or at the “dawn’s early light. (They are no slouch in the daylight, either.)
Some of these new colors are also made with clear plastic with the painted colors and UV activated mylar inserted or painted inside to give the plugs a unique 3-D looking finish. Silver Hordes are offered in both rattling and non-rattling versions. If you want to add some storied, productive plugs to your line-up this fall, give a second or third look to the Silver Hordes in both the traditional and new color schemes. Check out all the Silver Horde products at www.silverhorde.com which also lists places to purchase them in your area.
Hint: In late summer and fall, I use the 4 ¾-inch versions. In the spring to mid-summer, I use the 4-inchers to catch kings, cohos, steelhead, browns and lakers.
On my first trip to Lake Erie last spring the walleyes were acting more like the fish I normally encounter in early to mid-autumn trips. They were deep. Whether it was the water temperature, the waves or where they were finding the baitfish I don’t know, but my usual deep divers that worked with 60 to 80 feet of line out behind the planers weren’t getting into the zone.
We compensated by letting out more line – much more line to get our lures 20 feet or deeper to get to the level the fish were showing on the sonar and where we were getting the bites. How much more line? With some of the lures, twice as much line was needed to get them in the zone.
If we had been fishing areas where we could troll a few miles without needing to turn, the extra line wouldn’t have been a big deal, but on the calm days we found the most active fish near the Bass Islands where islands were creating currents where the active fish were holding. On the windy days, we used the islands as a lee area where we could fish away from the whitecaps.
Long lines behind planer boards aren’t conducive to whipping around in tight turns without tangling one lure with their neighbors. It started to feel normal to reel in a fish hooked fish on one lure along with the lure that had been running in an adjacent position. It also caused more lost fish since the longer it takes to reel in a lightly hooked walleye, the better the chance for it to pop loose before getting it to the net.
Waddayagonnadoo? A part of fishing is coping with the weather conditions and the moods of the fish.
One of the ways to cope is to examine the “tools” at your disposal. Mostly we’d been using Bandit Walleye Deep Divers and #11 Flicker Minnows let out 140 feet and 120 feet respectively, to get them over 20 feet deep according to the Precision Trolling Data app. One of my friends opened his tackle box and showed a few Berkley #12 Deep Hit Sticks he’d picked up on sale at FishUSA (www.fishusa.com). “Want to try some of these?” he asked.
The colors looked good. “Check the Precision Trolling Data chart to see how much line we’ll need,” I said.
I was shocked to learn we could hit our minimum trolling depth with only 88 feet of line. I wasn’t surprised when the next fish was hooked with the Clown pattern Hit Stick he’d just put out. We added another Hit Stick (Blue Chrome) and in the next couple of days, these two Deep Hit Sticks became our go-to baits. Early in the day the FireTiger pattern was particularly hot, as well.
Hit Sticks come in 20 color patterns (check them out at www.berkley-fishing.com) but color is only one these lures’ enticements. They have a great tail-wagging action and there was nothing subtle about the internal rattles. The walleyes loved them. Though we started using them primarily because they had a much steeper dive curve, we appreciated that they were also fisherman-friendly. Each of the half-dozen “sticks” my friend purchased ran perfectly, straight out of the box.
Me along with countless other anglers have always had a love/hate relationship with their Fish Hawk Electronics X4 models or the X2 model speed and temp measuring systems. We love them because of the many times the information shown on the display is what puts us on fish or keeps us on fish. I’ve had days when it’s meant the difference between a fish in the cooler and limits of fish in the cooler.
For me (at least) I hate them because of the battery operated probe that goes down to the depths and measures the speed of the lures at that depth and the water temperature. When it’s working properly, when the batteries are fresh enough, when I can get the cap off the probe without tools or when the O-ring on the cap isn’t leaking water inside – it’s an okay tool. I’ve never thought of any of these examples to be a certainty. Not every time, but often enough, it’s not working, the batteries are unexplainedly exhausted, there is water or at least dampness inside the probe.
Though the battery-operated probe is smaller than similar electronics I’ve used in the past, it’s still quite large. It’s large enough to create blowback on the downrigger cable used to take it into the depths. Blowback is cumulative. At 20 feet it’s negligible. At 50 feet (on your downrigger’s counter) the actual depth is probably off by 10 percent or so, depending on trolling speed. At 100 feet, it’s almost a wild-azz guess about the actual depth (not to mention the angle it’s being pulled through the water which affects the speed at depth reading.
Still, the Fish Hawk unit is one of the best available and widely used in every Great Lake. That doesn’t mean it can’t be improved and Fish Hawk Electronics has made it better with the introduction of their Lithium Probes. One model is the Ultra Probe, compatible with their X4D Bluetooth System, their Pro Probe, compatible with X4 and X2 Systems.
Lithium battery technology is changing almost every kind of electronic tools, eliminating the need for traditional AA, AAA or other types of batteries, they are longer lasting, they recharge more quickly and, important for the Fish Hawk probes, allowing battery powered devices to be made more compact. Fish Hawk says the Lithium Probes are 40% smaller than the battery operated probes. It looks smaller than that – and because the case is more hydrodynamic, it doesn’t create the drag when trolled through the water it acts smaller. That increases underwater accuracy.
I recharge the one I’ve been using all season after every few trips. FHE says it will recharge in two to four hours and the unit will operate 50 hours or more. A quick, 20 minute charge will give you about 8 hours of use. I charge mine indoors since the probe has to sit on end on a charging pad. On a docked or stable boat, the charging pad will plug into anything with a USB port.
I now have a mostly “love it,” hardly ever “detest it” relationship with my Fish Hawk X4 unit. I can say the same thing about most every electronic device I use on my boat. The probes are available at www.fishhawkelectronics.com, as some retailers and plenty of online sellers including Amazon.com.
There was something missing on my boat last spring, a fish cooler. Often called a box or the fish box. If you don’t have a fish cooler on your boat, chances are you rely on stuffing the fish you catch and keep into a livewell or into a built-in fish storage compartment. My boat’s livewell must have been designed for perch fishing. It won’t hold a four-person limit of spring cohos and is certainly too small to hold a decent four-person bag of Lake Erie walleye.
So I “bagged” the fish. Actually, the fish went into Smith’s Products Insulated 36” Bait and Fish Kill Bag. Why not use my old IGLOO cooler? It takes up a lot of space.
Formerly, when my cooler was my only choice, I “made” space for it. It was a piece of necessary gear, so I economized on other gear to make everything fit with room left over for the fish box and the fishermen. Not now.
At the beginning of the day, the Kill Bag takes up almost no room. It doesn’t fold perfectly flat, it is insulated – front, back and bottom with closed cell foam, but a cooler is the same size whether it’s full or empty. Before the first fish is caught I add one or two small (7-pound) bags of ice – depending on air temperature. At that point the bag is about 1/3rd the size of my old fish cooler. On a good day, by the time it’s got 18 or 24 walleyes in the bag (or 15 or 20 cohos), it takes up about half the space of my fish cooler – and there’s space left over to hold a king, a big brown trout or several plus-size walleyes if the fishing was extra-good.
I had four concerns when switching from a hard-sided plastic cooler to a soft-sided kill bag. Would it be tough enough? Would it be hard to clean? Would it keep the fish cool and fresh? Would it be large enough?
The Smith’s bag is constructed (inside and out) with a heavy-duty, marine grade tarp-like fabric. I wasn’t overly concerned the sharp fins on the walleyes I put in the bag would perforate the interior lining, but that thought was in the back of my mind. So, after several walleye trips, I took a flashlight, put on my reader glasses and examined the interior closely so see if there were any visible holes. None were found, nor did I ever detect any leakage around the bottom seams from melting ice had dripping through the inner skin and leaking out the bottom. Additionally, the seams are reinforced with strong nylon strapping material made from the same material as the detachable carrying strap. Plenty tough.
Both the interior and exterior is slick-finish allowing fresh blood to just rinse off and even dried-on blood to wash clean with a minimum amount of scrubbing with a soft brush. Once it’s rinsed clean, I just invert it with the zipper open and to let it quickly dry. Cleans up easily.
Cooling ability? One sure indicator of how well it’s insulated is how much ice is left at the end of the trip. If all you have left in your fish cooler is melt water, it’s not doing the job. On my early spring trips when the air temperature and the water temperature (thus the fish temperatures) are in the 40s, that small bag of ice was still more ice than meltwater after a long half-day of fishing. Once the weather and water warmed, the second bag of ice still did the job.
The 36” Bait and Fish Kill Bag is Smith’s middle size offering. It’s perfect for how I used it. Later in the season when king salmon and lake trout figure heavily into the catch where I fish, it wouldn’t be large enough. However, Smith makes a 48” kill bag that is advertised to be larger than my Igloo and there’s a smaller, 30-incher (called Mr. Crappie) that will hold several limits of perch or crappies.
Though the 30 and 36-inch versions are called “bait and fish kill bags,” I don’t think they’d be a good replacement for a bait bucket. Perhaps in a special situation, they’d be ideal – not on my boat. They do come with drain plugs at the bottom, however, to allow melt water from the ice or minnow water if used for bait to flow out the bottom. Available at www.smithsproducts.com at retailers and several online outlets including Amazon.
Though plenty of people fish with Bandit Walleye Deep Diver lures for other species of fish and in other places than in the Western Basin of Lake Erie, there’s no doubt that’s where the Bandit is the king. Either that or the name “Bandit” has become the generic name for deep diving stickbaits like people wipe their nose with Kleenex, regardless of whether it’s a Puffs or some other brand of tissue paper.
If you are only going to buy one, you might as well get the top seller. “So what’s the top selling color?” That’s what I asked one of the product people at PRADCO – maker of Bandit Lures – at last summer’s ICAST. He chuckled when he answered, “Clear.” You might be surprised by that answer; I wasn’t and not because I think walleyes would be a sucker for a clear plastic lure. It’s because turning out popular lures in custom colors has become a cottage industry.
Rick Fascinato is one of those custom painters that has turned his hobby of customizing the lures for his own tackle box into a business to produce lures for yours. I’ve had the chance to fish with some of Rick’s Firebrand recently near the Bass Islands in the Western Basin, specifically his “Bandits” and they were the top producers for the trip. The one I’m holding was tied on one of my lines the first day of the trip and stayed there until the final fish was in the net a few days later. Others were solid producers, as well.
In fact, this photo is the “after” photo and though I’m sure the lure accounted for a half dozen walleyes each day or more, it still looks like new. One of the selling points of Firebrand products is each is given an epoxy coating to keep them looking good, fish after fish, even toothy ones like walleyes.
Firebrand Custom Baits isn’t all Bandits, either. Rick customizes trolling spoons, flashers, dodgers, Thin Finns and other baits in imaginative colors sure to peak the feeding instinct in any Great Lake predator fish. Give them all a look and order a few for yourself at https://firebrandcustombaits.ca/.
I’ll admit when I went to the ICAST show I passed by dozens of booths displaying fishing line with hardly a second look. I have my favorites and with rare exception, when I fish with other brands on other people’s boats, it works quite well. It’s seldom that I spot something so novel or with some unique attribute that it stops me for a second look.
So why did I stop by the Vicious Fishing display? It’s because the Vicious Fishing company is headquartered in Indiana and I’m a lifelong Hoosier. If I didn’t do anything more, I could stop by and say hi. But I when I did introduce myself I was impressed by the line-up (pun intended) of line and options available. Vicious sells braid, monofilament and fluorocarbon in various strengths, spool sizes and colors.
Notice I say they “sell” fishing line, they don’t manufacture fishing line. Few brands of line are self-made, but that doesn’t reflect on quality. Certainly, some fishing line is made in the USA. Lots of it is made in China and often with lax attention to quality. That’s why experienced anglers shy away from “off-brand” lines that may be bargains in the store but disappointing on the line.
What the Vicious did was meet with line manufacturers in Japan and Taiwan and have them produce their lines to stringent specifications to ensure they perform as expected. I spooled up with Vicious braid, fluoro and mono on several of my reels when getting them ready for the 2024 season. I’m writing this review three months into the season and have found them to be all I hoped and equal to any other line I normally use.
Check out Vicious Fishing lines (and other products) at www.getvicious.com. You can buy them direct online as well as many other online outlets including Amazon.com. Every time I hook a fish I’m relying on the line between the reel and the lure. The Vicious lines I’ve been using have never let me down.
FISHING TOYS 