TopDawG

thanks a lot that was very good information and much more than I expected. Were going to fish 2 days so hopefully will be able to cover some ground. I fished (240) out last year and did better than going east. thanks for the come back! TD

Anyone have anything to report out of Erieau in the last week? Headed their Friday and Saturday. TD

Hey guys looking for 8ft wolverine charter choice downrigger rods. They are shakespeare and also have tiger blank above the fore grip. Printing is in blue, eyelets are wrapped in blue. I'm looking at buy new ones if available, but heard that the guy that made these rods passed and none are left. Hope that is not the case. If you have used ones in decent shape and are looking at selling or not selling, i'm willing to offer a price! Td

well now that i am 24 years old and figure that the crash happened some 7 -8 years ago i had to stick around, i caught the tail end of some spectacular salmon fishing on lake huron, nothing comparable to what some guys refer to the old days, but i remember 1 hour salmon limit charters, i remember trying to lift a cooler with 18 kings out of a boat and breaking the handles on the cooler. your not going to get me to quit fishing. like the the lake has evolved so have I and so have my tactics. Tonight I ran 10 rods and no down riggers. go figure right? it is fun going out and taking people fishing who ask what are we fishing for and I always resppond whatever bites today. You just never know from the few salmon we have to the plentful lake trout and everything in between. TD

nice catch king chaser, i see big kings and screamin reels in your near future.

Last Thursday we took 6 steelies and lost that many, 1 coho, and 2 pinks. (3) 3 colors of lead (2) 10 colors and (1) 300 copper with stinger spoons in the natural born killer, yellow jacket, and gold orange crack, and silver streak jerry lee. Sunday Morning we took 2 steelies, 2 laker trout, and 4 walleye basically all on the same setups mentioned above. Working 95-125 f.ow. 6 miles north of Harbor Beach. TD

It was bad on lake erie sunday too, went all the way to erieau and only got out once. one of these trips the seas will be calm and the fish will committ sucide for you adam.

Saturday morning we left the marina at 7am and i was the fortunate one having 4 kids on my boat. They all had a blast and all got the chance to reel in fish. I also want to say I didnt have to run in and out with sick kids as some boats had too. The conditions were pretty nice. 1-2 from what seemed like multiple directions all morning wasn't that fun to find a consistent trolling direction. We went straight out and to the north in 100f.o.w and did most of our damage in 125fow. Blades with spinners on the bottom took 4 lakers, average was 6-7lbs. Took a steelie on a 300 copper with a NBK. Salmon on dypsy 120 back, orange crush gold stinger, and a brown trout 10 colors off a mixed veggie stinger. all in all 7 fish, we only lost one, a steelie on a 3 color that did a few dance moves and said bye bye but the kids talked about that one, the one that got away the rest of the morning. Back in by 1030, put the boat on the trailer, had lunch and on the road by 1230 for erieau. only a 3 hour drive, after a few stops and crossing the bridge we got their by 4pm, got adam and nick their licenses. Guy suggested we only get the one day since sunday forecast didnt look good and boy was he right. Launched the boat and ran some 8 miles east and caught 9 walleye, 2 steelhead, 1 king, 1 jumbo perch, and only if i was counting the sheephead, but i would say 20 was on the low end. 40 purple jets back 150 were the best with a gold and red stinger with black dots. It got beat up really bad. i wish i would have done a before and after shot of this spoon. the one by the end of the night had no paint and was bent every which way but still continued to take fish. we lost a few good steelies that never hooked up good on sliders. knowing the forecast for sunday we stayed out later than i wanted and hit the launch at 11pm. the lake was really humping at this point from the southwest as we could only do 12-14 miles into a dark abyss. that was really draining. got in though with no huge problems and had a molly burger and a few cold ones and hoped the wind god would be kind the following morning, which he wasn't so we had a nice relaxing day, slept in and walked around the town in the morning and left by 11am. thought it would be a good idea to take the ferry back across in marine city because we heard horror stories about long waits at the bridge to get back into our own county. go figure. anyways the ferry was the way to go. we drove right on and right off with no issues and back in harbor beach by 3pm. maybe going back at the end of this week weather permitting.

Hey guys, been meaning to write more on this site but time and being busy has kept me from that. anyways i want to thank everyone for the thank you's on the win in the ludington tourney. Anyways I was just part of a very good fishing team and we were well organized and stayed out of the booze for most of the weekend. I was just 1/4 of the team and it took everyone doing their part. I'm heading to Erieau Saturday afternoon and planning on fishing saturday night and sunday morning and maybe get back next week sometime. Thats all after the thumb steelhards organize a free kids fishing day out of harbor beach where 15-20 boats donate the day to take kids fishing. Cross your fingers and hope the seas are calm and the fish are biting this weekend. will update you monday how the weekend went. tight lines everyone! TD

Looking for a reasonable priced place to stay for the benzie frenzy. its kind of last minute and i imagine a lot of places will be booked already, but just looking for a plce to stay for 3 guys close to frankfort where we dont have to pay an arm an a leg to stay. any and all recommedations would be welcome! TD

just start at the stick and work your way north

wondering who is the best of the best? and would like to put the ludington tournament behind us since its in the past. it is what it is, still many good tournaments left this year. TD

thats the word, shimano dropped BCT, one of the tournament commitee members is the head dog for shimano, will wait and see next year if Okuma or Penn buy a section of the BCT!

thanks for the congrats guys, its official now and yesterday was my birthday and it was a quiet one, tonight we celebrating lake huron style! Shimano has broke off from BCT and now we have to go through switching the trophies. If BCT did nothing wrong then they would have gone through the investigation. You really need to start questioning observers supplied by boats. Also they stack observers with teams, BCT and Blue Fairways, give me a break, put all the names in a glass bowl and pull 2 out, all this matching with boat size is crap. If your fishing the pro division you got the boat you know what I mean. Anyways what a relief and just wish we could have recieved all the stage time sunday that BCT did.

I had the pleasure of fishing aboard the boat 'Z-1', a 28ft Albemarle for 4 days this past weekend. I told Paul and Marty yes before they even finished asking me. We kept the boat at Harbor View on D Dock and I met the boys their Wednesday night to discuss what we were going to do tomorrow for the Ruoby Thursday. getting down to the boat at 5am to a steady rain with lightning, we waited for the tournament comittiee to say yay or nay. A couple of good storm cells were moving across the lake from Wisconsin and after they delayed it a second time we went and had breakfast up the street. We finally got underway at 0915 and fished until 1600. We ran to the Little Point and stated to dial in our program. Fast forward to 1500 and we hit number 12 fish on a 300 copper while i was starting to pull lines. It then became a rush because we put the boat in neutral. We netted our largest king of the day, our 12th to be exact at 17.8lbs and felt good about our top 5 kings that we would weigh in at great lakes ford. Living the Dream's cooler was in front of us and they put up a big number of 81.6lbs and knew we didnt have that much, but we had a respectable score of 76.55 and took 5th our of 62 boats. Friday was a was wash, event though we sceduled to be in the ladies Pro. We had Paul's wife and 4 year old daughter and Marty's wife and 2 boys 7 and 11. A couple kids got sick and the wives didnt want any part of the 4 footers, so we took one kid out and got him a 7lb king to reel in and he was rewarded with $50 dollar savings bond. Saturday began the tourney for all the marbles and we knew we needed to get back where we were Thursday. So when 6am hit the clock we launching a 15000lb boat out of the water in some 3-4 foot waves. more boats seemed to head north but all the big boys were going south. At the end of out 20 mile run we started setting lines and it didnt take long. Our first 1.5 mile pass took 11 kings. we could only take one more and we needed to be a jim dandy and thank god it was, came on green splatter j off the 300 copper. Time to go trout fishing now and as soon as we switches over we got one, half hour later in the same spot we pulled a little bit nicer one, and then the dreaded last trout took 90 minutes but at 11am we pulled an almost 11lber off the boat and high fives and yelling and beer cracking was going around. We hit the pier heads at 12 and got our fished weighed right away at 133.10lbs. Cleaned fish and boat and then waited to see where we would stand after day 1 and it happened to be 1st place. 7 points ahead of Best Chance Too. Living the Dream was in third with the heaviest catch of the day at 136lbs but they only weighed in 11 fish. Now with the targets on our back and everyone wondering whose Z-1, where they from? we knew we had to perform on day 2 just as we did on saturday. We knew if we took care of buisness we would could win this. Conditions were nicer than saturday and it made it a tighter boat race since everyone could open up the jets. We put our first fish in the box at 0637, remember we ran 20 miles and the tourney started at 0600. We actually took our kings quicker today, but noticed they were smaller than day one. we even caught 4 kings later in the day that we threw back that could have helped us. We struggled getting our trout and only got 2. Had a sick feeling that one trout, all beat it 20 inches, was going to cost us. Top 5 coolers from day one would weigh them in on stage. Best Chance Too weighed in their 12 fish around 118lbs. Having 7 point lead from day one we need to have 3-4 lbs more weight since we were one fish short and I thought we had it but we actually weighed in with 118lbs as well. Quick math knew we came in second. We gave it our best shot and tried like hell, but a couple boys from Port Huron and Harbor Beach coming over and playing in the Big Dogs backyard and doing as well as we did was satisfying. We were told that no money would be handed out. Their was a protest from two other boats on Best Chance Too. Speculation was they were busting off small fish in the downrigger cable so they could catch bigger kings. Once a fish is boated its yours to weigh. It sucks it had to come down to this. I don't think anyone has the balls to dq the best cheaters too. If they did do this, you wonder how many times they did it before. So as of Tuesday everything is still unofficial or at least we havent heard anything. But we sure had a blast and will remember this experience for a lifetime.

you think the walleyes move out later in the day, or are they stacked shallow to deep off the lighthouse? could be some steel too grant. just got home from ludington so i dont know whats going on here. we came in 2nd in the pro division. i will see ya around this week. dave

After fighting all road traffic all the way across the state we arrived in ludington around 3pm and were met with heavy southwest winds and a bumpy looking lake. we talked it over for awhile and thought it may get better as the evening progresses so we went out about 1800 and ran to the 01's in 130 f.o.w. Had 6 of us on the boat and all knowledgeable fisherman when it comes to setting lines and what not and turned in to be a disaster as we tangled lines for the first hour. Basically to many chiefs and not enough indians. so after i settled everyone down and got our 3 riggers, 4 dipseys, 2 lead and 2 copper we started picking away at the fish. Trolled all the way to the 05's. 03 line seemed to be the best. 300 copper and 75' down a rigger were most productive rods with the same setup. A dark green spin doctor with a green and yellow strong fly. Also took a few fish on ace hi plugs on the wire 150-180 on a 1 setting. moonshine mongolian beef went as well. Ended the evening 7 for 10, all kings, and couple in the high teens. we pulled line around 10ish. Next couple of hours inclued heavy drinking to go along with the last few hours and a emergency 5 large pizza delivery for the 6 of us at the marina. Coupled with a few hour kat nap, we hit the water again at 5am, minus 2 who thought sleep would be more important. We ran back to the same area and found the fish weren't packed in as tight to the bank as the night before (maybe they stayed up to long drinking as well) or maybe we were just of our game but we ended up going 3 for 7, all kings again. Thought they were biting short because every fish that hit the net was off. Blue bubble spin doctor with agua strong fly on the wire out 180 took two dandy kings as one was 20lber by the eye scale. couldn't get my hand around the tail section! Had a good two outings considering the conditions as it was hard to get speed right. and found out that my probe wouldnt work so no idea where the temp break was, just knew it was deep. looking forward to getting back over their asap!

Fishing continues too be really good out of Harbor Beach aboard the Top Dog! Fish moved out a little deeper as last night and this morning I did most of my damage in 115 f.o.w. Totals included 20 lake trout, 19 pink salmon, 3 coho, 1 steelie, and 1 atlantic. With the pro king coming up next weekend, I been using them more than I usually and i'm really not familar with names, but best colors have been green and orange. Trout mainly coming off the bottom, 2 and 3 colors of lead have been really good. Dypsys on 3 setting out 50-60 have been well too. If you need to know more you can private message me.

i was fishing st. joe a couple days this past week, and the cotton was really really bad, just wondering if things cleared up?

would love to be their but already made plans to fish a pro king tourney, going to take a rain check and catch the next one

Took the good with the bad this morning. It was borderline to venture out in the thick pea soup fog without radar, but I stuck with what electronics I had on the boat and got out and in safely. Fishing was hotter than hell as we boated 27 fish, 16 pink salmon, 1 coho salmon, and 10 lake Trout. Had 4 boys on the boat from 12-17 years of age and they all had a ball as by the end of the morning they were spotting the hits, reeling in the fish, unhooking them, bleeding them, and setting the rods back. 2 riggers near the bottom with trout baits, 4 dypsys with greasy chicken wing spin doctor and gold flys and mixed veggie spoons, and stinger spoons in the gold and red variety on 2 and 3 colors of lead. Set lines around 7ish and pulled lines around 11ish. On a sadder note, not long after I pulled the boat from the water, the coasties were responding to mayday from a dive boat where one diver was having complicaptions down 130' on the Dundenburg. Haven't head a confirmed report but uncusseful cpr on the way and a very blue colored man, things didn't look very good. Ambulance was waiting at the launch when the coast guard made it back in. Like I said visibility was all on 0.1 of a mile when I made it in. really have to appreciate the dedication these young men risk their lives and in unfortunate times. Tommorow morning will be another day for the Top Dog as I have a feeling I will be getting a late start with some woman aboard.

I have pictures to add, but I'm either really stupid or blind and can't figure out how to attach files from the pc. Any help with this would benefit everyone.

Got a little later start than I normally like as my buddies freind was coming from Davidson. Left the dock around 630 and had lines in the water around 7ish. We took a 30 degree heading from the north gap and sat down 4.5 miles from the gap in 90 f.o.w. It didn't take long to get fish going as a gold cut bait head with 2 gold twillies produced 2 large lake trout. After fine tuning the program and staying on the fish we finished with 13 Lake Trout, 2 coho's, 2 steelie's, and 2 pink's. Both coho came on a dreamweaver super slim mixed veggie, dypsy on a 3 setting, 60 back on mono. Steelie's we on 2 cores, both small stinger spoons, gold and red with black dots (don't know the names). Pink's came on short cores as well. Trout also came on brush dodger with a green stripe and lemon lime spinning glow. Worked 90-100 f.o.w. mostly all morning. basically straight out from Filion Road. My buddies son who was 8 had a ball with the trout and jumping steelies as he always wanted to reel the fish in. Ended the morning around 1130 with 19 total fish and who knows how many we lost, but little Bennie is now hooked for life and was wondering when he go again..

heading out in the a.m. and will let you guys know hows everything goes, haven't been out since last saturday and with all this nice weather, have the itch too serioulsy spend some time on the water. dave