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After having my boat in the shop getting a new bow mount electric trolling motor installed (Ultera) I was itching to finally get "Reel Zen" wet and test out all my new toys. I worked hard on Saturday doing "honey-do's" so Sunday morning JoAnn, the dogs and I took the boat over to Lake Sammamish for a few early morning hours of fishing.

It was a beautiful morning - calm, blue skies, and the water skiers not yet up and about. We ran down to the weather buoy where I knew Paul Lewis of Fast Action Guide Service was going to be fishing. Good to see Paul and NWFR Andrew already putting fish in the boat - a positive sign!

Unfortunately, winter storage-itis had hit my boat. First problem was the new transducer "Total Scan" that I installed was only doing a temperature scan, LOL. No fishfinder function at all. I spent about ten minutes trouble-shooting when (thankfully) the internet saved the day as I did a search and figured out the issue (needed to set the advanced settings to the new transducer, the Lowrance unit was not quite smart enough to recognize it on it's own...

Fishfinder fixed, I ran the first gear down 35 feet on the rigger. Second electric - not so electric. No love from my two year old Scotty. I plugged it into the other unit's power plug, still no function. Funny, it was working when I put it away in my garage for the winter. Weird. Hmmmm, OK, going to do some stacking today...

Finally with two lines working the water we got a bit of action (other than hearing Paul and Andrew's excited "fish on, hey now it's a double!" Happy for him and curious why we weren't having as good of success, I was reminded that's why he's a guide and I'm just a guy that runs a web site. Stay in your own lane Mike! I do need to give Paul a shoot out for tossing me some nightcrawlers.

Ultimately this day was really about getting out for a few hours and wetting some lines, testing gear. The Minn Kota worked great and will be a much appreciated addition to my boat. No more racing to the steering wheel to correct an off course boat while trying to land a fish n my own. Just hit the auto course button and let the motor do the rest! That, coupled with my I-Troll will give me some great trolling abilities!

As to the day's catching, we caught two nice cutts and lost one. One fish was caught at 35 feet on a 4" rapala in perch and the other at the same depth on a home-made spinner with night-crawler. And Paul? Well he and his client ended up limiting. Keep in your lane, Mike!

rmrauscher

5/13/2018 9:39:28 PM

Hey Mike, dont give up your day job!!! Sounds like a fun day. Got the garage gremlins fixed, caught a few fish and got to play with a new toy. I think I want one of those Auto troll things. Fishing solo can definitely be a challenge. I had a similar problem with my plugins. I cleaned the receptacle and still no go. The problem turned out to be corrosion inside the plug (the male end). At least that was my problem. They come apart with a bit of persuasion. Tight lines.

downriggeral

5/13/2018 10:02:54 PM

Thanks for the report Mike, glad to hear you got out. The iTroll works great in concert with the bow mount steering.
Tight lines - Alan - iFishSolutions

FastActionGS

5/13/2018 11:04:27 PM

great to see you out on the water mike! hoping we can link up soon and target something together. the lake has been a fickle mistress lately, having to work for those fish is the deal sometimes. The site rocks and all of us in the fishing community owe you big time for creating such a wealth of information.

tight lines!

afk

5/14/2018 7:18:14 AM

Hey Mike, what I take away from this report is DO NOT STORE THE BOAT! LOL. The Ultera is a great addition and will ease boat control. Thanks for the report. Andy

downriggeral

5/14/2018 8:36:35 PM

Yeh Mike I agree with Andy! Alan

Mike Carey

5/15/2018 6:50:51 AM

yes, strange things happen to stored boats!

cobrar543

5/14/2018 10:06:08 AM

Mike, the #4 picture. Are you running both off the same down-rigger?

Mike Carey

5/15/2018 6:50:20 AM

yes, stacking it.

Sideburns

5/15/2018 12:28:39 PM

I have a hard time trolling at all anymore without an autopilot, so much more betterer. You can focus your attention on changing up gear or finding fish on the sonar. I spent a lot of time and money extra networking my minn kota to my humminbird for the advanced features like trolling routes and follow the contour. useless! never use any of it. When trolling faster speeds than the electric can maintain, we use the minn kota to auto steer up front and set the gas trolling motor at a reduced throttle in back, just have to make sure that the rear motor is not doing all of the work... otherwise the front motor doesn't have enough thrust to steer for you.

Mike Carey

5/17/2018 6:58:05 AM

I have lowrance so no access to those features you mentioned, sorry you can't get them to wok because they sound way cool. Just the freedom of no more spinning boat will be huge, especially running downriggers.

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