Commercial Salmon Trolling Forum

Can I use schedule 80 aluminum pipe? Everything on the boat is aluminum so I was thinking of keeping it all the same
Also where's a good place to get some springs?

I have not built any davits out of aluminum but I would think it should work with proper brackets.
As far as springs I would look at Pacific Net and Twine or Seattle Marine.

Also what weight of leads do I need to use? will I be using float boards?

Typically for small boats 35# and 50# do the trick. You can use boards or crab pot buoys. Some guys use shears for inside /outside deep but the board style floats are what I prefer. You want to get the floats with shears so you can spread the gear out a little farther. I would suggest trying to get a spot as a deck hand for a couple of trips to see how it all works. Most of us learned from great teachers as the learning curve can be a little steep if you really want to compete. There is nothing wrong with setting up your own boat after you see how things works so you can optimize it as you see fit.

Crawfish wrote:Typically for small boats 35# and 50# do the trick. You can use boards or crab pot buoys.

I've never thought about using buoys as float bags. I have a handful of those sitting around in storage and they're much cheaper. I wonder how they'd drag through the water and affect the tattle tales... we were picking up those plastic balls from Japan all summer too. Hmm.

Question for you gents..

Do some guys just run 2 single spool gurdies in smaller boats? How do they do compared to boats running 4 lines? Is it double the fish with 4 over 2?

Rarely do my floats outfish or even match my mains but you can be fairly assured they will cover your expenses at the end of the season.

My dog lines saved me this year. When everything is working right you should do between a 60/20/20 split and a 70/20/10 split.

what is the purpose of the float boards? I understand the shear method but what else do they do? do they actually stay on top and float a 35lb ball? are my heavies on the inside or the outside?

Float boards (or float bags, just a different name) run on the surface straight back from your tag lines. I run them outside of the deeps on my boat. They clip onto your wire at the desired depth after you've clipped on all of your leaders. Run the bags out to a desired distance behind three boat then attach your button to the line, which will stop in the donut and swing the floats out directly behind the point the tag attaches to your pole. You can get offset float bags as well, which will shear the float even farther away from the boat like a planer board.

I've been super busy at work out here in the cold on this boat and this is what I've come up with so far...After talking to several local fabricators that seemed uninterested or knew nothing about boats or fishing, not to mention EXPENSIVE!!! I decided to save myself a few bucks and bought a pipe bender and went to work on it myself... Did the davits out of galvanized pipe...today I'll be working on plates to mount my gurdies on...need to buy springs and set up the chains and tag lines then my poles will be done...by the way cross tree and poles are aluminum

Does it work to just have shears on my lines but not float bags/boards? them suckers are spendy and I've never seen one up close so don't know if I can build one or not... I was thinking of a plate of stainless bent to sheer out...I would attach it to the eye of my cannonball then my breakaway cord that attached to my mainline...wanted advice if this works or am I going to have to come up with floats?

Good job. You might put an eye on your davit and stay it back to the mast. As far as the shears they are incorporated into the floats, the way they clip on the line in relation to to the float position is what causes them to shear. You can make line shears either surface or sub surface,maybe someone else has a picture of the different styles? The stainless plate bent at the base will work, trouble with that style is the gear hangs back further while trolling. Which is good and bad depending on what you are trying to achieve for example if you are fishing 50 stops the sub surface shear will have your line hanging way back but if your only fishing 7 stops no big deal. Get the floats if you can.

Looks real good.

Since your poles are a little on the short side, my guess is you will probably need to run the float bags to get separation on your gear to avoid tangles. You might be able to get away with running really heavy leads on your deeps and really light leads on your shear lines, but you'd be gambling those light leads wouldn't get pushed around too much trolling through tide rips and end up with a big knot under your boat (don't ask me how I know about that...).
You are right, the prefab float bags are pricey - but they are pretty simple things and since you're obviously mechanically inclined I'd bet you could build a set out of a sheet of sturdy closed cell foam, brass rod and bits of brass hardware, and some fiberglass. With help from a pro, I rebuilt one of the ones I used this year and it worked great all year. You could build some adjustable shear into the design so they'll carry farther away than the tips of your poles would let them go otherwise.

That my $.02, anyway.

Thanks guys so if i use float bags should i run them shearing outside with 35lb lead and 50 lb leads inside?

That's the combo I run. Got all the gear separation I needed 99% of the time. My beam is 11 ft, and my deep tag lines are 7 feet (horizontally) out from the gunnel, giving me a total separation of 25 feet between the deeps. That worked well with my 50#'s down to 50 fathoms. I also like having the floats out on the tips, since it spreads them out even farther way back there which helped keep things kosher when I had to make a sharp turn.

I run 50's on my heavies on my tips and 30's on my floats on the inside. I also use planer boards or shears or whatever you want to call them on my heavies by the weight to kick them out a bit more. I'll probably move to 35's this year. In shallow water, 10-15fa I use 30's and 25's. I don't know how you would get away running 4 wires on a boat that size without float boards. My float boards are shearing too, I can snap some detailed pics if you need. Where to run your heavies and floats on what position on the stick is matter of preference but I think most guys do the opposite of what I do.

As far as your hydraulic question goes my system is set up - reservoir to pump to flow control (one port returns to reservoir after being filtered) to stb gurdy to port gurdy to filter to reservoir.

gurdies too close to davits? haven't mounted yet have to run to hardware store for the stainless just hoping for input by the time I get back...trying to keep them under the davit while still giving me room for adjustment later if need be...I'm hoping that I only have to bolt down the gurdies once and then line everything else up on the davit according to the position of the gurdy...

Another few pics of my progress this week...taking off tomorrow for crabfest in brookings for the weekend but will get back to it monday

Don't forget to take a good look at the trailer and axles. If the axles look questionable replace them, they can and will break on you with out warning. If needed, Pacific trailers is a good place to go for competitive trailer parts prices.