Smart Troll System to track Divers.

[Digitroll Fishing]

Short 3 hour trip to day with a full moon and strong southerly winds kicked us off the water at 11:00 am after a 8:00 am start. Two riggers and two Light bites for Ric and I. Best action was at 25 ft with Ric's port Lite bite with 60 ft of wire out. 2 for 3 on salmon with a nice one at 21". The Smart Troll saved the day for us keeping Ric's hot spoon at 25 ft taking all three salmon bites!

[Digitroll Fishing]

This interview with the owner of Smart Troll Darrell Huff 3 days ago on his Smart Troll system:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9P3qZUmPo0


I had Cresliner Bob from the Willsboro area as a guest on my boat last Fall showcasing the Smart Troll system first hand on my divers. He was very impressed.

[Digitroll Fishing]

The first Lake Ontario Bar experiment with the Smart Troll was very productive! Our 4 wire program took 80% of our 105 bites over 6 days totaling 47.5 hours washing lures. Using our Fishhawk Ultra with the depth at the probe with the other Smart troll probes on our wires let us dial in our presentation once we establish temperature and depth of the probes working unison together. We started out spacing things apart until we get bit and then make adjustments based on those hits. Dealing with currents and changing boat direction in waves helped us keep our lures in the active zone the fish were biting. Speed at the ball with our Fish Hawk helped us maintain that bite also when turning around with waves. We added .5 miles per hour going west with the current to keep our lures dancing. Other things that helped was when we had a knock off on the wire or a small fish that didn't trip (rare) we could see on the display the depth go up from it being tripped or dragging a small fish long before watching the rods. We also were looking for 45-47F at the wire depths as well as the rigger to keep us in the action. Surface temp was 50-54F by the end of the week. I feel it added more fish to our catch overall by drilling it down quickly and having accurate data and depth.

[Digitroll Fishing]

The Smart Troll system continues to help us when observing a bite and trying to keep the divers running in the sweet spot on both sides of the boat in real time! It's amazing how dynamic with currents and wind how boat position changes the depth of our divers. This system is on par with the wow factor I experienced with my first autopilot in 2005! I can't imagine fishing without it now!

[Digitroll Fishing]

There is a Facebook page for Smart Troll users or people just wanting to learn about them. Also here was a recent picture of a person using them on divers and riggers from this page.

[Digitroll Fishing]

Little testing today with a 10 color with a probe and the port rigger with speed sensor! 6 rods in the water with Don and Chris aboard. Shocking a 10 color at 2.7 mph on an Offshore board only registers 37 ft of depth at 300 feet out and a 25 foot leader. Chris's lead setup was Suffolk Micro Lead.

These two Smart Troll photo's are 8 miles apart. Difference of water temp at 37-50 feet in both locations was due to wind that blew the day before.


Here is today's data plus photo of speed sensor option for the rigger:

[Mistress]

You certainly have a lot of info at your disposal Ron! If I ever attempted to run that much gear that far back and they way I like to make turns to get a bite all you would need is to add would be a waterproof go pro to make a video of underwater basket weaving

[Digitroll Fishing]

Data is knowledge or power! We noted yesterday when we made a slow turn on our Offshore OR-18 board the 10 color dove from 37 ft to 44 ft!

[Digitroll Fishing]

A reply on Facebook mentioned to me (Smart Troll Facebook group) at least 2 colors of lead is compromised being held up by an inline board or big board tow line so not as deep as previously thought. They recommend putting out 60-70 feet of backing to solve this.

Also 1 oz of lead is equal to 4 feet of depth achieved. So 3 oz is 12 feet. Clip weights.

Lastly until you truly know catching bottom or running a smart troll probe over deeper water it's a guess. The beauty of Smart Troll is now you have an answer to your lead / diver / weighted steel / copper setups. Many variables!

[Digitroll Fishing]

Smart Troll continues to put bonus salmon and browns in the net with our Divers! It's almost not fair! Knowing where there running contributed to doubles on Browns today! 100 feet out on a #2 setting running at 42 ft!

[Digitroll Fishing]

Advantages:

Stockie smolts / perch dragging or a gob of weeds changing the depth running by 5 feet higher alerts to issues to check diver!

[Digitroll Fishing]

We fished out of temperature mostly for 4 of 6 rods these past 6 days at the Oak. Using Smart Troll was huge for our success with our 4 diver rod program! Cant say enough about this data!


image post

[Digitroll Fishing]

What have I learned in the last 13 months using Smart Troll:

Our Smart Troll system kept are divers in the zone and proved to be our best option on these stager salmon in 140-160 fow! Can't say enough about this system after 13 months now! It just keeps our divers busy putting them in the sweet spots! We only used two divers with Dreamweaver Deeper Diver dipsies on a 2 setting running 95-110 feet down for these Stagers on Sept. 4th and 5th. One day we spent 13 hours on the water and the two probes didn't run low on battery life.

We have done well with 4 divers the last two years at the Oak and the Bar in May and July. Now I am contemplating going back to 2 divers! Why? I feel I am have more confidence with 2 divers running them at precise depths above the fish many times in warmer water just above the thermocline than running 4 blind divers before I had the Smart Troll system! Efficiency over quantity of 2 divers vs. 4. We fish 2 people on my boat and I have a lot of confidence with my two divers. Less headaches and better management during a hot bite with 2 divers with Smart Troll on my 19 ft Starcraft Fishmaster.

If I can become more efficient with 2 vs. 4 divers with the same amount of bites or more then it's a big win!

[Digitroll Fishing]

Labor day week fishing Stagers here is a tip that will help people fishing Deep with Divers! Using the 124mm super sized Dreamweaver Diver will easily get to 95-105 ft which was super successful this past September for us landing 18 salmon each day we fished and a crazy amount of bites and lost fish over the two day's we fished. Tracking them with Smart Troll really helped our cause. In the past we never had any idea where are divers were running and they were standard size. Yielding very few bites this time of year as they weren't deep enough.

Here is a link to a video I found on this Diver:

This diver added many fish to our spread on Stagers Labor Day week.
https://youtu.be/qG4VuUMqVcU

[drachma]

OK Ron, Now I want one.
Where can it be gotten and how much?

Michael