Line Dancin

Yeah i think you are right. it was an interesting episode.

the episode on mich outdoors they were fishing and the ice seperated and the group the Mi Outdoors people were walleye fishing got a call from the sherrifs dept to go out on the rescue. They were saying that they and a few other boats do the rescues down there now since there is no coast guard station around monroe any more.

this is correct it will continue to get colder to the bottom. As far as the 39.2 rule i am not so sure about that i just know what the divers from my dive club see at depth for temp. the way i learned it in school is colder water is denser than warmer water causing colder water to be lower in the column. If you take three different bottles of water each colder than the first pour them into a bucket in a way not to mix the water it will set up just like a lake with thermal breaks. It doesnt last long in a bucket beacuse the air will warm the bucket eventuall causing the water to mix. (we did this in my physics class about 10 years ago in college) The reason ice float is becaus of; (now i am borrowing this from a physics book because i can't remember): "Ice is the solid state of water. Ice floats because frozen water is not denser than its liquid form. This happens because water does not follow the basic principle of thermodynamics. In other words, a solid is heavier than its liquid counterpart and should sink. However, ice has a unique molecular structure that allows it to float. When water is frozen, the molecules are forced to pack in very tightly to each other, eliminating as much space between them as possible. Ice may look and feel solid enough, but it's actually made up of a lot of empty spaces. The triangular shape of ice's molecules keeps them apart and creates a tightly knit latticework instead of a dense solid structure. When water is frozen, it actually decreases in density and increases in volume, which makes it much lighter than its liquid form. So it's water's unique molecular shape that allows ice to be lighter than water and float" i have seen it down to 36 on wrecks in the middle of summer at 90 ft down. I was looking at my fresh water dive log and temps like that were in june. i dont know about the floating up type theory i just know what i see when i am diving and my computer is accurate. if it wasn't then six divers all getting the same reading would be a little odd all using different manufactures of equipment. So back to your question can they be anywhere in the water column. I have seen them in the water column, and laying along side burbot on the bottom in 30ish degree water, and feed through out the water column but they do have a preffered temp. Do i fish the preferred temp yes i do with most of my gear, but i always keep deeper lines as there are fish there to be caught that are feeding out of there temps.

Nice job guys. Cant wait to get on the walleye again next season on erie. That is if the DNRE dont screw up the limits to baddown there. We may end up on the bay next summer for june instead of erie.

sounds interesting how often do you have to reapply it?

they showed something like that on Michigan out of doors last year. Didn't say anything about what they charged but they showed them going out on erie to do rescues and get equipment. The guys that they were with actually used the craft to get out to where the fish were and then when they had break offs they went and did rescues.

ok i get what you were getting at. My computer is accurate to a tenth of a degree. we dove all year long when i was on the fire dept dive team including cutting a hole in the ice with the charlevoix coast guard dive team. i have seen temps to 33 on the bottom and at 33 my ice rated reg gives ice crystals with every breath. at 34 it looks like your descending into jelly. Anyways back on topic like i said i have seen the fish feeding in that cold water so i always keep a couple lines in that deep cold water and they do produce fish. sometimes better than the preffered temp ranges.

I get what you are trying to say Jim but your diver reference is completely wrong. the weight is to get down under water with all the buoyant equipment that a diver wears, it has nothing to do with making it easier to move around. A wet suit or dry suit is very buoyant, so in order to sink you add lead weights to the point that you are just floating at mask level with all the air out of your BCD. when you exhale you begin your descent. Then as you descend throughout the water you get compression on the suit, equipment, and the air you breath eventually making you more heavy, and this is where you add air to a buoyancy control device to slow your descent and make you neutral at the depth you want to stay at. If you didn't add weight i don't care how hard you tried you would never leave the surface. Now my take being a diver and being in water down below the thermoclines on some of the wrecks, there is a preferred temp for fishing BUT i have seen salmon down under that preferred temp attacking other fish and never get close to the preferred temps. when there was bait at the preferred temps while we were descending. Some of the bottom temps i have seen that at is down to 34-36 degrees on my dive computer. So i don't know how true all the preferred temp feeding is at times. I do use a temp probe and fish from 44 up to 54 degree temps primarily. but i always have lines in that cold water because of what i have seen and those rods do take fish.

Which blower did you try? West Marine has a boat defroster and i am here to tell ya it works slick as s%^&. I now have two to clear my entire windshield. takes about 10 minutes while i let the engine warm up before we disembark. there a little pricey at 35 bucks each but they do work as advertised. link: http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?productId=46782&catalogId=10001&langId=-1&storeId=11151&storeNum=10114&subdeptNum=10699&classNum=10702

You have it backwards. Filleting is removing the fillet off the spie on each side. skinning is laying the fillet flat on a table and running the blade just above the skin to remove it. Forshner is the hook type blade and i use those for hacking the fillets off 9 and 12 inch. then i use a buck 9" in fillet knife, very straight, to skin all my fillets. I also use this same knife to remove the later line fat. It completely changes the taste for the better to skin and remove the lateral line. Dont let people tell you you cant grill or smoke skinned fish. we have been doing it for over 20 years, there are some that say it isn't possible. If you treat the grill or the smoker rack with grilling pam or the new stuff from weber grills(i like this one better) nothing will stick.

I agree with Nailer on the current. First thing we do is drop a prob and find the temps we want 54 down to 44. then we find the current and go right into it. We change depths to find where the fish are and sometime we never change course if we are hitting fish. If not we turn around and go back through where we got fish on the same troll into the current. I good site to get an idea of the current direction is http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/res/glcfs/ Check it before you go out and you can get in the general direction and then fine tune it when you get things in the water.

Have a happy and safe turkey day everyone.

Good to know they are just about around the corner from me (maybe 4 minutes away) In the sprin they also have a big sale the weekend before the fishing show in grand rapids. Also Gold Coast outdoors in port sheldon has a big open house. Both have great deals on gear. I usually hit them before the show and end up with most everything i need for the season.

Jim i have to say i also agree that weight should be the decider. i hate the different points per fish. It should be on total weight for 6 of any fish in your cooler. then a biggest fish in a species. That is why i quit fishing tourneys. I hate the points perfish system. why should a guy with six jacks beat out a cooler total weight of three bigger fish just because of the points per fish.

I was sent two spools of the "new stuff" after having nightmares with the old stuff on two shimano tekota reels which is what they recommend. It is better but i am not sure i will buy it again. it doesn't fray as easily but it still frays and has to be cut back. I guess not reall frays but strands pop out they are still solid but pulled away from the main line. The old stuff was plain junk it had kinks just from them spooling it on the filler spools from the factory. Will i spend the extra to buy it again. Probably not.

Ben i know you are looking for used stuff. but dont forget the fishing shows are starting in January and if you are buying a bunch of stuff from one booth they will typically either cut you a better deal or throw stuff in for free. The trick is looking and finding a booth that has most of what you want and talk to the boss there. I did this with one booth that had a great price on okuma reels I needed to upgrade 8 reels and talked to them about buying all the reels from them at one time cash and they nocked off another 5 bucks per reel. at 8 reels that added up to almost enough for a ninth reel. the firsth on is january 13-16 in novi and the one in grand rapids is March 17-20. They both have different vendors grand rapids with a few more big lake booths. but there is also great deals on salmon gear at the novi show.

Personally i hate carpet. A wet deck or fiberglass deck is the way to go. You can get a floor paint for fiberglass boats that has a grit in it so it isn't as slippery when it is wet. A deck preped like that makes clean up a jiffy. it also doesn't hold the smell like carpet does. Carpet gets the fish smell in it and it never goes away. Does your deck have wet deck ports on it? Ken is right on way your rods work out. The big thing is figuring what you want to run, and the spacing to run it. And you can never have enough rod holders on a boat.

I had an issue with this also a while back. i took a bike tire inner tube cut it wraped it around the rail and then clamped it down. Now they never move

I agree with this part and learn to use it properly.Go to lance Valentines seminars on fish finders and get his dvd on it and you willlearn a lot. I learned more in the first hour then the thirty years of messing with it and listening to others peoples settings that still are not correct. Alot of people claim to know what they are doing with them but after going through that seminar i found out otherwise. it is amazing what you can see when it is working atpeak performance. and if there is any way mike can talk him into doing the seminar it would be awesome but i think he is a big ticket speaker. I would suggest everyone with a fish finder go through it. I would also second a probe it really helps to get into the right water for catching fish. Although if you arefishing areas where guys off here are fishing and are willing to give a little info. you can call them and ask top speed and depth of thermalbreaks to get situated. I know a couple guys doing that right now as they are trying to get other needed gear right now to get started. I just got a probe unit on my boat last year afterowning this one for 10 years now.

i went from 10 lb round to 14lb round finned and i have some 15 lb sharks. the sharks do have a little less blow back. i HATE the pancake weight because of the reasons stated above. I had nothing but problems when i decided to try a pair. If you want to go heavier then yeck is making a finned round that you can add a smaller round finned to it. also these made by torpedo diver are supposed to work great but are almost as pricey as sharks: https://www.torpedodivers.com/scart/product_details.asp?ItemNum=G0010

the black in Petoskey? i am going up to east jordan to our place up there for the week of deer season.

Correct on this. i still keep a couple half core and full cores on board. but for the most part copper almost always takes fish.

Nice job guys. Sounds like it was just a little chilly out there.

Man you just brought up memories. I used to fish yates like 20 years ago when i was in college at henry ford community college and u of m dearborn. That is a nice place to fish close to home. Nice job on the steelie. Usually when i used to fish there i would keep going downstream to get away from all the people and would get into more fish that way.

you need to go at least 40 lb leaders mine are on all 50 lb when using mags. doesn't matter what rod you use there is just no stretch at all in that wire. also you have to use a good dreamweaver type snubber. i cut my teeth on wire with luhr jensen snubbers and lots of lost gear. Switched to 50 lb and dreamweaver snubbers and my hook up rate and lost gear rate went right up. I wont fish without my wire diver and i use both the 8'6 blue diamonds for my lows and my 10' for my highs. Also use good high quality swivels like the dreamweavers or a 50 lb sampo. on the leaders.