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Posts: 318
Location: Adell, WI | How many of you use tattle tail flags? What is your experiences with them?
Dale Kuklinski
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Posts: 194
| I use them and i have found they work probly 80% of the time. |
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Posts: 273
| I started using them some last year. So far I like them, no complaints. Are especially nice when the other person in the boat with me is inexperienced at running boards. |
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Posts: 84
Location: Hartford, WI | I like them when I have my son along ,Although he is learning to read the boards much better. I have found you need to make several holes at the front of the board for different tension levels. As a Reef runner pulls harder then a Shad Rap. Your flag would get pulled down by the reef runner If left at the same tension level as the shad rap. It is also nice to have if you get anything on your lure ( such as weeds ,small sheephead, or white bass) that may not be hard to read without the tattle flag.... I don`t like useing them on the larger Crankbaits such as the deep reef runners.. |
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| I personally don't like them at all. In MY opinion, they are training wheels for planner boards, once you learn how to read them you don't need them anymore. I will never run them again, but thats just me. |
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| It is my sincere hope that none of my competitors runs tattle flags. Need I say more?
Carl |
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Posts: 2300
Location: Berlin | I personally love them. I am not proud so anything that helps me to be able to tell if I have a fish on is a good thing. I especially like them when I am pulling harnesses at a very slow speed. It is easier to see a flag go down for a split second then your board to go back 6" when a crap fish steals the tail off your crawler. They are also nice when there is debris in the water. You can tell instantly if your lure is fouled. My time is to valuable to waste it pulling fouled lures. I don't use them when I pull harder pulling baits such as the deep thundersticks. Besides the price I can't think of one drawback to them. |
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Posts: 194
| hey GWH, what did u do to put extra holes, did u just drill holes on the front of the board or what did u do, just wondering, those nothches on there dont work decent. |
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Posts: 84
Location: Hartford, WI | Yes I drilled Very small holes.. |
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Posts: 40
Location: Oshkosh | I love the flags. I personally have made all of mine for the Offshores. They look the same as theirs but seem to work a little better. I use them for reading fish as much as being able to tell if there is anything on my line or bait. Once I see how the flag and the board are tracking it is very easy to tell if I picked up some weeds or if I'm dragging a little whitebass or something. Without the flags this is very hard to do. I figure if I am going to have the flag up for visibility I might as well make it more useful.
Mr.Bluegill |
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Posts: 215
| I just started using them last year and think they are great! They ALMOST eliminate wasting time dragging small whitebass, sheepies and debris. I have also put an extra hole in the bottom front corner to increase tension of the flag for hard pulling baits. Another thing you can do for hard pulling baits is to go to the hardware store and buy some different springs that have a little more tension than the supplied ones. Cheap and an easy fix to the hard pulling baits.
Also got a very good tip from a fellow angler...set the tension of the spring so the flag runs just below straight up for those fish that grab the bait and just follow along with the boat! If the flag is straight up,you will know something is going on in back of the board!
Can't wait to be trolling again!!
Big Grass
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Posts: 86
Location: Fond du Lac, WI | Hey Mr Bluegill,
Do you have any plans you can share with someone who wants to make their own Tattle Flags before forking out the money to buy one or two?
Hey Big Grass,
Do you know the size off hand of the replacement springs you use?
Thanks guys.
Dave. |
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Member
Posts: 72
Location: Plover, WI | Tattle flags help a great deal, as mentioned above, in dealing with small amounts of grass and tiny fish that wont show a difference in your board. I do not consider them "training wheels" at all. IMO that's like saying high-end graphite rods and fireline are training wheels for vertical jigging, and "real" vertical jiggers use ugly-sticks and 20lb mono.
I have made all of my own tattle flags as well. Dacoder, if you leave me your email I will snap some pics tonight and email them to you.
The spring of choice you hear most people using is the Century C-73 spring. I could not find these around me, so I used a close matched model from Home Depot.
Chad
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Posts: 215
| Yup...I think those are the ones I found that worked the best and I looked at a lot of places. Home Depot is where I found compareable springs to the ones that come with the Tattle Tale Flags. I'd have to look to be sure of what the exact part # is on the package, but if you have a spring from the Tattle Tale, you can take it along and compare before buying! |
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Posts: 21
Location: Stink Town, Wisconsin | I run tattle flags on two of my boards. The rest are all without. They're ok for yanking shallow cranks and up to about a #7 shad rap. Any harder of a pulling bait, and you need to get a stronger spring. Unless the fish are biting the slow bait, then I've been able to run a little bigger bait behind 'em. The deal I think is, you need to learn to read a tattle flag, the same as reading a normal board. They sure helped me when pulling spinners last year! They're great for that. Personal experience is the only thing that will help you decide if they're worth the time of messing with, or if you want to stick with the normal issue model. |
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Member
Posts: 215
| I agree...you still have to be able to read the boards! The only problem is that my eyes are on the front of my head and I can't watch both sides at once. 
Still, I think the flags are worth the trouble. |
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| The only problem with tattle flags is the springs. so what i did is went to the hardware store and got different size springs. Ive found that the
stronger springs work better for larger crank baits and bottom bouncers.
and one more thing always discontect springs when not using otherwise s
prings will streatch. |
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Member
Posts: 40
Location: Oshkosh | If someone wants to know how to rig these up they can call me and I can wxplain better but here is what you need. The flag is already there, the 2 clamps are already there...you can use the black ones but i reccomend the red. What you need is a heavy steel musky leader..costs about 1.50. a spring from the hardware store. .40. some slipbobber beads, a nylon washer and a pliers. It is best to go look at a flag system and see how it works to better understand how to move everything around. First you have to rtake the flag off and put the nylon washer inbetween the flag and the board to allow for easy movement. next take the eyescrew that is on the front of the unit and move it to the back. The piece of leader already has one end on it with an eyelet. Cut the other end and slide it through the eyescrew towards the flag. Make sure you put a beed on the leader before the eyescrew though. Cut the leader to proper length and bend the leader to fit in the hole of the flag or so it wraps around the flag depending on how old the board is. The flag should go back and forth now. All you have to do is put on the spring. connect it to the flag and then to the front of the board where the little slots are cut out. You just spent 3.00 for 15.00. You can send me the difference! hahaha
I will try and take some pictures to better teach how I put this together.
or just call me with any questions.
Mr.Bluegill |
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Member
Posts: 318
Location: Adell, WI | Bry is right some Pro's I know have gone to the hardware store and upgrade there tattle flags..
Dale Kuklinski |
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Member
Posts: 12
| I think they are great, especially here on the Winnebago system with all the 5" white bass and the small weeds you can pick up on the small lakes. |
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Tattle Flags