07-03-2021, 05:20 AM
(07-03-2021, 04:39 AM)Jmorfish Wrote: Well, that's what I'm trying to find out....and maybe get some of your thoughts and tricks for keeping the stink out....What I'm referring to is the stink I know I get on my hands...manually operating the choke on my big motor, manually positioning my trolling motor at my fishing spot, connecting the steering rod to both motors, manually starting up trolling motor.....that's a lot of handling stuff with grease and gas, and I know those smells will deter/void the bite....I have considered this the past few years, and have tried: just washing hands in the lake water, using different soaps and then rinsing in lake water, using those flimsy disposable gloves before doing those start-up procedures and then still washing and rinsing before handling any of my fishing gear. Yesterday at Strawberry, in addition to the gloves during set-up, and hand washing after, I also tried rubbing some of the fish scent oil on my hands...maybe made some difference? Not sure yet, need more trips to test this added strategy...But with me doing all the set-up (my boat, my responsibility) I've seen, ( to my fishing dismay), that my guests are often doing better than me!...and you boat captains know how that feels!...I know it's often just luck, but on those days when my side is getting outfished 5 or 6 to 1, I'm thinking something's wrong....and pretty sure I still haven't got all The Stink off......any thoughts? any 'sure cure' that works for you? Yes, I have an older boat that doesn't have some of the set-up conveniences, and right now just buying a new boat probably isn't in the picture..any other ideas, I'd like to hear....
If your driving the boat, your catching the fish, why not just rotate and take turns reeling in fish, my guess is that it has less to do with what’s on your hands than there’s usually one side of the boat that fishes better on any given day, whether because you tend to turn one direction more than another or it’s at a better depth than the other side because of staggering your depths. Just count the number of fish hooked and landed as the boat total and split the catch at the end of the day.