Great day on Erie, Friday, 2/2

[Het]

The weather forecast was too good to pass up. 45 degrees with a two mph SW wind. Launched at 11:30, and got onto fish immediately. Trolled Husky Jerks 65-75 back at 1.1 mph. Water temp was 34 degrees. Ended up going 12 for 22, with a nine pounder caught, and released.

[Fish Head]

It sounds like a great day of fishing. But whats up with the sleeveless t-shirt?

[JohnMickish]

I love this pic, running boards is a blast. To bad the only place we can run two lines here is on the St. Croix/ border Mississipi river. Watching flags on a full spread is about as good as it gets.

[Het]

It sounds like a great day of fishing. But whats up with the sleeveless t-shirt?

It's kind of a running joke on a local forum here that every shirt I own has the sleeves cut off. While we were out fishing, my buddy says 'you do have a sleeveless shirt on under those jackets, right?' I said 'of course', so he wanted to get a picture of me holding a fish in february with a sleeveless shirt.

[tacklejunkie]

Like the trolling spread pic, also.

Offshores with the tattle flags??

[Borch]

Very cool!

Who would haved thought it was possible in February?

[tunrevir]

Sure gives me the itch to get out on the open water again! Nice pics HET!

Tunrevir~

[Het]

Like the trolling spread pic, also.

Offshores with the tattle flags??

Correct. I make my own tattle flags, which end up costing about $1 per board. They work ten times better than the stock ones, and are fully adjustable.

In my opinion, tattle flags are a must.

[JohnMickish]

You make your own flags? Are yours a compression spring or what is different with yours? I just ordered four more boards and even though I get a great price on them I don't really want to spend the big cash for the conversion.

[Het]

Fishnguy, I use a #33 rubberband as the 'spring'. It's totally adjustable by moving more or less rubberband to either side of the nose of the board. I use the hooped end wires from lure parts online to make the rod. Add a couple beads behind the eye hook at the back of the board, and you have a tattle flag for about a buck. I get metal beads from a craft store. I found out that the plastic ones break after a few weeks in the sun.

[Het]

Take 2 beads, put it on the rod, and put the rod throught the eye hook:

Mark the hole on the rod with a sharpie

Bend the rod with 2 pair ofneedle nose pliers:

[Het]

Half hitch the rubber band through the hole on the arm, or just wrap it around the whole arm:

Then put it around the bent wire:

Add your OR16 clip to the back

[Het]

As you see in the picture, I add a couple nylon bushings, available from Sears for a couple pennies, between the screw and the flag. This allows for very easy movement of the flag. I also bought a little longer screws for these, I think one inchers. If you want higher tension, say for running deep diving cranks, simply move more of the rubber band to the foam side of the board. If you want less tension, for running spinners, move more rubber band to the front of the board. You can get a 5# bag of rubber bands at Staples. You can get a couple trips out of the bands befpre the UV rays eat them up and they become brittle, but a 5# bag has about a thousand bands in it.

[JohnMickish]

I will have to give that a try. I have heard of the rubber band trick but had not seen how it was done.

Those of us that do alot of trolling can learn alot of tricks from the guys that run Erie and Green Bay. Thanks alot!

[Het]

Try it. I think you'll dig the results. Like I said, you can adjust the tension in seconds. It's absurd to spend $14 per board for a tattle kit when you can build a better one yourself for about a buck. Do four boards, and you've saved yourself $50. That's a flat of crawlers and a few cranks.

[Het]

As you can probably tell, I like to do things myself. Here's some blades I painted this morning.

[gloomiseye]

Nice fish! You open water guys are killing me!

[Mike Walerak]

You all are killing me. I was chatting on the phone with one of my pool 4 guide buddies this morning and it really made me start to twitch a litlle. I have to restore my old boat before I get my new boat out of storage. This being the first time I winterized a boat in about 10 years. I think it could be the last. Hopefully I will have it out next weekend!

Freeze your Butt Tourney is in 2 weeks and is the official start of spring here on the river.

mw

[JohnMickish]

Het, thanks for the info again on the flags. I ordered four more boards this morning and the looped shafts to make the flags. Come on open water.

Mike, are you going to do the FYB? I thought about doing it but it will probably be a last minute deal for me. How are the ice chunks down there?

[Het]

A note on the rubber bands. Get the ones from Staples. The ones from Office Max are pure junk.

[Mike Walerak]

I wouldn't miss it. I was out a couple weeks ago and the ice chuncks were very bad. Took us about 45 minutes to get from the dam to the back channel. Good thing it was my buddies Ranger

Just depends on the day.

[JohnMickish]

Thanks for the update Mike. I am not lucky enough to have a river only boat too so I think my Ranger will stay in it's home for now.