TOPIC:

Let's talk pros vs fins on slide divers and dipsey divers!

I just picked up some slide divers for the first time. Since u fish alone most the time I think it they will be great!

Also having the 6 setting all the way to the side will work well for spring fishing or getting away from the boat and still setting on that top layer of water.

What's your opinion on the 2?

This topic is very very debatable in many ways. I personally don’t like them but many guys swear by them. Here is my opinion and it is only that. Basically on a full salmon spread you have lead cores and copper long lines you have downriggers straight down typically back anywhere from 20 to 100 feet depending on the time of year and what you are trying to accomplish. Then you have your divers which is an in your face very aggressive presentation. When they are hot they are hot. That being said a slide diver is mimicking a downriggers in sense send you bait back 30 40 or 100 feet behind the diver in my opinion if I wanted another rigger or long line I would just put that out there. But in my eyes a slide diver would be awesome for smaller boats or when you have a hard top in the way and you don’t want to hand line fish. Basically a typical meet rig the paddle is about roughly 8 feet behind the diver and the meat rig is behind that 4 feet. So the hook is 13 feet behind the diver. A slide diver would slid down to the paddle or close it saving 8 feet of mistakes on netting a nice fish. I would suggest experimenting for your self and determine which way you like. Some thing work on one boat that does not on another. If your long lines are on fire and you can’t get any more out bc of the way your boat is set up us the slide diver it would be affective.

well said

Yep, I feel like the slide diver will make it much easier all around for me because of having a smaller boat and fishing alone. Long lines with a nice fish isnt easy to net! I'm hoping the slide divers will fix or help with this.

Thanks for the detailed reply!

I use both. Slide divers are harder to set. You almost need 2 guys. One to hold the rod and one to hold the diver and feed the line out. Getting them to grip the line and not slip can be tricky. I used surgical tubing and it worked pretty well. They catch fish but I cannot say they do any better than dipsey divers. If you run them shallow out to the side and way behind the diver they can get in the way of 100 or 150 coppers particularly when fighting a fish. I still use them but prefer the simplicity of the Dipsey.

Well we tried them on the Wildkat. Didn't like them for some of the reasons above. Couldn't get them to consistently stay where we set them, meaning the diver would slide down the line. We also had issues with them getting tangled with other lines when bringing them in with a good fish on the line. So we just go with what works best for us which is the standard dipsey.

I'll side with the more experienced guys saying the sliders will work but don't often produce or out produce Dipseys. Is the pain-in-the-buttness of using SD worth the simplicity of DDs? Not for me. In fact, the only guy I ever heard proclaim he always uses SDs was the guy who made SDs.

If you think your DDs are scaring the fish, why do they come in a wide variety of colors. If SDs are meant to be invisible to fish, why do they come in a variety of colors?

I actually fished with a captain on Lake Erie who spray painted his DDs flat black. "The fish keep biting the DDs not the lure," he said. I told him to put hooks on his divers.