building a planer board mast.

[WATERHAM]

Re: building a planer board mast.

Lots of guys that fish the Great Lakes will use an Amish style double or triple ski planer board. I believe these are made from Redwood. These boards are not varnished, I know that sounds funny, but the principle of these boards is to intake water and swell up some. By swelling up and uptaking water they pull like mules and ride lower to the surface than other style of big boards. Check out Fisherman's Wharf in Port Clinton, Ohio. They sell them and have a website to check out for ideas. Capt. Rick Lacourse is a top notch Lake Erie walleye Captain that's been using the redwood boards for decades. Capt.Ernie Lantiegne is one of the, if not the best Lake Ontario salmon/trout captains he uses pine triple skis. Have you thought of an idea to help in storage (some kind of sturdy stainless steel folding brace.) Like from a card table

 

[dingbat]

Re: building a planer board mast.

Lots of guys that fish the Great Lakes will use an Amish style double or triple ski planer board. I believe these are made from Redwood. These boards are not varnished, I know that sounds funny, but the principle of these boards is to intake water and swell up some. By swelling up and uptaking water they pull like mules and ride lower to the surface than other style of big boards.

Interesting that they still use Redwood. We've gone exclusively to Southern Pine. Same no rot properties as redwood but SP is 30% denser so they dig in much better than the same sized redwood board. The additional draft makes the boards pull harder, track better and at a much greater angle off the boat. Not to mention SP is about 1/5 the cost of redwood.

As for fold-downs, there are a couple of designed used around here. Most use aluminum flat bars on the top and bottom instead of the all-thread. Here is a design for a folding triple board setup. Could be modified for use on a 2 board setup quite easily.

http://www.gofishbaltimore.com/skipsPlanerBoards.html

I would just reach over and free-spool the reel, kill the motor, clear the lines, and winch the sucker back in. Never had to do this yet though.

I've had it happen twice. Good luck with that plan.

 

[WATERHAM]

Re: building a planer board mast.

Dingbat,
I like those plans, seems like you are ahead of the learning curve w/ Redwood vs. Pine. I know this is a "homemade post" but the auto reels are slick, when you're done fishing drive up to the board and pick it up.

 

[rolmops]

Re: building a planer board mast.

Here is a small update.
I never did get the second mini troll reel,but today a good person gave me his to old Riviera manual down riggers.The reel on the Riviera down rigger is about 3 times the size of the Mini Troll reel.Now I have TWO reels that are bigger and better than what I originally planned on.
Things are getting better.
I would really appreciate it if you can go out to Lake Ontario and dump a few tons of steel head feed in the water,so they are huge by the time I hit the water in May...

 

[Mark_VTfisherman]

Re: building a planer board mast.

I love homemade stuff- good to hear of your good luck.

BTW- from what I hear they are going to be huge anyway!