Thanks. Great research and info Adrien. Beyond the Kokanee, did you look at any of the other rods in this Daiwa line? What about the Dipsey rods? Thinking of fishing Dipseys off otter boats this spring.

there is a 7'6" medium light daiwa in that comparison.
i also have the 2 8'6" daiwa in medium action good for ontario downriggers but too stiff for winni.

you don't want a dipsy rod for anything but running big dipsy's in ontario. they are 10 foot broomsticks.

If you want to run dipsy's here in the smaller sizes try the Cabelas depthmaster in 8'6" it is one i wrote about in my test it has plenty of backbone for the smaller dipsy's and has a good noodle tip.

Running dipsy's off planer boards would be very hard to do because of their huge amount of drag they will just pull your tow line down into the water. the mini big jon diver disk would probably work but any of the luhr jensen divers would be too big.

if you got a giant plank planer board system that follows far back it would work better than the otter boat. otters are not designed for extreme pull from a dipsy they will turn around on you.

otters shine for us because they travel out to the side better than any other model without fading back and track great at lower speeds. If you want to run heavy things like big dipsy's or 20 colors of lead in the great lakes there are better options.

If you ran your planer 20 feet to the side and sent the dipsy down all the way to the board you could get away with it. Any furthur from the boat and the line will bow and the dipsy couldn't go down to the board.

Make sense??

Yes, thanks Adrien. I actually have no experience with the Dipsey's so I did not realize they put that much drag on the line. Perhaps I'll just try the dipsey's I gambled on when I have to row on a NYC reservoir, may be a little simpler than having that much leadcore out.

If you run multiple lines off the otter boat line, do you just put out more leadcore on the inner lines to get greater depth and separation like they talk about on the Big Jon web site?

I usually run all of my planer board lines at the same depth (same amount of colors) at least on each side of te boat. If you have the inner 1 deeper and you catch a fish on the outer one and you re set you will let the inner one slide out and then re rig the inner if you stick to your plan of having the inner deeper than the outer you would have to be deeper than before when your bite came shallow to start with and you are way off now.

You can counter act this by pulling the inner 1 in then letting the outer 1 back then re setting the inner back deeper, sounds like a lot of work huh?

the tow line fades back the farther you go out. if every rod is identical (same amount of line in water) the far lure will be @15 behind the close lure also the distance from pole tip to release is longer on the far one. there is actually 30 more feet of line off your reel for the far rod with the same amount in the water. when the outer 1 gets a bite and releases the lure and fish sweep out over the inner 1 and no tangle. you catch your fish, let the inner rod slide down the tow line to become the outer rod attatch a new release and the rod that caught the fish is re set as your inner rod.

By the time the outer release pops with a fish and you grab the rod and set the hook it has dropped back 50 feet behind the inner lure and your hook set lifts it up and the inner lure sneaks under and out with no tangle.

I even lost myself but does that make sense.

It actually makes perfect sense...I guess you do this for a living. Thanks. -Eric

YOAdrien Great info That sure sounds like a better way to run planer rods than I have been running them. I always put the outside one farther back so it would clear the others but what you said makes alot of sense Thanks.

Erin