Corner Shotting
Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2012 7:40 am
Hi All,
I’m going to try and describe something I discovered recently that has helped me enormously in shallow water especially when getting off the flats in a hurry is high on the agenda. Bear with me on this….
So…. If you fish shallow flats like I do you invariably at one time or another find yourself in the situation that you have enough water for the leg to sit in and idle along but every time you go to get up on the plane the motor bogs in to the bottom. Worse still, you have about 500m metres of flats to traverse and the tide is running out and you just know you will probably have to get out and push or worse. If only there was some way to get up on the plane and get the hell out of Dodge!
A few months back my mate Loch and I were shooting the poop about flats fishing and skinny water boats when he made mention of something he had seen where by hard cornering during the holeshot it was possible to get on the plane in water shallower than otherwise possible. We kept talking and I promptly forgot about the conversation.
Fast forward to last week and my rediscovered passion for Flathead in ultra-skinny water. Sure enough, after screaming in on the plane to fish a couple of shallow gutters and nailing a couple of fish I went to leave and discovered I couldn’t get up on the plane and would have to traverse a couple of hundred metres of flats too shallow to use the motor at idle speeds.
At this point the light bulb went on and I remembered the previous conversation and first go I got up on the plane and out of there!
There are a few key points to this technique which for lack of a better term I will call “Corner shotting”
• If carrying passengers make sure the boat is either balanced or leaning to the port side.
• Make sure you have enough room to perform the manoeuvre
• The manoeuvre will take approximately ¾ to 1 complete turn, so plan your starting point and orientation accordingly.
• The manoeuvre is much more efficient when performed on a left hand turn. I’m assuming this has something to do with prop rotation.
The Corner Shot works by doing three things that I can see:
• Changing the planing surface of the hull to a flat bottom thus increasing lift.
• Changing the angle of the outboard to get cleaner water.
• Providing temporary depth and lift for a short period of time when the wake is crossed over.
Anyway, hope this helps someone out there. It’s been a very useful tool for me in the short time I have used it.
Cheers,
John.
I’m going to try and describe something I discovered recently that has helped me enormously in shallow water especially when getting off the flats in a hurry is high on the agenda. Bear with me on this….
So…. If you fish shallow flats like I do you invariably at one time or another find yourself in the situation that you have enough water for the leg to sit in and idle along but every time you go to get up on the plane the motor bogs in to the bottom. Worse still, you have about 500m metres of flats to traverse and the tide is running out and you just know you will probably have to get out and push or worse. If only there was some way to get up on the plane and get the hell out of Dodge!
A few months back my mate Loch and I were shooting the poop about flats fishing and skinny water boats when he made mention of something he had seen where by hard cornering during the holeshot it was possible to get on the plane in water shallower than otherwise possible. We kept talking and I promptly forgot about the conversation.
Fast forward to last week and my rediscovered passion for Flathead in ultra-skinny water. Sure enough, after screaming in on the plane to fish a couple of shallow gutters and nailing a couple of fish I went to leave and discovered I couldn’t get up on the plane and would have to traverse a couple of hundred metres of flats too shallow to use the motor at idle speeds.
At this point the light bulb went on and I remembered the previous conversation and first go I got up on the plane and out of there!
There are a few key points to this technique which for lack of a better term I will call “Corner shotting”
• If carrying passengers make sure the boat is either balanced or leaning to the port side.
• Make sure you have enough room to perform the manoeuvre
• The manoeuvre will take approximately ¾ to 1 complete turn, so plan your starting point and orientation accordingly.
• The manoeuvre is much more efficient when performed on a left hand turn. I’m assuming this has something to do with prop rotation.
The Corner Shot works by doing three things that I can see:
• Changing the planing surface of the hull to a flat bottom thus increasing lift.
• Changing the angle of the outboard to get cleaner water.
• Providing temporary depth and lift for a short period of time when the wake is crossed over.
Anyway, hope this helps someone out there. It’s been a very useful tool for me in the short time I have used it.
Cheers,
John.