First trip out 4-23-17

[Rick Reed]

I would like to thank all of the members that took the time to share their knowledge with the group and myself. Went out of turtle creek. Going to try it again tomorrow. All caught trolling bandits, 1.5 - 2mph on big planer boards. I do need advice on rubber bands. I bought some at rickards takle and could not get them to break. I had some big walleye i never knew were hooked up until i started to real my rod in.

[BtweenShots]

Hooray youngster!!!! My day was less than stellar compared to yours for sure crew wanted to jig and every time I look at the ff my stomach just churned I caught 1 walleye and 2 through backs 2 very large catfish and buddy caught 1 catfish. Well when the other 2
want to go fishing they will have to wait until perchin'.

Again just great,
Gene

[BtweenShots]

Rick, try it without the rubber bands for awhile in the am. That is the reason I am not a confirmed user of them. What releases are you using? Before anyone else asks what was the colors of the Bandits you used?

Gene

[Eriegardless]

Best way for walleye is to cinch the runner band on your line and then break the loop. Then use a release (I use the pilgrim release) and stick one side of the broken rubber band in the center of the release pad. Let me know if you still have questions....i could take a pic and post it.

[Rick Reed]

We started jigging and my buddy caught one decent walleye. Then we moved locations and he caught one behind the boat moving position in the crowd. We then started to jig again for a while and nothing. Spent the next two hours trolling and adjusting the planer boards with very little success. We were watching boats around us catch good walleye jigging so we decided it was time to jig some more, when we started to retrieve our lines we had three walleye on. Glad that happened because the rest of the afternoon was a blast.
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[Rick Reed]

BetweenShots,
I a.m. still getting used to replying on this site. I was using shower curtain hangers and just a rubber band. The rubber band never broke so we had tol manually replace them. Rickards told us the walleye were really only after the orange belly. So we bought everything with a orange belly.

[Rick Reed]

I think i understand but when you haba chances i would appreciate the picture.

[Hutch]

I use rubberbands with a shower curtain hook and a clothes pin on it. Works good!

[branhamautomotive]

I think alot of ppl use shower curtin clips with close pins.. are you using mono or braid line. I only have experience with braid.

Take the the line, if braid, loop it loosely around your hand 3 times, take the rubber band, slide it under the loops of line, then thread one end of the rubber band through the other end and pull it tight. Slide the loops off your hand and pull the slack out of the loops by pulling both sides of line. This will hold great and not slide and easy to break off the line if needed to change depth and will not knot the line up.

Now take the loop in the rubber band and set it halfway through the clip, or if using close pins, in the open k notch behind the flats at the end.

You should be able to get the rubber band to come out the release of pin without breaking it most of the time, reel it right up take off fish put right back out to same spot an reuse the rubber band again. I prefer the spank off method to release the band from the clips. I take up the loose slack by a few cranks, wrap the line around the reel a few times, grab the line in front of the reel and the pull with my left hand, point the pole at the clip I'm releasing g it from, take my left hand and spank down on the butt of the pole. Let the pole basicly pivot around the reel. This is a quick up motion, it's about the speed, it not like a strong pI'll like setting the hook on a bass and ripping him out from under the log at the same time. Your not pulling the pole at all. But the band should just pop off and let it float back while keeping the pole up to keep tension on the fish, slowly back you loops off the reel,and when read and cleared the lines reel the fish in slowly and bring the pole from up high to down more level while reeling in.

The rubber bands most use are only like 1 inch in diameter. If you have crazy stiff rods they are hard to read. I prefer a med or even med.light to show even the little fish. We caught a 8 in walleye on a bandit this weekend and had no issue seeing him take the bait. But it takes some time to see the differance sometimes they actually just swim with the boat and don't really show well. If pulling bandits you should see and constant vibrating on the tip of the pole, they have alot of action, sometimes the only clue us that vibraton stops. If it's not too ruff out you can see extra stretch in the rubber band too

[branhamautomotive]

Looking at your picture I see you have several differant rods sizes and length and reel. This will make it harder to duplicate a program from rod to rod.

If all the rods are exactly the same, they will all dance the same way, when you have a fish on it will make it easier to spot the 1 rod acting differantly.

If you have 6 rods of differant length and all differant stiffness they will all have a differant pulling pattern. I know it requires more expense but it will help. Even if it just to walmart and buying the cheap 10 dollar shakespear poles they have. They have then in 3 differant lengths 5.5ft to 6.5ft.

I personally use 7ft but mine do double duty as dipsey pes too.....if I could had gotten 6ft to do both I would prefer it cause the 7 ft is a touch long......I found some 6fter but they were out of my price range. Not sure how many rods you were running at a time but for 60 or 80 buck for 8 rods you will instantly see a differance. And those rods can be had today.

northwoodsoutlet.com/product/okuma-classic-pro-rod/

Link to the rods I use......again not a super expensive rod, and if only doing trolling with no dipsey I would like the action to be slightly lighter.