SUPERTRAMP

Good luck on the new venture Matt. Hope you have a successful summer and continue to be a valuable contributor here.

Nice Job on the Steel Ed.

10" Spin Doc UV with big weenie uv meat rig and drag it along the bottom.

There are a number of good meat Rigs, Sigs makes some really nice ones and several others too I use big weenie and sigs mostly. I use mostly herring strips or if I can cast net some I like alewives. Just be sure u run slow slow slow, and the best presentations are all meat or just a small amount of hardware on long lines ie full cores and copper rigs. I am not personally comfortable running flashers on long lines. I do use them on my dipsy rigs and downriggers. usually my presentation is my deep divers have meat on them and all of my downriggers. that gives me 6 meat rigs in the spread. I have only used the meat presentation in the summer and fall when fishing is tougher. Springtime I never even have time to set out those kind of rigs.

Welcome aboard Jess see you on the water.

Will be going over next Tuesday to get the slip ready will post a report on the ramps, The St Joe Ramp is always a better bet for deep water launch. Check out the map quest to find good directions to get there. There is a 5 dollar daily park fee but it is safe and patrolled no vandalism reported there. My boat is slipped rite next to it and we always launch there.

Last weekend, I had the enjoyable experience of fishing for blue gills with my son and had my first hands on experience of using a flasher to locate and catch fish, It was a hoot, 2 hours we sorted thru gills and crappie and kept enough for me to have a couple of fish fries. 21 nice winter gills, we did the run and gun approach, drill holes check it out with the flasher and move if no fish showed. It is a neat experience to watch the fish rise to a jig and see the spring bobber dip. I have not done much ice fishing over the last 20 years, as age has caught up I got tired of drilling holes and catching few fish. I may just have to buy a flasher and dig out some more of my old tackle. OBTW this was a hard fished lake in the Barry State Game area and we had lots of company.

I use both free sliders and fixed sliders, it depends upon how deep I am fishing and what presentations my main line has on it. I do not use sliders on Paddles and flies Spin Doctor and fly or dodger and fly rigs, the slider can get hung in the attractor and get cut off. I have personal experience with this. Large king hit free slider on a tin can dodger and Spin n glow laker rig slid down and the tin can got around the slider leader and cut her loose rite befor we could net the King. I run rod length leaders for my sliders most of the time. My down rigger rods ar 8'6" Okuma DR rated rods and work really well. Most of the time my fixed sliders are attached with a snap and fixes with a rubber band.

I am voting for the Fishawk, no need for special cables and batteries last for months. Just another transducer on the boat and the speed n temp unit on the downrigger cable. I do add a breakaway to the downrigger ball if it gets hung up its a lot less expensive to replace a ball than a temp unit.

I have an igloo 150 with cushion on the top and it works great. my biggest complaint is that we do have to replace the hinges every once in a while, but it is a 10 dollar fix and I keep a couple on hand, 6 screws and easy squeezy lemon peezy fix. best of all under 225 dollars if you shop around.

Good post lots of info there. Lake Michigan is a little different ballgame but still the same principles apply.

I would like to know the answer to that too. I only target them in the early spring befor the Salmon kick it into gear. I didnt target them at all in 2012, Salmon started in March and never let up. This spring we will certainly try to target them.

Last spring was an unusual spring, March 31 in St Joe 19 fish in 2 hours, fished in tight to the dirty water and no further south than the pumping station, images in my gallery show baits and the catch. We started at 10:00 am and were off the lake by noon. The spring pattern is shallow water and speed about 2.5 mph anything red or orange catches fish. I don't think we will have another year like that for a while, the lake has already iced up more than in 2011-12, and the wind has been a lot worse. I slip in St Joe and will let all know as soon as we can get something going. I may take the small boat out before the ice is all gone if I can make it to the end of the piers there will be fish there. Note the flys shown with the red dodger are hommade red and gold crinkle copies of Siggs coho candy. They were hot all thru April. We never ran a line deeper than 8 feet and long lines were 1color or 2 color. small dipseys out about 20 feet set on 2. 4 riggers with long leads about 40 to 50 feet and from 2 to 8 feet down. 5839&c=member&imageuser=140]

Well said yesterday cure is tomorrows failure when it comes to getting too tied to any one type of presentation. I still run full cores and coppers side by side, 450 copper 300 copper and 10 colors all produce . Just be careful on turns with that much length out behind the boat.. I find a lot of strikes come on the inside of the turns. Followers get excited when the bait slows a little and drops down, they just can't resist it. Some times the opposite is true only the outside rods see action. It all depends on the mood the fish are in. Try all of the stuff at your discretion then stick with what is working that day. Extremely important to keep track of sun and wind information, it can change everything.

This is my prefered way but I do go thru the eye of the swivel twice first. To the reel I run on about 75 yards of 30# big game and tie the wire to it with an albright knot, never have a slipping line on the reel spool and have a full spool on the reel. I run the Okuma CV30 and it works great.

I run 150 yards of Power Pro 40, 40 yards of 20# mono and 300' of 45#copper on convector cv55's and have never been spooled. The Nono helps to hook up boards and provides a little stretch as previously noted. Matt's idea of winding on in reverse and then rewinding would work but like I said lmao its a lot of winding for an old guy like me. I use the reel fill calculator and have never over filled a reel and lets face it get reels big enough to handle the load. The CV55 is a great reel for copper, good drag and a loud clicker help detect hits.

Now thats funny don't care who u r. \

Jon got it dodger and peanut right on the bottom and slow down to about 2mph or slower. I do take lakers hi in thel water column in spring and early summer at King speeds. It really depends on the mood they are in but to consistantly catch Lakers the presentation Jon showed is killer. Meat Rigs also work really well for big Trout. 'Spin n glows and peanuts are both creations of west coast company called Yakima Bait, they have been around for a long time and can be found at any good big water tackle store, rigged or ready to rig.

The Big Jons are really nice and u can adjust the angles easily and easy fold up holders for storage when you put the boat on the trailer. I run Great Lakes trees and they work well but are not as adjustable as the Big Jons and are not as user friendly but for the $400.00 price difference I can live with it.

Any word on the St Joseph Buoy?

We usually run a bout a 6' leader, and the weight depends on the spoon and presentation, usually from 1 oz. to 3 oz. I run a high line down the chute with a bout 1 oz of weight, and on my 6" walleye boards up to 3oz so I can go from deep to shallow as I go out from the boat. This presentation can be killer on Steelhead in deep water. Spoons with some red or orange and a lot of flash that run well at high speeds. Stingers and Stingrays DOC and tequila Sunrise work well. Most important is find the cold water break and follow the inside of the break. Start at about 3.5mph and increase speed until u start getting hits.

We have done that when high speed trolling for Steelhead in deep water. Usually works really well but we are trolling 3.7 to 4.5 mph looking for Steelhead in the top of the water coulumn.

Thanks for this article Dave> I thoroughly enjoyed the website and admire the young man. To have the humility to be able to teach adults without sounding like a know it all is a special gift for a person his age.

The only thing I would add is be sure to get a dual frequency 50/200 khz. The 50 Khz gives much better definition at depths over 50' and has a wider cone. I really like the Lowrance gen 2 with 7" screen really nice and easyto use.