What Is The Most Important Piece of Fishing Equipment On Your Boat?

Just A Piece Of The Puzzle? Captain Alex Dzenis Showtime Charters

Fishing has become so incredibly complex with entire industries devoted to each component of our equipment. Gone are those simple days when you could sit on the end of the dock and drop your line in the water in the early morning and wait for the moment when you feel the first nibble. The excitement and magic of catching that fish has remained with us as our world has been transformed through technology and science.

Every single piece of equipment that you have on your boat is an integral component of a successful fishing trip; everything has to be just perfect. One little imperfection will become a fatal flaw, a little nick in your fishing line, a chink in your downrigger cable will come into play during the moment of truth when you are far out on the cold water. Your electronics play a critical role, one glitch in the software, and your fishing trip is ruined. Your boat and your motor has to be in perfect shape; when you break down at sea, it is not like breaking down on the highway.

If everything goes well in your life, you work hard, you might get lucky and have the opportunity to become involved in downrigger fishing. First you have to go out and buy a boat, motor and trailer, and all the necessary equipment to go out on the water and that will be an experience in itself. If you are blessed to live in a country that has managed the natural resources properly and if you do everything just right, there is a real possibility that rod might go off and you might catch a prize salmon; maybe.

All that was just a prerequisite for what is to come; hundreds of hours pounding the waves, learning how to use the equipment, finding the fish, and if your lucky, if your really lucky, you might just start catching enough fish to make the whole exercise worthwhile. Or you could just go out on a charter boat whenever you feel like going fishing. In any case it is going to cost you money and time.

About twenty years ago I noticed an ad in the newspaper for a salmon charter in Lake Ontario, I thought to myself: "this sounds crazy" big salmon in Lake Ontario, just twenty minutes from where I live. Three hundred dollars was a lot of money to a young family raising four kids. Up until then my idea of fishing was limited to the lakes and rivers of northern Ontario and Minnesota. I grew up in Thornhill, the northern boundary of Toronto, our family vacationed up in northern Ontario every summer, fishing in the small lakes was my childhood dream. I would get up before dawn every morning, how could you sleep with that crazy loon making all that noise anyway. I stepped into my canoe resting on the shore and slid silently out on to the lake; it was just me, my fishing rod, and my red and white Daredevil. I was trolling.

That was the moment I waited for all year; to get up to the cottage involved five hours of driving in a packed car, and when we got up there and stepped out of the car, you were instantly breathing black files and mosquitoes. The notion of a short drive down to Lake Ontario without the weekend traffic jam, the mosquitoes and black flies somehow seemed worth the three hundred dollars it was going to cost me. That fishing trip transformed the lives of every member of our family forever.

Captain Dave McConnell on board Jezabel

We got down to Port Credit and met the skipper, Captain Dave McConnell, his boat was called Jezebel. I though to myself reflecting on the biblical significance of the name, why would somebody call their boat the Jezebel? you know the evil queen. The Jezebel was a twenty six foot Bayliner with your basic Chevy 350, it moved out pretty good as Captain Dave took us miles out onto the lake. When we could no longer see the shoreline, Captain Dave cut back on the throttle hard and the boat gently settled into the water like a big goose coming in for a landing.

The first mate was not there to help the skipper that morning so my kids got a special thrill driving the big boat while Dave was setting up the lines. No sooner than he got the first line down when the rod went off silently; and then the reel started to scream like the devil was on the other end. Dave started to shout, what are you doing, you are supposed to be paying attention. Nobody told me anything about that, I was used to holding onto the rod while I was trolling from a small boat, so you could feel the fish hit. Dave grabbed the rod, set the hook and handed me the rod. Ten minutes later I pulled in a twenty pound salmon; I was hooked forever. We went on to catch ten more salmon that morning, until we were all exhausted.

That was the first trip of many that summer, I had my own business running an AV studio in Toronto and getting away up north was only possible once in a while. Salmon fishing in Lake Ontario was the perfect solution for family entertainment.

Suzanne with our first boat at White Sea

The business was going pretty good and we were really hooked on salmon fishing. Any ways to make a long story short, that is how it all started, it wasn't long before we got our first salmon boat; a twenty one foot Cutter with a 350 Chevy engine; this baby went like a bat out of hell. We kept it at the Port Credit marina for most of the spring summer and fall, but we would trailer her up to Manitoulin Island for a month every summer.

Captain Fred White (left) Sharkman with family

Whitesea Fishing Resort Meldrum Bay Manitoulin Island

The young man in the bottom left is our future president Carl

By the way Meldrum Bay is about as close to heaven as you can find on this planet. One cottage every ten miles, it was just like God had left it a million years ago; every rock and bolder was still in the same place.

Wild Sky in Owen Sound

Just hang in there, all this is leading up to how the Shark came into being. Years later and three boats later we found ourselves living in northern Ontario. Suzanne was involved in a car crash and needed some time to recover, it was right around then I discovered what it meant to be Super Mom. I never came close to that title but I had a new found appreciation for the job she did raising our family. We made the crazy decision to move up north for a couple of years, just until Suzanne was feeling better. That was fifteen years ago; we have never looked back.

On our way up to Manitoulin Island every summer, we would pass through Owen Sound and Wiarton. Small towns with the amenities close by on the shores of Georgian Bay, part of Lake Huron, and there was salmon in the water. It was heaven on earth. On our last trip back from the island, we made the decision not to go back to Toronto.

Our eldest son Alex and I took the fourteen week Power Squadron boating safety course in Toronto just before we moved. I got a little concerned one fine day running into some unexpected twenty foot waves up at Manitoulin, I thought we should be better prepared next time. At fourteen Alex was the youngest member to graduate from the North York Chapter of the Power and Sail Squadron. I barely made it through the course myself, they didn't let me use the GPS for the navigation. It was the compass and charts and that crazy formula. The squadron leader gave us a rhyme to help us remember the navigation formula. "Two virgins make dull conversation" : True, Variation, Magnetic, Deviation, Compass. Somehow this was going to save us in the event we got blown out to sea late one stormy night. Thank goodness for GPS.

Showtime Charters at Port Elgin

Anyways, it was inevitable we decided we needed a really big boat this time to do this salmon thing properly, Georgian Bay was famous for its rough water. Alex and I came up with a good excuse to buy the boat, we were qualified people; we could start a charter business. The boat was a thirty foot Sea Ray Amberjack; the only boat Sea Ray ever made dedicated exclusively to off shore fishing. She sat in the driveway for the month of May while we addressed every detail; refinished all the wood, installed the best electronics, twelve Mustang survival suits, four big Jon Downriggers. We bought all the equipment from Randy Ford in Collingwood. Randy later went on to buy the Walker Downrigger Company.

Cosmo and son; first customer for Captain Alex and Showtime Charters

We moved the boat to Port Elgin on the other side of the Bruce Peninsula, the fishing was better over there in the early summer. The first few charters were really great, lots of fish, happy customers, a great experience for Alex to learn how to run a business. It was right around then we discovered the down side of the charter business; people would pay up to $600 for a day of fishing and they had some expectations of catching some big salmon. Wrong! There were days when we would pull back into the marina without any fish in the box. An expensive boat ride, it wasn't just us, none of the other charter boats were having any luck either.

We came to realize, all the best equipment in the world did not make any difference to fish that would not bite. Problem solving was something we were good at as a family, we were resourceful and we would often design and make many things for our house and our business that would improve our life. We were unable to come up with the answer to this problem while we were running the charter boat. Anyway this is turning into long story, so I better "cut to the chase". The kids grew up and became interested in other things besides fishing, the boat was too big for me to handle by myself. Our experiment with the charter business was over. But we still loved fishing, so it was.back to the basics; I bought a little fifteen foot aluminum boat with a trolling motor. I will tell you there is nothing more exciting than to be fighing a big salmon in a small boat by yourself in three foot waves; that is living.

I will post the story later exactly how the whole thing started with the Shark, but for now I will get to the point; what is the most important piece of equipment you have on your boat. When there are plenty of fish around and they are hitting hard, it doesn't matter what kind of equipment you have, you will still catch plenty of fish. You can put a concrete block down in the water for a cannonball and use beer caps for a lure; you will still fill up the box. When the bite is down however, that is a whole different story. It is exactly right then and there that the fundamental principle of fishing comes into play. You will find out quickly the one thing that will make a big difference on a bad day.

Succeeding in getting the attention of the few fish on a slow day, and getting them to come over to your presentation and motivating them to strike becomes the essence of the exercise. Suddenly all the fancy equipment you have; the big boat with the leather seats, the expensive electronics, the rods and reels, the gas, the slip at the marina, the navigation certificate, doesn't mean a damn thing. That stubborn fish doesn't care about your big boat.

At that point your only connection to this mysterious creature is what you put in the water. Think about it; the only thing that actually goes into the water is the cannonball and the lure presentation; the spoon or the flasher/fly combo. That's it, that is all that you have going for you. Nothing else counts, zippo!

Up until then, we were using the traditional round cannonballs just like everyone else. We did not set out to create the "worlds best downrigger weight, by coincidence we created a downrigger weight that simply worked better that anything else out there. The real story begins when we started to figure out why the Shark worked so well. It was through hundreds of hours of observation, studying every bit of scientific information that was available at the time that we started to get some clues how to piece this puzzle together.

The conclusion was a simple matter of deduction; fortunately for us the principle design elements incorporated in the Shark responsible for attracting fish (the facets) were already included in our patent application. This idea was so important, Carl retained one of the best patent attorney's in the USA to protect his idea; a good plan.

There were many good clues out there explaining salmon behaviour, millions of dollars of research was already spent, but for the wrong reason. At the time, hydro electrical engineers were only concerned about keeping salmon away from the dams so they did not interfere with the turbines. Interestingly, an engineer from Ontario discovered salmon could only hear in the low frequency range. He did an experiment with a machine that generated air bubbles and voila! He learned the secret how to call salmon to the other side of the lake. The same noise a school of baitfish make with their air bladders. He got a patent for his discovery and went on to sell it for millions of dollars all over the world. Now I don't want any of you guys sticking your head over the side of the boat and start blowing bubbles; well, maybe two guys, but anyway.

It was too bad no one told the fishermen about this discovery for thirty years, we were all still in the dark ages thinking fish attractors were only visual based. Other things played into solving the puzzle, underwater sound detection became an obsession with navy's around the world. Sorting out background noise from enemy submarines produced an immense amount of research. Marine scientist discovered there was an unbeliveable symphony of sound going on under the water all the time. Fish were making noise and responding to noise. After a couple of years we finally put two and two together and came up with the answer. It was the sound coming off the Shark that was causing the fish to come to the ball. The definition of a sound wave is: oscillating cycles of compression/decompression. Exactly what happens when water travels up and down over the facets on the Shark.

Ten years later it remains a challenge to convince many guys there is little or no light down there, it is all a function of sound. The really smart guy's caught on quickly and went on to win many big money tournaments. The other really smart guy's thought they already knew everything about salmon and were a little more stubborn to accept this radical concept. But many of them are slowly starting to see the light; I mean hear the sound. There is one more questions that needs to be answered; the oringinal question: What is the most important peice of equipment in your boat. At the end of the day, what is it that really is responsible for actually attracting fish; is it the downrigger weight or is the winky little lure following behind?

Back in the days when anglers were using round cannonballs, it was a reasonable assumption to give the lure all the credit; especially if you were using a very long lead. Then the flashers and dodgers appeared on the scene and were given some credit, rightly so. But at what cost, personally it ruined the experience for me to have a bread board spinning around between me and my salmon while I am reeling in. But that is just me, I have often said "I would rather sit on the dock and read a book than to go fishing with a breadboard. Nothing has changed that.

Then Mr. Shark came along and changed everything: it was a primary attractor that worked at least as well any other product on the market, and it restored some dignity back into the sport. Now you could fight your prize salmon without fighting the swirling breadboard. I do appreciate there are days when dodgers and fly combo's work better than spoons, and if your in a tournament or charging people money on a charter; you gotta do what you gotta do.

We did a survey among some of the most respected fishermen in the sport, the captains at the Pro Am Series in New York. We asked them straight up: Is it the Shark or is it the little lure trailing behind that is responsible for attracting the fish. The majority of captains stated emphatically for the record once and for all; It was the Shark without question. http://www.sharkcannonballs.com/sn_2008_winners.html
When sports writers report the results of the big tournaments all over the world, they still give credit only to the lure. i.e. 35 lb salmon caught on a blue and silver whatever. We are looking forward to the day when they get the story straight.

Think about it; a hundred feet down you have four gnarly Sharks ripping up the water with big hammered facets, do you really think it is the winky little lure trailing behind the Sharks that is doing the work?

So, to answer the question: What is the most important piece of equipment in your boat?
It's definitely not your boat. You saw the big boat we had at the top of this story. How about this boat? It is a fifteen foot aluminum boat with home made downriggers on it. There is no fish finder, only a depth finder, when you are using Sharks, the fish come to you. You only really have to worry about the depth. I never worried about temperature, everybody knows the fish come out of their temperature range to feed in the evening. There is no big V8 engine, just a little 9.9 two stroke. All I had for a reel was a knuckle buster, no clutch. The fishing line was Dacron. I only had three spoons, all a guy really needs: green and silver NK, blue and silver NK and a black and purple NK with a white face. I went out every evening just out a hundred yards from shore in Owen Sound Bay and came home with my fish every night. Anybody that knows anything about fishing in Owen Sound Bay will tell you there is not a lot of fish up here. But that is another story.

After our family moved up to Owen Sound there was a period of time we went through some difficult times, there was just not enough money in the budget that summer to buy a bout and all the gear. It wasn't even an issue, I told you earlier we were very resourceful, me and the boys just rigged up some basic equipment from spare parts kicking around, and I went out every night and had the time of my life. Way more fun than I ever had in the big boat. I came back with fish many times when the big boats came home empty. I was very proud of that little boat then and I am even more proud of it today. The only reason I caught fish was because of the Sharks.

Since that time, there are about ten thousand guys around the world that agree with me; your cannonball is the most important piece of equipment; that's why they call it downrigger fishing.