Shear boards

[Kelper]

Question for the forum if anybody is still watching it.

Anybody use shear boards when just running davits to increase your spreads? I've never used them, but have seen a few sets. Would your rig them down by the leads?

[jgallagher33]

Hey Kelper,

I wish I had a picture but I'll try to explain what we used. We used them on the tips instead of floats. Don't see why they wouldn't work off the Davits. Ours were hand made in a couple of sizes depending on lead size. It was essentially wood roughly 12x18 with a 2" wide x 18" long piece that was fastened to its bottom diagonally length wise corner to corner. The diagonal booard was cut to have a point on forward side. On the same side attach a couple trolling snaps. When let out it will roll over board up. It will pull to the stern and the diagonal piece of wood will shear it out away from the boat. They always fished great for us. They made it easier to run the floats out the back running 6 lines. But when only running 4 we always used the boards instead of floats. Speed pretty critical though if not fast enough they won't stay on surface. We put them where you would normally put your stop.

Hope this helps.

[Kelper]

Thanks!

[Crawfish]

You can also run shears instead of floats. But if there is some traps around it's not the best idea.

[Lulu]

Most trollers use spreader (shear boards) to get the heavy wire, which is usually on the pole tip, away from the boat. Other wise, there is a good potential for fouling when the floats are pulled. Especially important when there is a strong side current. Or, buy a bigger boat with 40 foot poles. You still get tangles.