waterfloating

On Dec 30, 12:49 am, Mike wrote:
On Dec 30, 12:32 am, Ken Fortenberry

wrote:
Right, just as I thought. You've never actually fished from a
personal watercraft like a pontoon boat in your life. LOL !!


Maybe you would like some pictures of me fishing from various other
boats and float tubes as well?

Well **** off, I can´t be bothered.

MC

Mike wrote:
Maybe you would like some pictures of me fishing from various other
boats and float tubes as well? ...

No thanks. A reasonable answer to the original question, as opposed
to bull**** drivel and Googled links, would suffice. And please put
it one post, not an endless succession of replies to your own posts.

--
Ken Fortenberry

On Dec 30, 12:47 am, rw wrote:


Counteract the rotation with your fins. The greater the change of
direction of the cast, the more effort is required with the fins. Small
changes in direction won't require much effort, if any at all.

Imagine as a worst case casting directly behind you.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

That sounds plausible, and if you manage to coordinate your finning
with your casting it will also doubtless work, but I have never
managed it in my tubes ( belly-boats) . In my main pontoon boat, I
don´t use fins anyway, just the oars. Often I have been fishing in
very very cold water, and it is best to keep your legs out of it, as
otherwise you cant stay out long without freezing.

If you are trying to make large direction changes in a cast, then you
are going to get some twist anyway. I don´t know how to avoid that.

The energy concerned is always going to be transmitted to the boat, no
matter what you do, but you can minimise the effects.

TL
MC

On Dec 30, 1:00 am, Ken Fortenberry
wrote:
Mike wrote:
Maybe you would like some pictures of me fishing from various other
boats and float tubes as well? ...

No thanks. A reasonable answer to the original question, as opposed
to bull**** drivel and Googled links, would suffice. And please put
it one post, not an endless succession of replies to your own posts.

--
Ken Fortenberry

**** off dumbo.

MC

Mike wrote:
On Dec 30, 12:47 am, rw wrote:



Counteract the rotation with your fins. The greater the change of
direction of the cast, the more effort is required with the fins. Small
changes in direction won't require much effort, if any at all.

Imagine as a worst case casting directly behind you.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.


That sounds plausible, and if you manage to coordinate your finning
with your casting it will also doubtless work, but I have never
managed it in my tubes ( belly-boats) . In my main pontoon boat, I
don´t use fins anyway, just the oars.

Well, that's the problem, Mike. You need fins. Oars won't do. No matter
how cold it is, you need fins. You have to put down your rod to use
oars. That's one reason I hate fishing from frigging canoes and kayaks.

A big advantage of a kickboat (oars and fins) vs. a belly boat is that
you can get your fins out of the water when you don't want them there,
like when it's really cold, or when you're trying to make time with the
oars.

Other than that, for me, they're in the water when I'm fishing.

And then there's the wind. Always the wind. :-)

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

On Dec 30, 1:03 am, Mike wrote:

Something else which may be of interest in this regard. On one of my
pontoon boats I made a "drop keel", which I lowered behind the boat.
It looked like a rudder, but was fixed. It did improve tracking the
boat, and it allowed some direction changing casts without twisting
the boat much at all, but it was a mess on, and something else to
transport, so I eventually gave up using it.

One other thing you can try, if it is possible where you fish, and is
not dangerous, is to use two anchors. Lower one anchor and pay out
rope until you are some way away from it, then lower the other anchor,
and pull up the first anchor rope until you are equidistant to both
anchors. You have to fix the ropes to either side of the boat somehow,
( I just looped mine around the rowlocks. This is a mess on, but it
gives you a relatively stable casting platform. Of course it is also a
mess on changing position. Also best not to use hook anchors for this,
it can be dangerous if they hook up solid on something. I used two
buckets filled with cement mostly.

TL
MC

"Mike" wrote in message
...
On Dec 30, 12:32 am, Ken Fortenberry
wrote:

Right, just as I thought. You've never actually fished from a
personal watercraft like a pontoon boat in your life. LOL !!

Carry on.

--
Ken Fortenberry


Actually you dumb asshole, I used one at the Danish clave, as anybody
who was there will confirm. I took it along mainly in case somebody
wanted to try it, but I was the only one who used it on that occasion.
Would you like a picture of my boat dumbass?

http://img250.imageshack.us/img250/1237/pontje2.jpg


MC

Touche, Mike!

Op

On Dec 30, 1:15 am, rw wrote:
Mike wrote:
On Dec 30, 12:47 am, rw wrote:

Counteract the rotation with your fins. The greater the change of
direction of the cast, the more effort is required with the fins. Small
changes in direction won't require much effort, if any at all.

Imagine as a worst case casting directly behind you.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

That sounds plausible, and if you manage to coordinate your finning
with your casting it will also doubtless work, but I have never
managed it in my tubes ( belly-boats) . In my main pontoon boat, I
don´t use fins anyway, just the oars.

Well, that's the problem, Mike. You need fins. Oars won't do. No matter
how cold it is, you need fins. You have to put down your rod to use
oars. That's one reason I hate fishing from frigging canoes and kayaks.

A big advantage of a kickboat (oars and fins) vs. a belly boat is that
you can get your fins out of the water when you don't want them there,
like when it's really cold, or when you're trying to make time with the
oars.

Other than that, for me, they're in the water when I'm fishing.

And then there's the wind. Always the wind. :-)

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

You are right, and on a few big lakes I fish in spring and summer,
mainly for pike and perch, I would do that, but you can´t use fins
for long in Winter on the Baltic. I tried it a few times, and damn
near froze my feet off. I would not use a float tube in those
conditions anyway, it would be a bit suicidal. If anything happened,
you would not last long in that water, a life-jacket is more or less
useless at those temperatures. It will keep you afloat, but it wont
stop you dying very quickly of hypothermia. I know a couple of guys
who wear special survival suits, and I tried one once, but I just
couldn´t cast while wearing it. The life-jacket is more than enough of
a hindrance.

The pontoon boat keeps you clear of the freezing water, but you would
be dead just as quickly if you fell out of the boat etc. I had a
special safety belt on mine with a quick release, and I was never
usually very far from shore, or in relatively sheltered bays etc, and
even then only in more or less calm conditions.

In winter, you can´t usually stay out more than an hour or so anyway.
So you paddle out, fish for an hour, paddle back in, warm up for a
while, and then paddle out again and fish, until you have had
enough! Catching fish is usually quite easy, because there are a
lot of them at about the 6m mark in various places, but catching them
from the shore is well nigh impossible except under certain
conditions. Usually after a storm, during heavy overcast, or at
night.

TL
MC

With regard to the wind, that is a more or less permanent feature in
Winter on the Baltic, so what a few of us do is use it to our
advantage. As you quite rightly say, it is more or less pointless
trying to fish properly from a constantly moving boat, and the wind
will also blow you away pretty fast which could be very dangerous.
There are only a few pontooners on the Baltic in winter, and virtually
no float tubers. it is just too cold and dangerous for that.

Anyway, those of us who do pontoon ( did, in my case, I am getting too
old for that now) use a longish anchor rope ( say 30-40 meters at 6m
water depth). lower the anchor, pull it in with a reverse breakaway
knot, and then pay out the rope anchoring the boat by the stern
stanchion. ( you can see the anchor winder on my boat in the picture).
The wind blows you until the rope is more or less taut, and you
commence fishing. You do move about quite a lot, but it serves well
enough as a fishing platform. This also ensures you have the wind at
your back, making it easier to cast and fish, and you don´t ( seem to)
get so cold so quickly.

TL
MC

Something that occurred to me after my post (which happens to all of us
from time to time) regards what is IMO the single most frustrating
characteristic of belly boats and kick boats.

When you use your fins to orient the boat, you inevitably take yourself
farther away from where you want to cast. Your energy can't be converted
into rotation with perfect, or even close to perfect, efficiency. You
will cause some translational movement, and it will be away from where
you'd like it to be. The casts get longer and longer.

I've fished schools of risers, getting no takes at all, or maybe few,
and then had to turn around 180 degrees and fin or row back into the
action, usually putting them down. That sucks.

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.