erie thoughts and question.

[Marky Mark]

I was pondering on the last season, which we all know was awesome, and just looking to see what others here think. I fish mostly the central basin of erie and venture to lorain/vermillion a few times during the season.
1. It's often discussed here but I think most will agree that dipsy color does matter. Personally we did best on the dark purple color and decent on the lime green (3 1/2"). What was your best color this past season?

2. What spoon colors were your most successful?? For us it was superman, blueberry muffin, and shrimp.

Of course conditions change our choices but in favorable conditions this was what we found to produce on a consistant basis.

Lastly a question that someone here might have tried with or without success. If the riggers spook walleye... again this is somewhat of a debate, but is it the wire or ball that spooks the fish..... combination? I'd love to poll a few walleye to get their thoughts but if it's the ball I'm thinking of trying this next year.

example: if I chart good marks at 40' over say 65'... I'm thinking of running the ball at 55'(or so) with a stacker release at the 40' mark. This puts the presentation in the zone without the ball interferance. Peronsally I like the control depth of the riggers and really like to have them in the water more. Not to mention that I paid $1,100 on them had hate to keep them in the storage box. I know freebyrd here suggested running only one rigger for FishHawk info but if the theory of riggers spooking them is right would a few feet from the port or starboard spread be enough??
Loaded questions I know but it's winter and plenty of time to ponder on things for the '04 season.
Thanks for sharing and good fishin, Mark
"off sick"

[Trophy]

Mark:

I only used Dipsey's a couple times this year. I prefere the Jet's, and boards. It isn't that I don't like Dipsey's, it's just the I haven't used them enough to feel comfortable with them yet. As for Jet colors which I guess would be the same as Dipsey's I have Clear,Chartruese,Pink,Purple Chrome,and Blue Chrome. I don't see a dominance in any one color's catch rate. Spoon colors for me this year had the Green Chrome/silver prizm tape Pa's spoon out produce all the other colors. The Red Chrome version took a lot of fish also. Monkey Puke, and Gold plated/green prizm from Jann's Netcraft were not far behind. Last year was an awsome year for sure, and I can't wait until this stinkin' cold weather and ice go away so we can get it going for this year.

Kevin Moses
Trophy

[capt. shaggy]

mark, used down riggers all year, I will not run anything closer than 60 foot back. this way I think if the ball spooks the fish they get a chance too regroup somewhat before the bait gets to them, I also run stackers,steelhead love the higher stuff up closer to the propwash. and also try some harrness off the riggers about 100 foot back. I do think they spook the fish somewhat, I wouldn't want to get hit in the head with a 10lbs. ball that would spook me too.

[bob why]

I think that dipsey color only matters some of the time. Just like lure color only makes a difference sometimes. However Pink, clear and black did the best. Spoon color was metalic superman, early in the year and rasberry dolphin later.

I don't run the riggers much. But have used them out of Lorain and a friend has his down almost constantly and runs his spoons back about 28 to 35 feet and has no problem with the fish spooking.

[FIn]

I Like the dark Dipsies, my favorite set up is the black&purple dipsie with a black&purple Pro King Spoon. On more than one occasion this set up out fished everything else. I also spray paint my dipsie's flat black. On blue bird clear days with lots of sun light I run the dark colors and on low light days I'll put some flash down. Just me though, with the water of Erie getting clearer I think too much flash can spookem. As far as the riggers go, I run mine all the time it seemed to me the biggest fish would come off the rigger. I do run it back 50' to 75' though.

[ETT]

Stackers would work to keep lure above the ball, but because the walleyes attack from below, I'd think keeping the ball above the lure may be a better approach. You might try a diving lure 50' behind the ball...Reef Runner would be 16' below, Thunderstick would be 15' below, 25A Bomber would be 17' below & Power Dive 16'below.

So far as the ball scaring fish, we've seen the ball spook the walleyes so bad that it great reduces the number of fish caught on the Dipsys on the side that the rigger is on. And at times even totally kills that side.

Dipsy colors mean very little to us on the deeper fish, but we don't run metalic Dipsys or Jets on high fish in clear water, especially on a bright day. They can spook active fish.

If it's the ball or the hum of the wire, I don't know. If you think it might be the hum, running 150# mono insread of wire would probably eliminate the hum, but you'd have much more blow back because of the line dia.

Colors ...Confussion, Super Bee, Kavorkian, Monkey Puke, Frankenberry & Raspberry Dolfin weren't on your list, but there are too many good colors to be specific. Hammered Copper blanks seemed to be important again last year.

Good discussion points.

COME ON SPRING!!!

[Pond scum]

I just started running dipsy's last year, and before I bought them, I read all the posts debating which colors outproduced the others. So I did the noncommital thing, and went with the clear ones. Now I do not have to worry about it. I already have to worry about lure color and the last thing I need to do is start switching dipsy's too. I would never have a rod in the water long enough to catch fish. I caught all the fish I wanted on the clear dipsy's.

As for lure colors, I mainly ran spoons last year. During the summer bite, silver backed spoons performed better. Best color by far was metallic Watermelon. During the fall bite, however, copper/gold backed spoons produced almost all of the fish. Boy/Girl was by far the best color, but Monkey Puke and Oil Slick produced a lot of fish also.

[Denied]

I don't use riggers since most of my fishing is in depths where dipsy's and jets work fine.
As to dipsy colors I don't feel color makes any difference but do stay away from the ones that would reflect light like the chrome ones.
Spoons, we used an assortment of spoons but PA's were outstanding as were the Janns-Netcrafter put to-gather ones. I still have several Mi stinger spoons and they also work fine if you can keep the paint on.
Best colors for the last two years have been Monkey Puke, Confusion, Boy-Girl, Cat-Dog, basiclly the ones with gold and hot pink colors seemed to work best over all for us.
We run a standard setup of four dipsy's and four jet diver on most trips.

dean

Fishing Lake Erie aboard "DENIED"

(I don't represent any manufacturer or supplier "I pay my own way")

[Captn Ric - Busy B]

I am convinced the downrigger , ball or line spooks fish. The only time I use downriggers for walleye is in very deep water,,, 60 foot plus, and then I use a long lead. However when using long leads on downrigger, it causes problems on your inside
dipseys. The only advantage , I feel for downriggers for wallye, would be in a small boat fishing with only downriggers and no dipseys. Long leads will produce fish. We use downriggers in central basin for steelhead fishing with short leads . They might be expensive tools, but they do make nice rod holders.

[tamos46]

I'm not convinced that anything on the downrigger spooks fish. In the last two years we run a snubber with a six foot leader right off the ball. Can't tell when you have a fish on but we have pulled some of biggest fish of the year off of this. Imagine six foot right off the ball. We fish out of Astabula and this year we got away from planer boards and long wire lines. Seems we had to let out over 300 ft. of wire off the boards to catch any fish. Now we run 8 dipsy's and 2 downriggers and have limited out more times than not. When there hitting we have put stingers out with all the paint gone and caught fish. Alot of great reading in this thread, keep them coming.

Thanks Tim McCowin

[So-Lucki]

I am a fan of dark, purple and balck dipsies. I also know that on any given day certain things may work better than others. However, a couple of years back, I was fishing one side of the boat and my firstmate was working the other side. We were going with the waves and there was no indications by the way that the dipsies were running that there was much of a current effecting the action of the spoons differently on one side of the boat compared to the other side. On my side, I had out 3 balck and purple dipsies and my firstmate had 2 balck and purple dipsies out and one dipsy that was a different color. We made about a 2-3 mile troll and I pulled 13 fish off my side of the boat and he pulled 2 fish off his side of the boat. We were running identical programs, same spoons, same amount of line back, etc...the only difference was that he had one colored dipsy out running in the middle of his two black and purple dipsies. We pulled lines and went back for a second pass through the same area. My firstmate took off his colored dipsy and put on a black and purple, so that he was running all balck and purples also. The second pass, he caught 14 fish on his side of the boat and I caught 11. Since then, I have only run balck and purple dipsies and do not use any other colors.

I only run the downriggers when I am going after Steelies. I do not catch that many walleye on the downriggers, so I do not take the chance of them spooking the walleye when they are my target fish.

Different programs work for different people and I am not saying that one prgram works best for all. Just giving my two cents pertaining to what seems to work for me...

[marcbodi]

Hi,
I like to run Black Dipsys and Black Cannon Balls.Do not catch many Walleyes on Riggers but they are usually large when we do.Trolled the Central Basin from june to mid aug for Steelheads and also got enough Walleyes to eat.





May I be fishing somewhere Tomorrow

[Mark B]

That's kind of what we've found also. The riggers produced fewer fish but counted for most of our biggest ones. Black/Purple dipsy is also what we found to be the top color. Interesting prepectives and comments... good stuff. I forgot about the boy/girl color. For a few weeks that was a hot one.
Mark B.
"off sick"

[reefhopper]

There are a lot of ways to fish for walleye, but in the last several years I just always assume the fish are spooky. I have no doubt that dark purple/black, copper and pink are generally the best colors of late and I'm beginning to beleive that one line may effect another. Generally speaking, the least noticable dipsy is best. I don't use downrigggers but often go in the opposite direction and use leadcore with Reef Runners back 175-250ft outside the dipsey's. I almost always seem to catch the nicest fish by running silent. A couple of years ago I started using three ways with a plug and spoon on each off dipsey's. That setup kind of forces you to think about color and gives you more options.

[Steve B]

Last year was my first year back on Erie after about 5-6 years of not fishing it.

From June to September, my most consistent catches were on Dipsys and Jets, black or clear. Spoon colors varied, of course, but the better breadwinners were easily Confusion, and Blueberry Muffin. Late afternoons I had better luck with Green Monkeypuke, and Orange Crush Tape.



Nothing like showing up at deercamp the night before opening gun week with a bagfull of delicious walleye fillets.

[FISHINFEVER]

The past 3 years trolling western erie in spring through summer and moved to huron in fall, fishing has been great. there has been very few days that we didn't limit with 3 to 4 on board. My trolling program 2 dipseys and 2 jets big boards on port and starboard. Dipseys were set at 1 1/2 and 2 1/2 at 35 feet and 55 feet both sides jets were 110 feet and 120 feet back. my speed was 1.5 mph in early spring and 2.5 mph once water warmed. I ran 1.8 to 2.0 for about 12 weeks starting around the second week in May. Once in a while I'll pull a jet and run a downrigger about 50 feet back with a shallow crank or 70 back with a spoon.
hot spoons for me year after year :
blueberry muffin
copper-cat/ dog, these 2 worked best for me in May and June
Gold- green apple, and 57 chevy
copper- candy apple
copper- rasberry dolphin this was best for me in fall
copper- boy/girl
copper- superman
copper -green monkey puke
copper- orange monkey puke
copper - mass confusion
there were a few days that they wanted and hit just one of the above or one very simular in color.
Over all i caught more fish on the copper candy apple than any other spoon, I ran 3 or 4 everyday.
I might add that every time that i've tried silver spoons in above colors all I catch are trash fish, That's just me I guess.
FISHIN'FEVER

[Tim FRick]

Like most I had a good year last year. I usually run 2 dispys, 2 in-line boards, and one down rigger. I think as far as the down rigger spoking the fish, the blame might be pointed in the wrong direction. I think the boat is doing the spooking. Since the downrigger is right below your boat the fish when spooked will move to the outside where your dispeys and boards are especially in shallow water. This is why guys that do good with their riggers are guys trolling in deeper water. There are some days though you can get them in shallow but not many. I only use the down rigger when in deep water, 50ft and deeper. I like to use the down rigger close to the bottom with harnesses. Seems to pull the big boys off the bottom. Overall if someone is setting there boat up to troll, they may want to pass on the riggers for now and stick to the dispeys and boards. As for color of dispeys, I agree with most about the black, clear, or purple colors. I'm sure there's exceptions to this depending on water condintions. I again agree with the spoon colors, maybe one to add would be superman. I got a wolvine small size superman and that took allot of fish. The weird colors towards the end of the year really through me for a loop. I didn't have any of those rasberry colors and that really hurt me. I think one of the biggest factors is the ability to mark the spot where you caught some fish and just keep trolling through that spot using your GPS. The later will help you fine tune your presentations and increase your chances. See what's working and what's not. Another thing I did notice was how the currents may swing your lines to one side or the other. I tried to keep my boat in the direction so that the lines trolled evenly on both sides. Keeps those tangles down too.

Lastly did any of you guys have a strange color or lure that suprised you on how good it did?

Some good info on this thread from some good people.

Good Luck and pray for a calm, normal spring!! Alittle extra water from up north to fill old erie wouldn't hurt too!

Tim FRick

[reefhopper]

One other color that produced for me last year that I don't think has been mentioned is the orange/copper Killer Bee.

[GULLIVERs]

We run out of the central basin, and the riggers have consistenly produced some of the biggest fish. We'll run 80 foot leads off the riggers early in the year. When targeting steelhead we shorten the leads considerably. I'm guessing the steelhead don't spook near as easily & are drawn in by the erratic action with the spoon close to the downrigger ball.
Interesting discussion on the dipsey colors, never paid any attention to that, but I think I will now. Best colors the last couple of years have been blueberry muffin, watermelon & confusion.
Also have done better with silver backed spoons early & copper backed spoons later in the season.

[Silverbullet]

THis thread really had me stop and think back not just for this past season but from seasons back as well.I have as far back as i can remember had downriggers down when trolling. Be it sometimes just a single rigger. We usually run riggers off the back and dipsies and jets on boards off the sides. Granted they all seemed to produce fish.There has been days out there that the riggers have out produced the other offerings too. It was mentioned about the rigger spooking the eyes,I am not so sure of this. I only run 20 0r 30 foot leads off my riggers.And i have already graphed fish coming up to "take a look" at the downrigger ball.WHy?I wish i knew. I do now think what my days would have been like had i not had a rigger down.Would i have done better in a quicker time frame? Man all this has me really thinking.
I guess i will do alot of experimenting this next season to see if i can come up with anything good.From what you all have said here i am going to try with and with out downriggers to see what i can come up with on fish catching.
Hot colors this last season were chicken wing and boy/girl followed up by anything gold.

thanks for the tips.

jeff aboard the Blue Knight