Planer Boards

[TrollnDrift]

I was out trolling tonight and I could not keep my planer board constantly in the water. The board kept popping out of the water when the rod loaded up. It would go from nose up attitude, level out, then pop out of the water and start all over again. I had it on a 8.5' medium action rod pulling a fat rap. Speed was 2-2.5 I tried raising the rod tip higher but it did not help. I have the yellow bird boards, the smaller ones. Do I need to upgrade to the Big Birds? It worked fine the other day with a different crankbait which was also a deeper diving high drag bait.

Thanks Erik

[Northlander]

Ya go to the standard off shores and you wont go back. make your own tattle flags for about 2 bucks.

[JohnMickish]

Ya go to the standard off shores and you wont go back. make your own tattle flags for about 2 bucks.

What he said.

[Jim Almquist]

If you can find the Opti brand boards they run just as good as the Offshore brand for about half the cost. I like to replace the front clip with a Offshore OR-18 and the rear with a OR-16 but that is because I use the on Lake Superior and run nothing but braid. If you replace the front with either model it will insure you won't lose a board because they both have a center pin that your line goes behind for that reason.

[TrollnDrift]

I looked at the offshore brand boards at F&F they are the same size as my Yellow Birds. It is the design that makes the offshores better, or do they not carry the right size? I did replace my clips already with offshore clips as I know how nice the clips are from our superior setup. We run a tower and sliding clips on superior, these are just for lakes down south when i want to troll 4 lines out of one boat, or get away from the boat for spooky fish.

[Crusty old Swede]

You might only need to tune your yellow birds a bit. The wire arm that the front release connects to has a little to much bend in it, flatten the bend (the bend that's half way out to where the release connects) just a LITTLE bit and try them again. Repeat until they run right. If they start to dive, you have flattened out the bend too much.

[TrollnDrift]

Thanks for the tip, I will try that out. I was looking at new boards, but Id hate to drop a bunch of money on new boards if i can make the old ones work.

[Agronomist_at_IA]

Opti boards with the spring fags.......$18. cant go wrong.

[Agronomist_at_IA]

Did you get the Yellow Birds to work?

[TrollnDrift]

I have not had the chance to mess with them, I am still planning on trying to tune them in a bit before I give in and buy new ones.

[Northlander]

The opti boards looked great and at a great price but I quickly learned they dont last like offshores. I broke 2 in the 1st month I had them and friends had the same issues.

[tacklejunkie]

If you can find the Opti brand boards they run just as good as the Offshore brand for about half the cost. I like to replace the front clip with a Offshore OR-18 and the rear with a OR-16 but that is because I use the on Lake Superior and run nothing but braid. If you replace the front with either model it will insure you won't lose a board because they both have a center pin that your line goes behind for that reason.

Have you had any issues with ripping the hooks out of the mouths, esp on lakers with the braid? I use braid for dipseys but I also use a snubber. I had to go back to mono for boards because with no stretch, I was losing fish with the braids on boards

[Jim Almquist]

Not that I know of but then again I use nothing but Siwash hooks on all of my spoons.

[LoonASea]

Im with Jim A on this ,,,,Only siwash hooks for me and I don't use a snubber for lake superior salmon ,,,they just don't get as big as lake Michigan salmon and don't feel its needed