Simple to use, Torpedoes can blast the mid-day blahs. By Dan Keating

Remember the old TV show “McHale’s Navy?” I was fascinated every time lieutenant commander Quinton McHale launched a torpedo over the side of the PT 73. For McHale, the torpedo usually bubbled off only to miss its mark, but last year a new torpedo hit the Great Lakes fishing scene. These new directional sinkers, known as Torpedo Divers, efficiently and easily hit their targets more times than not.

Torpedo Divers have a variety of applications but really shine on calm days during the dreaded midday bite. Essentially, Torpedoes are not divers, but sinkers, shaped like a torpedo that attach to your fishing line via a clip and an 18-inch leader. Their hydrodynamic design allows them to penetrate deeper in the water column than traditional sinkers. They come in four sizes ranging from the 2 ½-ounce Snapper to the 13-ounce Musky.

The directional Torpedoes have a fin that you can adjust to make the sinker run out to the port or starboard side and are great alternative to the aggressive presentation of Dipsies or Walker Divers when the early bite shuts off. The directional Torpedo allows you to turn the same rig, minus the Dipsy, into a stealth presentation. And yes, you can use the same rod and reel that your braided diver was on.

On the business end I like to run spoons with a small, 30- pound ball bearing swivel from Sampo or Dreamweaver and a 10- foot, 8- to 20-pound fluorocarbon leader. I tie the leader onto a swivel, and that is tied to 30-pound test braided line—the same line that Torpedo inventor Matthew Sawrie used to put together the company’s intricate charts.

The same spoons that work on leadcores and light line riggers seem to work great on the Torpedoes, too.

The rig is easy to set. Simply let the spoon (or flasher/fly or body bait) out 10 to 100 feet and attach the Torpedo to the main line with the clip. Next, make sure the Torpedo clears any rigger lines you have in the water and then let the rig out until you hit your target depth—easy to do with the charts that come with the weights. When a fish strikes, you will be amazed at how little drag the rig puts on your rod or the fish. This results in a much better catch rate. The minimal drag is due to the sinker’s design and the angle of the dropper line. As the fish approaches the boat, you simply and quickly pull the clip and sinker off of your line and finish the fight.

The Torpedo website has depth charts for the various sizes of sinkers, but the actual running depth will vary depending on trolling speed, current, wave texture and lure selection. My advice is to spend a little time experimenting with these rigs when you first run them. Honestly, it took me a few trips on the water until I figured out how and when to incorporate them into my spread, but it was worth the effort.

When running the angled sinkers in place of divers, remember that you are putting a line into your spread slightly out to the side of the boat, but your lure can be adjusted to run further behind the boat than a traditional Dipsy. The Torpedo is also very quiet as it moves through the water, resulting in a very stealthy presentation.

Torpedoes have another practical application; they can help extend the reach of anglers with a limited budget or rod selection. You can simply add a Torpedo to a lead core or copper rig and sink the entire rig deeper in the water column. For example, maybe your longest leadcore rig is a six-color (60 yards of leadcore line). Let all the leadcore into the water and attach the Torpedo of choice to the backing. Then, let out enough backing to take the leadcore as deep as you want your lure to go. For example, if you figure 5 feet deep per color, six colors of leadcore is already taking your lure 30 feet deep. Add an 8-ounce Musky Torpedo, let out 100 feet more backing, and at 2.4 mph the Torpedo will get down 45 feet—the lure behind your six color is now down into the 75-foot range. Snap on the 13-ounce Cuda (the biggest), let 100 feet of line at 2.4 mph and you will achieve 55 feet more depth, putting your lure about 85 feet deep.

You can also use Torpedoes with shorter segments of copper. For example, you can run 75 or 150 feet of copper with braided line backing. The larger Torpedo can easily sink your lures past 100 feet deep. Sawrie says you can reach 150-foot depths with Torpedoes and copper.

You don’t diminish the hypnotic effect of leadcore as the Torpedo is in front of the dancing leadcore. You can also run these versatile tools with a side planer (I like Church Walleye Boards), which adds a surge-and-pause motion and takes the line to the side of the boat.

If you're serious about Great Lakes trolling, you might want to try Torpedoes this year. While Torpedoes catch fish all day long, these directional sinkers really sparkled during the tough mid-day bite last year. I look forward to hearing how creative anglers incorporate these new sinkers into their spreads this season. Post your results on GLAngler.com. GLA

Torpedoes come in four sizes (from top right): 21.2-ounce Snapper, 5- ounce Shark, 8-ounce Musky and 13-ounce Cuda. Chart s compiled by inventor and company owner Matthew Sawrie show the weights are highly speed dependent. For instance, the big Cuda will go 55 feet deep with 55 feet of 30-pound test braided line out at 1.7 mph. Speed up to 3.4 mph and you�fll need 304 feet of line out to get down 55 feet. See complete charts at torpedodivers. com.

Spoons, flashers and Torpedoes to cover water. By Dave Mull

Speeds of 3.0 mph seem fast to some salmon trollers, but last season, we experimented with faster speeds, pushing our project Starcraft center console from 3.5 to 4.0— sometimes higher. It reaped results in Southern Lake Michigan , catching cohos, steelhead and kings—even some lake trout. It appears to be a solid tactic for fish when they’re scattered, especially in the top 50 feet of the water column.

This is mainly a spoon game, with a spread of thicker spoons more commonly cast or jigged. We also tested the Tamiron Optimizer, a thin gauge spoon with an unusual shape. Drop this spoon in the water at 4 mph and its wide, slow wobble might make you think your speedometer is malfunctioning. The Northport Nailer, hook switched to the nose of the spoon, is another good speedy spoon. Tamiron’s Rocket Flasher is built for speed, thick, with six different holes to attach your main line.

Jim Martino, owner of Tamiron, had been bugging me to try his products at high speeds, but like most trollers whose eyes water at 2.6, I had a hard time pushing the throttle far enough forward to see the Optimizers’ and Rocket Flashers’ optimal performance. Finally we dedicated a day to speed with my two favorite adolescents, Josh “Big Hurt” Crosby, a long-time fishing buddy, and Jesse Boven, aka "Thunder Teen," my stepson who is an excellent boat driver.

We got a late start on a cloudy, late August day out of New Buffalo, Michigan. Steady, though light, southeast winds had brought in unusually cold water with surface temps in the low 50s and high 40s just 20 feet down according to the Depth Raider. We marked fish sporadically in the 20- to 30-foot levels.

The eight-rod spread for our high-speed assault included downriggers, four Torpedo snap-on weights (two different sizes) and copper lines on planer boards.

We set the 300-foot coppers first to avoid unwanted contact with the chute Torpedoes. The Church Boards had been upgraded with the company’s Vise Clip to ensure the line would stay in place at higher speeds. We guessed the copper would be in the 40- foot range from 3.5 to 4 mph.

Then we set the boat’s two Cannon downriggers. One had the 11- pound Ridgeback Rattler weight, the other had a 15-pound Tru-Trac ball. To add attraction to the spread, we put a set of Hammerhead vertical spinners above the Ridgeback, a set of Tamiron vertical spinners above the cannonball. These are three blades attached to cable where they spin one above the other. This vertical spinner cable clips in between the downrigger release and the ball.

We cranked the Du-Bro release tight and clipped the 20-pound test in, trailing the Rocket Flasher green/glow Action Fly about 20 feet behind. It went 30 feet down. A spoon on 12-pound test went on the other rigger. The spoon stretched 100 feet behind the ball, which we set at 35 feet down. Blowback, it appeared, raised the balls about five feet.

Down the chute we ran two rods, depth on each control led by 5-ounce Torpedo Shark weights on 15-pound test Stren braided line. One rod took a Tamiron Optimizer spoon; the other had a 3.4-ounce Lindy Viking spoon. We set one Shark 130 feet behind the boat; the other 150 feet back, relying on the line counters on 6-foot Fenwick walleye trolling rods (fun reeling in salmon on these!). Abu 6500 reels matched nicely with the little rods. According to the Torpedo charts, 150 feet out put the lures down a bit deeper than 25 feet at 3.5 mph, raising them to about 22 feet at 4.0 mph. The Torpedo set out 130 feet ran a couple feet higher.

Then we added two Shimano Talora/ Tekota wire combos with 8- ounce Torpedo Musky weights out on each side of the boat. These were roller-guide rods spooled with 30-pound test, seven-strand stainless steel on Tekota 600 LC reels. The Torpedoes are directional, so we bent the vertical fin to take one flasher and fly combo a bit out from the side of the boat. We set both of these out 150 feet, which the Musky chart says would put it between 40 and 45 feet at 3.5, up to about 30 feet at 4.0 mph. The other had a 3.4-ounce Viking spoon, stretched on a mono leader 25 feet behind the Torpedo.

Action that first day consisted of cohos, kings and steelhead. A challenge was keeping hooked fish out of the chute rods. We had no problems, with Jesse steering the boat like a pro and the knowledgeable Josh either clearing lines or steering fish. When a fish hit the copper, side Torpedo or downrigger rod on one side, one of us took the fish, the other quickly reeled in the chute rod from that side.

Resetting the copper was a bit of a trick. We simply took the chute rod from the side where the copper would go, reeled in about 50 feet and put it in a holder so this Torpedo line ran right over the outboard and provided room on one side of the chute to let out the copper line.

This faster trolling definitely works with the right lures. We'll keep you posted on what we learn in future experiments.

What do you get when you combine two Canadian engineers and some molten lead? Torpedo Divers. And they’re no joke.

In fact, they’re capable of solving the riddle of how deep your lure is.

Matthew Sawrie and his partner Everol Layne are engineers and hardcore anglers who have started a new company called Cuda Sinkers. The Torpedo Divers are one of their first products. In four sizes, each is designed to get your lures deeper than any other kind of weight of similar size.

“People aren’t aware of the importance of efficiency,” says Sawrie. He says that a single, 1-pound ball has the same drag as 32 Musky-size Torpedo Divers, which weigh 8 ounces each. This hydrodynamic efficiency not only helps the design get deeper with less weight—when a fish runs the Torpedo Diver turns with the fish and creates little resistance.

Sawrie also touts the versatility of the TDs, which hold firmly with an Offshore OR 16 clip (which has a peg in the pads) to mono, braided and steel wire line.

“You can put them out to get a similar presentation to a Dipsy by clipping the weight close to the lure, a similar distance as a Dipsy leader,” says Sawrie. “For stealth, just let out as much line as you want and then attach the weight.” He noted Offshore and Church Walleye Boards can handle the 8-ounce Muskysize, the second largest. Others are the 2- 1/2-ounce Snapper, the 5-ounce Shark and the 14-ounce Cuda.

Sawrie notes that while the weights do go deep, they also allow the angler to determine just how deep they’re taking the lure.

“The guys who are going out and getting their limits, it just means they’re keeping their lures in front of the fish longer,” Sawrie says. “And while you can get to any depth you want to with Torpedo Divers, more important is the ability to be precise— to know exactly where your stuff is.“

To achieve this, Sawrie spent countless hours trolling at different speeds and recording in what water depths each weight contacted bottom, producing charts for each size. All these are available at the company website. By the end of this fishing season, he hopes to have added charts that take into account how the drag of different lures, such as flasher/fly combos versus spoons, affect the depth at different speeds.

The Torpedos already have deepwater guru Mark Chmura excited about their potential for taking 200 feet deep and deeper.

“I can definitely see the 14-ouncers out on big boards getting more lures to those fish than we can with downriggers, and lots easier to handle than wire and 3-pound weights we’re using now,” says the Manistee, Michigan captain who used and caught fish with weights last season.

Sawrie says the depth potential is unlimited. Just add more Torpedo Divers to the line, “shirt buttoning” like float anglers do with split shot.

“When ‘shirt buttoning’ with a Musky Torpedo (which weighs 8 ounces), at 2 mph, 55 feet of line (30-pound braid or wire) out equals 40 feet down,” Sawrie says. “When we clip on a second 8-ounce MTD and put another 55 feet of line out, our first MTD is now 80 feet down. Now we have 1 pound of weight, 110 feet of line out, down 80 feet. We can continue doing this and reach infinite depths. So 400 feet of depth equals 550 feet of line out, eight MTDs—four pounds of weight. The coefficient drag of a Torpedo Diver is .045, the coefficient drag of a sphere or ball is .5, meaning that 10 MTDs will have the same drag as a sphere of the same combined frontal area. Ten MTDs may seem like a lot of drag but considering that 32 MTDs have the same drag as a single, 1-pound ball the drag isn’t that bad. The weight of a fish will feel 4 pounds heavier reeling it in.”

You can also add a TD between your cannonball and downrigger lure—a Secret Weapon Rig variation, taking the lure below the ball. Or, use them in lieu of downriggers during fall’s boat-infested weekends around the pierheads for salmon. Some anglers will add them in front of copper or leadcore lengths to achieve greater depths, too. With a clip and wire, the prices range from $18 for the small Snapper up to $22 for the Cuda.

No doubt more than a few Great Lakes anglers will dial in these weights and make the Torpedo Divers new weapons in their trolling arsenals. –Dave Mull