Yup! I"m afraid that's the way it reads. What I was looking for was information as to what fishermen mean when they say they have "fished live bait". Our group of Winni fishermen have trolled shiners for decades and we have gotten very good at it. But, what I needed to her was that everyone is using Dave's bait rig or just hooking the shiner or smelt up through the lips. Both work but Dave's rig has its drawbacks and salty's lip hooked shiners often leads to short stikes because the hook is too far forward.

I guess I wanted to mention our special hooking method and hope that someone was also using it or had come up with a better modification.

I wondered if it was something foreign to Winni trollers? We've trolled shiners this way , above Dave Davis spinners (attached to the downrigger ball) for a decade. It only recently occured to us that fishermen using flashers and spinners were attaching them to the rigger cable or even to the trolling line??

I'm just trying to be helpful without insulting anyones knowledge or lack of it.

Dave I hope you will stop over at Ame's Farm I think Adrien Lovoie will be there too. Cabin 14 and the beer will be cold.

Dick

I was given a method that I thought was not going to work 2 years ago.I was wrong.I was told to hook the smelt through both nostrils and they will stay alive longer than a bait rig or a lip hook. I was trolling a bit too fast, but they stayed alive the entire time they were trolled. You may get quite a few short strikes, but the smelt were lively as hell for a 1/2 hour or more. If I can make it this year, I will drift or use my trolling motor. My boat trolls around 2mph or a little less.

Considering I'm staying at weirs this year, ames isn't that far of a drive away for once (we usually stay in ctr. harbor) so I may just take a ride to say hello learn a new trick and have a frosty cold one with a new friend from my favorite board. Take Care God Bless and cabin number 14 is already etched into the back of my head LMAO, LOL Dave

Dave,

Hope to see you. If you check in with Don or Peggy Ame's at the office they will be glad to direct you.
Next month I will be doing a Hawkeye story about the closing of the Ame's Farm public boat launch.

Cabin is down on the left. Look for Tracker at the dock with bait cage and 5 lbs of shiners next to it.

Dick

Yeahhhh, well, 5lbs of shiners if the bait cage doesn't get blown over again at least! Although, I have to admit that we sure did get to have fun catching bass and salmon off the dock when they were up close to shore picking up the school of bait swimming up and down the shore afterwards!

And just one word of warning to LOL Dave. Don't take him up if he tries to talk you into fishing off the dock. He has an anoying habit of catching fish right beside you fishing with the same bait when you've been fishless for hours!

for what its worth i find sewn smelt produce better than live rig harnesses. this weekend we boated several nice salmon and one 9.5 togue fishing sewn bait where a friend on the boat refuses to go through the extra work and used pauls bait rig. our "spinning/flopping sewn bait worked well for me and my dad, he caught the big togue, i caught a nice fat male salmon of about 5 pounds, plus several others as my buddy watched for 2 days of fishing and caught nothing, not even a bump. that spinning smelt seems to work better now that everyones using those bait rigs. .6 to 1.1 mph max. i would like to see how your sewing your smelt, email me and ill send you my method, always like to see new ways

Will do Dick, Looking forward to chewing the fat a little and learning something new, I'll have to come see ya when Yo Adrien isn't around though That big farmer guy scares me LMAO Take Care God Bless LOL Dave