Fishing Gear That Really Works!

Every fishing season anglers phone, e-mail, or stop by dockside with questions about the fishing gear Captain Randy and I use aboard our Fish Doctor Charter boats for a variety of fishing techniques in Lake Ontario and it's tributaries. We hear anglers ask, What line do you use for early spring browns? What type of leader do you use on Howie Flies? What reels are you using for wire line? and many other questions.

With two lake charter boats and two drift boats operating full bore with a target of 300 lake charters and 200 drift boat trips per year, we need gear that is functional and rugged. Over the years we've come to rely on some great fishing gear. Here's a rundown of some of our favorite equipment:

Light Action
Noodle Rods
We custom build our own 9" noodle rods from St. Croix fly rod blanks for use with shallow downriggers and planer board. The 3W, 4W, 5W, and 6W SCII blanks we use are a great buy and tougher than any others we've used. They take some brutal punishment onboard our charter boats, and keep right on ticking.

Downrigger Rods
There are a kazillion different downrigger rods on the market, and many, many good ones. If you would like to try an inexpensive, tough-as-a-truck fiberglass rod that is suitable for anything from early spring browns to late season chinooks, check out Penn's Model PD-3886 8 1/2" fiberglass Powerstick rated for 8-20 lb. line. We designed it, and we use it. For the heavy late season salmon trolling, it's tough to beat Penn's new Model 888 Fathom-master, an inexpensive graphite composite rod.

This years hottest rig. A dodger and Howie Fly trolled behind a meatball or thumper rig.

Level Wind Reels
For the light stuff, like spring brown trout trolling, we use Penn's 965 International on our downrigger rods and Penn's now discontinued 855LC reels with the digital counters on our planer board rods. Penn's line of larger International reels for salt water use are world renowned for their silk smooth operation and unbelievable durability. The smaller 955, 965, and 975 Internationals with level winds are like a Swiss watch, smooth and tough. The 965 is perfect with light mono from 6-12 lb. test and will hold 300 yards of 12 lb. The larger 975 will hold 340 yards of 15 lb. line, and is just right for midseason salmon fishing with spoons.
For the heavy stuff later in the peak of the salmon season, we use the Penn 875 LC, 320
GTI, 310 GTI, and Daiwa SG27LC.

Monofilament Line
There are lots of great brands of monofilament line on the
market, but we fish Maxima line and there is none more durable. The only other line we've used that compares for abrasion resistance is Berkley Trilene Big Game. In the spring, for brown trout, you'll find 8-10 lb. test hi-vis Fibre Glo on all of our planer board rigs. We run 4-8 lb. test Ultragreen leaders on all rods. On the downrigger rods, main line is either Ultragreen or Perfexion.

Maxima's new Perfexion line, is extremely small diameter for it's pound test, and it's very durable. It may be the finest monofilament line on the market today. You can spool almost 400 yards of 12 lb. Perfexion on a 965 International, and more than 400 yards of 15 lb. Perfexion on a 975 International.

In late summer, when water fleas are a pest, and we're high speed trolling with dodgers and Howie flies on 5 riggers and up to 6 wires at a time, we switch to 30 lb. test Maxima Clear. The large diameter helps shake the fleas, and the excellent abrasion resistance helps hold things together when a big king runs a mono line out under one or more wire rigs.

Using proper gear will insure smiles like this!

Leader Material
Our leaders for cut bait, whole bait, flies, squids, diving planers, Thumper rigs, and anything else are all of Maxima Tournament Silver. It's the toughest line we know of with minimum visibility to fish. Many Great Lakes trollers have switched from standard mono to the new fluorocarbon line, with SeaGuar one of the most popular. The most durable fluorocarbon leader material we've tried is made by marketed by Umpqua.

Wire Line Reels
This has been a common question in recent weeks with the salmon season on the lake well underway, and wire line being used for diving planers, and thumper rods with 10-16 oz. meatballs. We use several different reels, including the Penn 875 LC (now discontinued), Penn's 320 GTI, and Daiwa's SG27LC. Penn's 875 LC has an extremely accurate digital counter, a silk smooth drag, and plenty of line capacity for up to 30 lb. wire plus backing. Penn's 320 GTI is a real work horse, also has a silk smooth drag and a level wind that releases almost exactly 10 feet of line per pass. The Daiwa SG27LC holds exactly 1000 feet of 27 lb. Sevenstrand wire with no backing, is one of the most durable reels we've ever used, but has a drag that is none too smooth.

Diving Planer Rods
The ideal rod for trolling diving planers on wire has a medium action with plenty of backbone to handle both divers and larger trout and salmon. We build our own from Loomis 2-piece, 9", Model SA1084, using Fuji heavy duty double foot guides, heavy duty reel seat, a Twilly Tip, and hypalon grips.

Thumper Rods
These are the specialized trolling rods used with wire line and 10-16 oz. weights designed for trolling dodgers and flies. It takes a little more backbone to handle a 16 oz. meatball, and even though most good diving planer rods will suffice, a slightly heavier rod works better. Although we'll be building our own this winter, the best we've found so far is Quantum's 9", 2-piece Model QXLC 90DD, with a custom Twilly Tip.

Wire
Wire line is popular for trout and salmon trolling throughout the Great Lakes. We use it from April through Sept. to fish diving planers, and routinely fish one or two wire lines with 10-16 oz. weights when we're trolling dodgers and flies. Although we've used Sevenstrand and Mason wire in the past with good success, we started using Maline's 20 lb. and 30 lb. test wire this season, and it's as good as any we've ever fished.

Hooks
If you're looking for the absolute strongest, sharpest treble hook that exists in the world of fishing, check out Gamakatsu's Super Line treble. This top-of-the-line treble is unbelievably sharp, never bends, and almost never needs to be resharpened. We've used them on Howie Flies for two years, and have switched to them on most plugs. They are impressive! These are not Gamakatsu's standard treble.

Hook Hones
Although today's hi-tech chemically sharpened hooks don't require much resharpening, if any at all, lots of the hooks we use on other lures still do. Keeping these hooks needle-point sharp is one of the keys to consistent hookups. Nothing we've ever seen beats the hook files with the yellow plastic handles sold by Luhr Jensen, Cabelas, Bass Pro and other major retailers. They do rust easily, but you can extend their lives with an occasional spraying with WD-40.

Ditch the rubberbands and try a Roemer Liberator!

Roemer Liberators
One of the most common questions we're asked dockside, is What is that little black plastic thing on your line. The answer..., it's Roemer's Liberator which is an ingenious device we use for setting up cheater leaders, and it catches us lots of bonus fish. Sure, the same thing can be done with a snap swivel and rubber band, but the Liberator is quicker and more convenient. It fastens your cheater leader securely to your main line, but releases automatically when it contacts the rod tip.

Snap Swivels
Commercial trollers in Alaska fish for a living. Much of the gear they use is perfect for Great Lakes trolling, and that includes McMahon snap swivels. We buy the Size #4 and #5 bulk in chrome and match them with chrome ball bearing or standard barrel swivels for use with dodgers and flashers. They will NEVER open on a fish, and once you get accustomed to using them, they are fast. If your eyes are getting bad too, you'll like these snaps. You'll see black ones listed in Cabela's fishing catalog.

So there you have it. Some items that would be great to add to the Christmas list. F

Good Luck, Ernie.

Capt. Ernie Lantiegne fishes the Eastern basin of Lake Ontario out of the Little Salmon River aboard his 28' Baha, the Fish Doctor. He has fished the lake since 1977 and has guided on other NY waters since '72. He also worked for the NYSDEC as a fishery biologist/manager for 22 years. Ernie also operates two drift boats on local rivers. He and his wife Carol, own and operate "Gone Fish Inn", a bed and breakfast exclusively for anglers.