Boat Speed .

[mrpike]

I am looking for some sort of device , That will give me the true speed of my boat, I  have GPS on board and I have tried the wheel on the back of the boat. But they are just not true speed. When it comes to trolling speeds.  IS there something else on the market.

Maybe something you could tow behind the boat . Speed range I am looking for is  ( 0 to 5 ) MPH. I just want to be accurate in this range for trolling.  Maybe something I could hook on the cannon ball  of one of my downriggers.    

I leave this in your good hands folk's.

Edited November 11, 2018 by mrpike

[Terry]

I trust my gps 

newer gps is very accurate 

[Fisherman]

What Terry said, I used the F/F GPS for speed and my handheld, both were the same.  Now if you're looking for underwater cannon ball speed taking into account currents, then you're looking for something like a Fish Hawk.  You may require a part time job to pay for it. https://www.fishhawkelectronics.com/

[irishfield]

My lowrance gps and my Lund smart craft gauges paddle wheel are darn near identical for read outs on flat (ie non-current) water.

If you want at depth with current taken into account you can buy same for your riggers.

[porkpie]

Yeah I have no problem trusting my GPS.  I have 3 of them on he boat.  2 in my sonars and one in my terrova.  None of them are ever off of each other by more than 0.1mph. If you want you can spend $1000 on a fishawk and clip a probe to your rigger and it will give you your downspeed.  Lots of guys swear by them but they are spendy.

[Old Ironmaker]

I wouldn't over think it Mr. Pike. Don't forget the speed of your downrigger ball is different than the actual and GPS speeds, that's why they have Fish Hawks. If you downrig and it's in your budget that's what you are looking for like porkpie mentioned. Then there is the actual speed of your lure. My GPS and Hummingbird speed are almost identical. Good enough for most everyone. Actually I don't like trolling at the exact same speed, fish and bait don't have cruise control.  Always changing speed. You will loose your mind stressing about this stuff. Go out and enjoy fishing. You don't happen to be an engineer. 

[Old Ironmaker]

11 minutes ago, Old Ironmaker said:

I oops

 

Edited November 11, 2018 by Old Ironmaker

[mrpike]

THANKS  FOLK'S   Maybe I will get a good handheld GPS. I can always use one .

 

[Sinker]

Why don't you trust your GPS? A hand held wont be any better. 

 

S. 

[BillM]

Are we talking boat speed or bait speed?  If bait speed off the riggers, you'll need a FishHawk or something similar.   

[LeXXington]

Fishhawk is great on Lake 0 with some of the currents but you can always tell by the rigger cable if your going too slow or fast.

Paddle wheel on the back also does not count for currents.  You can have a top water speed of 5 mph but below only 2 - mph 50- feet down.

GPS is the most accurate but its a combination of information.

Fish don't care how fast \slow your gong its all about the action of the bait and the mood their in.

 

 

[dave524]

back in the pre GPS days of paper graphs and loran C , I ran a sailboat knotmeter for salmon on Lake Ontario and Pickerel on Lake Erie, analog device with a stern mounted paddle wheel, worked well, the brand name was Pelican if I recall.

[misfish]

2 hours ago, LeXXington said:

but you can always tell by the rigger cable if your going too slow or fast. 

Now this has some merit. When I rigged out of my 14 ft tinny, I had just a normal finder.No GPS. I went by the angle of the cable. It does work.

[John Bacon]

14 minutes ago, misfish said:

Now this has some merit. When I rigged out of my 14 ft tinny, I had just a normal finder.No GPS. I went by the angle of the cable. It does work.

So the angle of the dangle determines how much action you'll be getting?    

[lew]

I always figured if a fish couldn't catch up to my bait he wasn't worth catching LOL

[ketchenany]

17 minutes ago, lew said:

I always figured if a fish couldn't catch up to my bait he wasn't worth catching LOL

Lew,  that was great one! 

[Fisherman]

Not only the angle of dangle but the particular hum of the wire.

[Old Ironmaker]

Has anyone noticed guys are using riggers less and less. Not on Ontario I imagine due to deep fish. Erie much less until the end of the migration of Pics. 

[dave524]

13 hours ago, Fisherman said:

Not only the angle of dangle but the particular hum of the wire.

I also noticed how the bubbles were breaking off the cables, that,  and steering the boat like a drunken sailor ?  put more fish in the box. 

[LeXXington]

15 hours ago, Old Ironmaker said:

Has anyone noticed guys are using riggers less and less. Not on Ontario I imagine due to deep fish. Erie much less until the end of the migration of Pics. 

All about the clarity of the water .  Copper, dipsy and boards get it away from the boat. 

Ontario still has clarity issues where lake Huron you can see your spoons 30' down

[dave524]

1 hour ago, LeXXington said:

All about the clarity of the water .  Copper, dipsy and boards get it away from the boat. 

Ontario still has clarity issues where lake Huron you can see your spoons 30' down

Ontario is a lot clearer than when I started offshore salmon fishing in the 70's, also, the fishery back then was for Cohos,  they were crazy , they would attack a dodger/fly 20 feet down and 5 feet off the ball, when a Chinook fishery started in the early 80's we quickly learned they were more boat shy. That and the improved water clarity with the proliferation of zebra mussels started the trend to more stealthy presentations like dipseys and boards off to the side 

[porkpie]

3 hours ago, dave524 said:

Ontario is a lot clearer than when I started offshore salmon fishing in the 70's, also, the fishery back then was for Cohos,  they were crazy , they would attack a dodger/fly 20 feet down and 5 feet off the ball, when a Chinook fishery started in the early 80's we quickly learned they were more boat shy. That and the improved water clarity with the proliferation of zebra mussels started the trend to more stealthy presentations like dipseys and boards off to the side 

Truth.  When I started downrigging for salmon, (not quite that long ago Dave) we would drop a cannonball down 40-50 over 100 and catch fish never wavering much from that, and sometimes higher in the column.  Now its routine to be down 120 over 200 on Lake O during the day.  I can often see lures down 30.  Erie is a lot of fun because while walleye will definitely run deep and hug bottom in a lot of fisheries including Erie but a lot of the time they suspend 20-25-30 down, and that's where lead, jets and dipsys thrive.  I still run my riggers on Erie pretty regularly, but there are times when the fish are 20/25 feet below the boat and the bite is way more consistent out the sides rather than off riggers.  I think I prefer it that way, because it's made trolling interesting and more technical than it ever was when your running 6-8 rod spreads with a bunch of different presentations.

[BillM]

Sometimes that's all it takes is dropping down 40-50ft over 100ft.  All depends on the conditions.  Some days you gotta go deeper, some days shallower.   Some days it's all dipsy rips, some days they're all off the rigger.   My biggest Lake O salmon (From a boat) came in August off PC.  I let out about 100ft of line and was just setting the line in the release off the rigger when the fish ripped the line out of my hand.  That lure was maybe 1-2ft down at most      You just never know.   And with the hardware we've got these days it's easy to fish down 150ft or even deeper without too many headaches.   Not something I do, but a lot of guys swear by it.

Edited November 13, 2018 by BillM

[dave524]

35 minutes ago, BillM said:

Sometimes that's all it takes is dropping down 40-50ft over 100ft.  All depends on the conditions.  Some days you gotta go deeper, some days shallower.   Some days it's all dipsy rips, some days they're all off the rigger.   My biggest Lake O salmon (From a boat) came in August off PC.  I let out about 100ft of line and was just setting the line in the release off the rigger when the fish ripped the line out of my hand.  That lure was maybe 1-2ft down at most      You just never know.   And with the hardware we've got these days it's easy to fish down 150ft or even deeper without too many headaches.   Not something I do, but a lot of guys swear by it.

When I started , it was all about temperature, I'd rather leave port with out my graph recorder than my Fish Hawk 520 temperature probe. First order of the day was to attach the probe to the downrigger ball and get a temperature profile before lines were even set. Most fish you marked were inactive, loafing down in the cooler water,  you targeted the fish suspended just below the thermocline.

[BillM]

Dave, a lot of those guys swear by temps these days as well.   I wish I lived closer to Lake O to actually take advantage of one of those units.  Just too expensive for the half dozen times I make it out there.