Vocabulary Great Lakes

Great Lakes Fishing

Vocabulary

Top Number - The middle two numbers of the latitude or north line of your GPS or Loran. If 41.27.19 north was your location, 27

would be your Top Number. This is an excellant way of giving other boats your location over the radio.

ddd.mm.sss ddd degrees of latitude or longitude, mm minutes (60), ss seconds (60). Some GPS and Loran units may give the last number as a decimal 1-100. Degrees do not change very often because 1 deg = 60 nautical miles, which does not make them very useful to us fisherman. Minutes of Latitude are 1 nautical mile apart, Minutes of longitude are 1 nautical mile apart at the equator and get closer as the lines converge at the poles. So using the minutes or middle numbers will get two fisherman within 1 nautical mile of each other.

Widely used on Lake Michigan; this really needs to catch on to Lake Huron.

"What is your top number?" Useful queston to get north/south location.

If I am at 44.56.55 N and another boat on the radio says that he has been doing well at 44.53.25 N. I know that I am a little over 3 nautical miles north of him.

Harder example - If I am still at 44.56.55 N and another boat says his top number is 02. I know that I am about 6 nautical miles south of him. How do I know this? If I troll north to him, my numbers will increase from 56, 57, 58, 59 and then 00, 01, 02.

Bottom Number - The middle two numbers of the longitude or west line of your GPS or Loran.

"What are your bottom numbers?" Useful question to get east/west location.

"What are you numbers?" Useful question to get complete location. If someone is located at N 44.55.22 and W 86.33.00, then their numbers would be 55 and 33. North number is always given first.

High Diver - If someone is fishing with two dipsies on one side of the boat the high diver is generally set between 2.5 and 3.5.

Low Diver - Generally set between 1 and 2.

Super Ring - The larges ring that is made by the Slide Diver company. It will fit any dipsy diver.

Down the Shoot - Fishing a rod straight off of the back of the boat. Can be a downrigger rod fished "down the shoot", or a lead core

rod fished "down the shoot".

Stacker - Fishing two lures off of the same downrigger. This can be done two ways. Most commonly this term refers to using two rods off of one rigger. Sometimes it is used to describe fishing one rod off the rigger, but attaching a fixed slider.

X of Colors of Lead - Fishing X number of colors of Lead Core.

Bird Core - Fishing 3 colors of Lead Core, or 30 yards of Lead Core. About the most lead the small Yellow Birds can pull.

Half Core - Fishing 5 colors of Lead Core, or 50 yards of Lead Core.

Core or Full Core - Fishing 10 colors of Lead Core, or 100 yards of Lead Core.

Core and a Half - Fishing 15 colors of Lead Core, or 150 yards of Lead Core.

Two Core or Double Core - Fishing 20 colors of Lead Core, or 200 yards of Lead Core. People who fish double core need to go

try in in 30 FOW.

A pound of Lead - Fishing a 1 pound Lead Drop.

Pound and a Half of Lead - Fishing 1.5 pounds Lead Drop.

Half a Pound of Lead - This one still confuses me at times. Sometimes the person is refering to fishing 0.5 pounds on a Lead Drop,

and sometimes it refers to fishing 1.5 pounds of Lead off of a Lead Drop.

Hardware - Fishing Spoons, not fishing Bodybaits. In the spring, usually fisherman start out using bodybaits and as the water warms

up, they switch to spoons. If people are using Hardware, you know that they are using mostly spoons.

Backing - This is a type of line added to a reel to fill up space on the reel to ensure that it is full of line. It is the first line added to the

spool. This is mostly used for leadcore reels or diver reels. Generally 20 lb test mono is used, or 20-30 lb braided line is used. For leadcore reels, a typical setup is to use a 330 Penn reel for a full core. 100 yards of leadcore will not fill the spool up, so backing is added first. 100-150 yards of mono is added first, for leadcore backing go with a smaller diameter line to get as much backing on the reel as you can. Then the backing is attached to the leadcore via a knot. Then the full leadcore is added. It is a bit tricky to add the exact amount of backing. Too much and you will not be able to add all of of the leadcore. Too little, and a big king could spool your reel. For diver reels, you use backing to take up space. To fill a reel with a superbraided line, a typical diver reel could hold 1000 yards of line, but that would cost way too much money. Filling the reel with backing is the way to go. I fill about 2/3 of the spool with backing, then attach the superline to it with a knot, and add the superline to the spool. Whenever a superline is used on a reel, backing is required. If no backing is used, the superline will actually spin on the spool, slowly letting line out.

If you can think of any fishing related terms that you want to see here, just let me know and I will add. mrymar@hotmail.com

This Page was last Updated on: 03/29/2008