REVIEWED BY CAPT. MIKE SCHOONVELD
Employing lead core lines has become a staple method for most Great Lake trollers. It’s partly a technical tactic and partly voodoo science since no one knows just what the lure is doing back there under the waves. I know guys with multiple lead core outfits on their boats. They have set-ups loaded with two colors (10 yards per color), three colors, four, five and more, including some who still use lead core lengths longer than 10 colors to get their lures to the depth the fish are active.
I can’t afford to carry that many separate outfits and I don’t have space for all of them if I could. However, Offshore Tackle’s Guppy weights easily turn one leadcore outfit into two the way used them last season.
Guppies (a.k.a. Pro Weights) come in sizes from 1/2 to 3-ounces and if you get the Pro Weight Kit, you’ll get some of each size along with some OR16 Snap Weight Clips. All of these have uses, but to get more for the ‘core, choose the 3-ouncer and attach one of the OR16s to it.
There are so many configurations of where to snap the extra weight, what affect placement would have on the depth and how the lure on the end would behave you’d need a phone app to keep track of it. Then alter the trolling speed, swap to a different lure and everything would be changed anyway.
So I just go by “rule of thumb” and usually that’s well good enough. My rule of thumb is a four-color can behave like a six-color, a six-color can become a nine-color, a ten-color can approximate the depth potential of a 15 color. It’s simple math I can do in my head – no phone app needed.
To make a six-color behave like a nine, simply let out three colors, attach the three-ounce Guppy weight to the line, then let out the remaining three colors and troll it behind the boat, on an in-line planer or as I do, on big planer boards. Again using easy math, if you want your ten-color to act like a 15, let out half the colors (five) attach the three-ounce Guppy, then deploy the rest of the lead core.
I get added versatility out of each lead core outfit on my boat. I get the snake-like presentation lead core gives the lures. I get more fish and those fishing with me don’t have to crank in as much lead core line each time one of those Guppy-‘core fish bites.
FISHING TOYS 