DIAL BACK MEMORY ENHANCERS

Reviewed by: CAPT. MIKE SCHOONVELD

You are out fishing with your regular crew, one of which just finished unhooking a walleye that hit one of the planer board lines, or you are trolling on Lake Ontario and your fishing partner just unhooked a king salmon that fell for a lure pulled deep with a Dipsey Diver – or perhaps it’s you and a friend on Lake Superior and the fish being unhooked is a laker that fell for a downrigged lure. Regardless of the place or the fish, soon the familiar question will be heard: How deep was the line set? How far out did you have this Dipsey? How far back was this Flicker Shad?

Ah…. I think I had it out…. How far is the diver on the other side…? More likely, “I can’t remember.”

How far? How deep? How much line? All are important questions; and the wrong answer can be the difference in whether that lure or that line is a one-hit-wonder or the hero for the day.

I’m sure there are “set-up savants” that can remember every lure and every deployment. I was once on a boat where the captain kept an Excel spreadsheet on an iPad showing every lure, every depth, every fish, probably the wind speed and color of each angler’s underwear. That’s not me and it wasn’t a couple of Michigan fishing buddies who were always asking these questions whether they were out for Saginaw Bay walleyes or trolling for Lake Huron salmon.

But instead of just asking this question over and again, they used their non-fishing talents to invent and produce the Dial Back Precision Trolling Device, or what I call the Dial Back Memory Enhancer. There are two styles, depending on how your boat is set up or how you fish. Both have a small, plastic body with three numbered dials which rotate from zero to nine. Have a Dipsey Diver set at 93 feet, set the dials on the memory enhancer to show 093.

The original style is best for boats that always have the same rod in the same rod holder. The device attaches to the rod holder. If you always put the starboard downrigger in a specific rod holder, that’s where to put the Dial Back. Set the lure 88 feet deep, set the rod in the holder, set the dials on the Dial Back to 0-8-8.

The Dial Back “mini” is for guys who rotate their rods, a common tactic for those who use Big Board Planers with the fishing lines attached to releases that slide down a tether cord. After a fish is caught on the rod and reel in rod holder #1, the rod in the #2 holder gets moved to the #1 position, the #3 moves to #2, etc. The lure that caught the fish gets positioned to rod holder for the lure trolled closest to the boat.

Dial Back Minis attach to the rod or reel in any position that works for you. Attach it to the reel, to the rod, to the first line guide – where doesn’t matter, the process is the same. Catch a fish. Rotate the other rods, check the Dial Back on the set-up that just caught the fish and put the lure exactly as far as it was previously.

These are products EVERY trolling boat should have and every troller can afford! The Mini’s are available in black, the originals in a variety of colors so you can color-code your rod holders. “Fish on yellow!” Check them out and purchase them at www.dialbackprecisiontrolling.com.

THE BAIT SHACK

Reviewed by: CAPT. MIKE SCHOONVELD

Whether it’s perch fishing at this time of the year, crappie fishing through the winter months, walleyes in the spring or when or where hungry fish are found, the best bait many times is fresh minnows. Why not? The first rule of the lake is “big fish eat little fish” so minnows are a top choice.

Sure, there’s something to be said about duping a fish with some sort of lure or artificial creation that is usually designed to look like a minnow. Some of them are supposed to smell like a minnow or swim like a minnow or wink it’s eye like a minnow – but real minnows do all this automatically.

Just stop by a bait shop on the way to the lake and pick up a couple dozen, better make that three or four dozen. It’s not that you are going to catch that many perch or crappies, it’s that minnow buckets are notoriously hard on live minnows. By the time you get the boat in the lake, it’s likely to find a floater or two in the container. By the time you are fishing for the last few fish needed to make your limit, you may be hoping to hook that last keeper before the minnows are gone. I’ve been there.

So was Mathew Davis, owner of Whisker Seeker Tackle – a company with a large collection of tackle designed to meet the needs of catfish anglers. What? Catfish in the Great Lakes? Sure there are, but my guess is far more are caught incidentally than on purpose.

Yes, catfish anglers do fish with minnows, as well as relying on a variety of other baits, including chicken livers, nightcrawlers. Many of the largest cats become predators as they grow and they eagerly chase down shad, panfish, skipjack and other species. You didn’t think big catfish got big by eating chicken livers or night crawlers, did you?

These big baits for those fishing for big cats are even harder than shiners or fathead minnows to keep healthy in a minnow bucket. That’s why Davis went to work on his ultimate bait container, the Bait Shack.

Two things cause “bucket death” to baitfish of any species. Oxygen depletion and (at least in the summer months) and excessive heat cause as many minnow deaths as fish hooks and perch, some days.

Keeping the minnows cool is simple enough, put the minnows in a cooler and keep the lid shut. The better the cooler, the easier it is to beat the heat. So Davis started with the best – one of those roto-molded, heavy-duty brutes designed to keep products chilled for days, not hours. That’s what Davis started with when designing his Bait Shack, but to deliver a steady supply of life-giving oxygen, he incorporated heavy-duty aeration pumps built into the cooler’s lid and powered them with a long-lasting, rechargeable lithium battery. Don’t need that much power – use it to plug in or recharge your phone.

The coolest thing is the Bait Shack is solar powered. A solar collector on the outside of the lid keeps the battery charged all day (and all night) – and then all day the next day. Don’t worry about changing batteries or plugging it in. If it’s parked where photons from the sun (or a lightbulb) will strike the solar charger, they charge the battery, keeping it in the game. Stick the unit in a closet or your trunk, the battery will stay charged for up to 10 days before the three bubbler tubes cease bubbling. Done with it? Drain it through a convenient drain plug near the bottom on the side.

This is a brand-new product, unveiled at last summer’s ICAST (2025) where it won the “Best Fishing Accessory” award in the New Products Showcase. Currently, available at www.whiskerseeker.com, it will be showing up at retailers and online outlets across the country and on the internet very soon.

SHIMANO TECHNIUM TROLLING ROD

Reviewed by: CAPT. MIKE SCHOONVELD

Leave it to Shimano to come up with a new line of fishing rods designed specifically for the salmon/steelhead/sturgeon anglers. Why? Thousands of Great Lake anglers rely on (and swear by) their Talora trolling rods and wouldn’t trade them for anything.

When I picked up the new Technium Trolling Rod at the recent ICAST show I checked twice to see if the rod was in the wrong slot. It felt more like one of the latest carbon fiber rods than one of the Talora rods I’m used to handling. Actually, according to the Shimano rep I grabbed to explain the difference, there is a good “dose” of carbon fiber in these new rods as well as a Talora “legacy.” I don’t like to dive too deep in engineering in my reviews so let’s just leave it at the various models of Technium Rods are made from a fusion of the TC4 fiberglass (featured in the Talora line) and carbon fiber to make the rods lighter and slimmer than any salmon trolling rod I’d ever held – even the 9-footer moderate action rod I put to use as a braided-line diver rod.

Even if you mix your rod choices, the Technium will be a standout. Instead of the basic black rod blank, they’ve managed to imbue each rod with a holographic sort of blue sparkle reminiscent of waves or perhaps lightning. Pretty darned cool looking!

I used my 9-footer with a #1 (Medium) size Dipsey both with and without the ring. The bend in the rod at salmon trolling speeds was perfect. Most of the bend was concentrated in the top third of the rod when trolling, leaving plenty of backbone in the middle section to make the diver snap open at the strike of a fish and hold up to a tight drag when a big king or steelhead is latched on down below. That mid-rod strength also helped when the fish were pulled close to the stern, giving enough muscle to both steer the fish (as much as is possible) and keep the head of the fish up while it was pulled those last few feet in range of the landing net.

I wasn’t sure about the carbon fiber handle on the trolling model Techniums, but in use, I learned to love them. I didn’t have to “assist” many of my customers, helping them pull the rods out of the holders when a big fish was on the end of the line. The handle is hard and slick and will slip out of the rod holder with a minimum amount of effort. The reel seat tightens on the reel nicely and it has a second tightening “nut” on it that keeps the reel seat from loosening. Cool!

Speaking of reels, I paired the rod with a Shimano 600 Tekota A, line-counter reel to make a sweet combo able to handle the biggest fish in the lake with the sensitivity to have fun when pulling up cohos and “prince” salmon, those feeder-kings still a year or more from their potential size. I use 30-pound test Power Pro on my braid diver reels and the rod’s sensitivity shows when something is “goofy” down below – like having a shaker on the line or if the dodger or flasher isn’t rotating properly.

I don’t expect charter captains or avid recreational Great Lakes anglers to toss their Taloras overboard and switch to the Technium sticks, but when it comes time to get a new rod for one reason or another, take a look at the Technium Rods at https://fish.shimano.com/landing and buy them where ever Shimano rods and reels are sold.

MAD SCIENTIST TACKLE

Reviewed by: CAPT. MIKE SCHOONVELD

When the guys at RLVNT Sunglasses sent me a pair of sunglasses to try, they slipped in a couple of spoons they thought I’d like to use. This line of tackle is ever-expanding but what they’ve done (and are doing ) is use the light-bending properties of the films and coatings they use in their lenses and apply them to their lures.

Depending on how much and at what angle the light strikes the finish on these lures, the color of the reflected light changes. You see it and the fish see it. So instead of seeing a traditional paint job which only varies whether the lure is in direct sunlight or shade, or a metallic finish that just reflects when sunbeams hit it, the lure changes color continuously.

The one I used shimmered from dark purple to pink to bright blue and regularly caught the attention of passing cohos. I loaned it to a friend to take to Lake Nipigon and he crushed the lake trout using it. Other films produce other hues and excel in conditions from stained or off-colored water to crystal clear. (And don’t think their casting spoon is only for casting. It trolls perfectly with a loose wobble.)

The Mad Scientist lives in Minnesota – often called Walleye-sota – and firmly in the winter ice-belt. They produce a bevy of lures (all with their proprietary finishes) suitable for panfish or pike (salmon or trout) wherever they swim. Made in America, sold online at www.madscientist.technology, in retail stores and other online outlets.

STOWAWAY FILET SYSTEM BY TOADFISH

Reviewed by: CAPT. MIKE SCHOONVELD

Many marinas or boat access sites don’t have fish cleaning facilities but many anglers want to clean their catch before heading home. If that’s you or that’s the place you launch, Toadfish’s Stowaway Filet System can save the day.

Toadfish, a company with an eclectic assortment of outdoor products, has produced a folding cutting board – the large size is 14X22 inches when it’s opened flat and it rolls up to the size of a 22-inch-long two-by-four (1.5 X 3.5 inches). Made of four hinged slats made from dishwasher safe high-density polyethylene, it has stainless steel hinges and built in magnets to hold it shut when not in use. When rolled open the bottom side has anti-skid material to keep if from sliding around when in use. One edge has a two-stage (carbide + ceramic) knife sharpener to keep your fillet knife razor sharp.

The cutting board is a great product on its own, but I’ve been wanting to get a quality folding fillet knife to add to my collection. That’s why I chose the Toadfish “system” that includes a high-quality folding fillet knife as well as tough neoprene sheath that contains the folded cutting board and features a snug pocket on the outside to hold the folded-up knife. I tested the extra-large size kit that matches the 22” board with the 8.5” knife.

Sadly, I’ve been in several fish cleaning stations that were just plain disgusting. Even in the nice ones, how well do you think the cutting boards or the surfaces designed to be used for cutting fish have been sanitized? Most get a quick squirt of a hose to remove obvious blood and gore, but what about the germs and bacteria festering there?

I’m not a germaphobe; but still, I always bring my own cutting board along that I know is clean and relatively germ free. Even in my pick-up, the compact size is welcome and ready to use.

Check out this and other Toadfish products at www.toadfish.com. Purchase them there, at some retailers and at numerous online sellers including Amazon.

NORTHLAKE TAILGATE BOARD

Reviewed by: CAPT. MIKE SCHOONVELD

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.

POWER PRO SUPER 8 SLICK V2 (MARINE BLUE)

Reviewed by: CAPT. MIKE SCHOONVELD

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

RAPALA GOLD MINERS

Reviewed by: CAPT. MIKE SCHOONVELD

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.)

DUBRO TRAC-A-ROD FISHING ROD RACK

Reviewed by: CAPT. MIKE SCHOONVELD

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 HORDE GLOW PLUGS

Reviewed by: CAPT. MIKE SCHOONVELD

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.