Gone Fishing

     Tackle Tips   

Home Brew Stacker Line Release:

I’ve tried all different types of styles over the last 20 years, Off-Shore, Roemers, Walkers, and others. They all work as line release and they all have limitations for ease of use.

The Off-Shore and similar types are more difficult to set up than the Walker, tension varies with where the line lies in the gap of the two rubber pads, difficult when your in a good chop and things are moving around.

The Roemers have a durability issue because of the plastic construction. At times I like to fish with light lines, 6 and 8 test. These lines will at times cut into the plastic and from that time on your line will not release because the line hangs up in the cut, another dead Roemer. Although, Roemers have an excellent stacking mechanism which I make use of in conjunction with a Walker release. The Walker releases are shaped like a bullet with opposing cones with the center beam spring-loaded plunger where the tension is settable, the cones capture the line with a half turn of the line around the beam. They come in aluminum or Chrome-plated brass for salt water. Once adjusted, you just wrap the line around the release and pull taunt. Piece of cake. I use the inline release with the ball and use the universal release attached to a defunct Roemer releases for stacking. For the stackable releases, Roemer’s release has an outstanding stacking mechanism, a cam that puts pressure on the wire to hold it in place and when the ball is raised the cam releases when it reaches the boom.

Walker’s web site, http://www.walkerdownriggers.com, Roemer’s web site, http://www.roemerrelease.com/.

Off Shore’s web site, http://www.offshoretackle.com/index.html.

Planer Board Flag Substitute

One of the big problems when approaching a boat that has boards out is that they are not visible from a dead-a-head viewing prospective, even when they are using flags. The flag have a small cross section when viewing for dead-a-head. The boards have a larger cross section when viewed from either a port or starboard prospective.

 In order to increase the cross section from dead-a-head, I have been using a piece of hot orange round Styrofoam made from the noodles float that people use in the water. These are available at Wal Mart's.

Fish Weight Estimating

Pike:            Length^3/3500

Walleye:      Length^3/2700

Trout:          Length*Girth^2/800

Bass:           Length^2*Girth/1200

Sun:            Length^3/1200

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Reel Capacity and Line Volume Expressed in Cubic Inches

In order to understand fishing reel line capacity

The following table provides volumes of selective lines and reels to be used in sizing a reel for applications which require multiple layers of backing, main line and leader.

Example: What reel would handle 45# copper with 300 yards of Power Pro super braid? Copper 45# has a volume of 3.87 and Power Pro has a volume of 0.85 for a total of 4.72 cubic inches. The reel that would handle this value is Tekota 800 with a line capacity of 5.41 cubic inches.