I started fishing Erie's western basin drift fishing back in the late 70s. but after a few years, we started trolling. then moved to the central basin at Geneva Ohio and took a charter out 2 days. the 2nd day he had us doing everything after he set the lines out. we had never even seen a real dipsy or a line counter reel. he ran 3 dipsy divers per side. then we went on our own running 3 divers per side. we learned more in those 2 days than we would have learned in 10 years on our own. I switched my divers to the deeper divers that are the same size as a dipsy with a small ring. but now I run the lite bite slide divers with a 7' leader and don't use the slide part of the diver.

after 40+ years I still learn little things that help me catch more and larger fish. the old saying that you can't teach an old dog new tricks is bull because you will never stop learning as long as you fish Erie. you will have some bad days but you should learn from it. when we went on our own we had a few tangles and still have one every once in a while but not like we did at first.