Great questions. I hope Yo and Trav jump in here. I almost always start high work low staying around the bait. The first hour I often find bait up as high as 25 feet or so I run one just above it and another right about same level. As it goes down I go down but even when the bait goes way down I still run a rod around 35 feet it catches fish. The thing that drives me nuts is after the first hour when the bait breaks up it can be work to refind it and when fishing alone with 2 rods I can have stretches of no action. Must be great sometimes to make your own bait school with 6 or 8 rods, cowbells etc.

Two rods does limit your options considerably, what to drag around, how deep,etc.. no room for error.

The guys that are fortunate to run more lines have allot more options and chance to find a trend or pattern of what's working and where.

On Squam two people, 4 rods are more than enough for the action found, but boy does she give up some nice fish, so I guees that's the way we will fish, 2 to 4 lines. I fish most of the time alone, now and then I invite a die hard to come out with me or my son will join me. I do have one guy that works for us (Thy) that loves to fish, a good first mate too, but he has to watch the store when I'm gone to the Lake. I do get him up on occaision and when I do, he wants to stay out all day, no matter how the bite is.

John S.

My 2 cents;
2 poles, 2 different depths. I run 1 in the middle of the clutter, and 1 above to start. When the sun comes up, I still run 1 in the middle, but move the other below. I run 2 poles alot, like you John. By 9am, I am running 1 just under, and the other one is the chase pole. (see big fish, drop it on his head, or bring it up to his nose.)
By 11am, I am chasing on both riggers. If you get stuck on a certian depth, your not listening to your fishfinder. It will tell you how deep they are. If the fish scatter and I don't see much on the screen, I will pull my balls up to the top and idle, to get a better look at what is going on down there.
I also think that fish who travel and feed off from the top and feed on smelt, see better up. I think bottom feeders see better down. (that is my WAG)
It only takes a salmon a mino second to travel 20 feet up of down to attack bait, or your lure, thus being just above, or just below the temp break.
But if your running your bait at the depth they are at, they don't have to travel, see your bait/lure, that is above them or below them.
I also am a firm believer that feeding fish trigger other fish to feed. If your seeing fish say at 44 feet, but your fishing 52, they are going to gobble up everything where they are, before they start to travel to 52 feet to find other food.
In simple terms;
If your sitting in your easy chair comfy like watching the soxs get smoked by KC and get a slight hunger pain, the first thing your gonna do is look at the coffee table to see if you have eating everything in sight, and if you have, your gonna get up and go to the refer. You prefer to sit on your duff, and grab the oreo crumbs that are left in the package. But who wants to get up and go to the refer?
same with the fish, at at least that is what "Limpet" told me. LOL

Popeye

Great post on the thermo question. I can really relate to the redsox thing on the tummy hurting. Good example!!!

Charlie

You nailed it Pro-Line...

Cool Water

As always, great attention to detail in the techniques of Proline and Popeye. I definitely agree with the combined approaches, i.e., start off first light by straddling the above / mid transition zone and then move deeper. My three cents -- courtesy of my go to guide on Moosehead -- is that the actively feeding fish are willing to come up and often can be found biting down only 10-20 ft. He often runs a heavy trolling lure only 20-25 feet behind the boat in the prop-wash and finds salmon in particular are attracted to biting the lure riding in the bubbles of the prop wash. Of course Moosehead typically has a more shallow thermocline and cooler surface temps than Winni / Squam, so 10-15 feet shallow bit at Moosehead may be 20-25 on Winni or Squam, but I just throw it out there. On Moosehead I found some of my best salmon action hot spots where when I was trolling a little deeper and the bottom came up fast and I was in only 10-15 water (at the ducer) and had salmon hit leadcore out 3 colors (had to real it up real fast as the bottom came up and occasionally I had snags and lost lures). Location was key. One spot for consistent 19+ in fat salmon was near the mouth of the Moose river (cold water coming in from Brassua dam) and the other was a sand bar off a small island S of Rockwood. So location is as important from my view as depth. To pick off fish at shallower depths in Winni and Squam you should look for places where not only streams feed into the lake but whre springs / cold groundwater feeds into the lake. Typically this will be where there are fractures in the underlying bedrock (cracks basically). If you look at an aerial photograph of either lake, look for long linear features trending northeast / southwest (which is the predominant orientation of the fractures). Often they will line up with streams and coves and other geographic features. Find a couple spots that look interesting and then go exploring at first light or dusk with your lines set shallower than normal. I have found some "secret spots" this way and some of my better fish.

...but I'm still going to do lots of depth fishing the Popeye/Proline way with my own experimentation...

...3 days 'till two weeks on Moosehead and finding it hard to get any work done...

Trav-

Did you get my email the other day? We can hook up maybe this weekend or when I am up for the last 2 wks of August.

on sebago weve been catching most fish on the sliding cheater line, while following the schools with the ball. now you cant use two rods setup that way on squam, but maybe try one. almost every fish has been caught on the slider, there have been some exceptions, but most are on the sliders and the bigger fish have been too. still waiting for a 6 pounder though : ), that was a nice fish you caught

Nice fish. My complaint (LOL) is you're not holding it out far enough! Honestly, I love all the pictures, have no criticism of any pics, and in particular thought the pic of John S' lunker was great. I've got to get me one of those fish...

fishlessman, How long was that fish? he looks to be around 26" - 27" how much did he weigh? Nice fish did you get that on Sebago? Take Care God Bless and Tight Lines LOL Dave From up North

i wont put any braggin rights on that fish, it looks like about 28 maybe plus a little. ive caught some that were over 31. it was caught in mass on 47 acre forest lake as mass stocks several ponds with broods. they all dont look as nice as that fish, but they are a blast to catch on a small midge rod. best thing i ever did was to skip the big fancy house and buy a camp. then split another camp up north. the real fun on forest lake is carp on ultralites, up to 23 pounders. makes for some real good practice for battling and landing fish

Nice fish, if she were fatter it would have to be in the 7/8 pound class.

John S.

Am I correct in guessing that you have no real clue as to the depth of the slider ??? We can use it but only one rod.

Your having a hello of a season on Sebego, I see a 6 pounder in your future, maybe next month when the big males are crusing off the shoreline ???

John S.

that would be right, no clue to the depth and i think the depth is changing every time the boat speeds up, slows down, turns, by adding some slack to the main line or tightening it up.even after you change the depth of the ball, it probably takes a while for it to find its new location on the depth. i also think that a little wave action gives it a little jigging action down there.
cant say that i havent been skunked a few days this year and the quantity isnt there like winni, but the fish have been big 2.5-5.25 pounders with a few small skippers and they have been fat. this year is the first year its been like this, the winni methods seem to work well and we arent catching the lakers like is the usual. the salmon fishing is to fun to slow the boat down, though ive been hearing that the togue crews have really been doing well. we have been getting fish this size almost every weekend since april. hopefully we get the real big one by the seasons end as they seem to be fattening up right now.this one had the right side fin clip, need to get a list of the clipping years in maine

Beautiful salmon Fishlessman. Where were you fishing again?

west shore of sebago lake. camp is on the north west river

WOW, that's one healthy looking Salmon, keep on plugging away, your due.

John S.