"Rod Catching techniques"???

[DougH]

During the frenzy of netting a fish last night, one of my rods was accidently knocked overboard into about 30' of water. I marked the spot immediately with GPS and visuals so I know pretty well where she rests.

My question is, does anyone have any suggestions or good techniques to use to try to dredge/snag it?? I was planning on just using a big spoon with a big treble hook and just saturating the area with dragging, but I thought I might lose about a million spoons this way. Would I be better off with just a treble with a splitshot or something?

Anyways, thanks for your thoughts...
Doug

[moorecat]

the spoon idea can get expensive fast, try a 3/4oz worm weight in front of a 2/0 treble hook

[Alan]

get a metal fish stringer and open up the hooks and drag the bottom, this method works amazingly well and quick. was able to get my glx back on the third drag after over and hour of trying with weighted trebles etc. We used a lite rope attached to the stringer.

[DougH]

Alan,

That is BRILLIANT !!!

Thanks so much! Now I just need to find a stringer!

Doug

[basslayer]

Great now i have to buy one of those to!!!!! Thanks for the great idea.

[bassman619]

I've used my aqua vu to spot the rod and a jigging spoon to retrieve it.

[DougH]

I've decided to tie the stringer onto my flippin rod with 65 lb braid. I bet I get it within an hour...

[Burke]

I have a fishing buddy that always seems to drop an outfit or two overboard every year. Twice I fished with him when he lost an outfit overboard. Each time, my heaviest lures were 3/4 oz Rat L Traps so I tied 2 of them about a foot apart and dragged the bottom.

The first time, I couldn't snag the outfit because there was a lot of junk on the bottom. He eventually hired a professional diver ($250) who dove for the outfit (it was worth about $1,000) and found it. About a year later, he dropped the same rig overboard again and hire another diver to find it.

The second time, he dropped another outfit overboard in about 20ft of water at high tide. He counted it as another lost rod, but I told him to give me a chance to snag it. We came back at low tide when the water was only about 16ft deep. I snagged the rod after about 10 minutes.

[Mitch]

Has anybody ever tried using a large magnet ? Would the reel or the eyes be enough to attract it ?

[Spookin'Em43]

Has anybody ever tried using a large magnet ? Would the reel or the eyes be enough to attract it ?

When I was about 12 My dad and I were fishing off the gated dock at Sugar Barge (we had family with a housebout there) and I dropped a rod off the side of the dock. We got it back and I believe a magnet was used to retrieve it.

[Alan]

Alan,

That is BRILLIANT !!!

Thanks so much! Now I just need to find a stringer!

Doug

Your welcome Doug, I can't take the credit for the idea, i read it somewhere years ago. almost forgot about it when i lost my rod. Good luck.

[DougH]

rats,
2 solid hours of dragging with no luck today...

I'll take up the old aqua-view on wednesday...

[smpboy]

aqua view works really good hardest part is finding it once u find it mark it with a buoy marker then catching it should be easy

[DougH]

Agreed. I got my old aqua view out, dusted her off and charged up the battery and fashioned up a sunshield/tube that fits over the front of the old B/W TV so I can actually see the screen during the day. Hopefully some local hack hasn't already snagged it and added it to his collection.....

[Kelly Ripa]

Aren't you a local hack Doug?