Just Hook'n

That is awesome about the bait. Nice job on the feeshes.

I've been wondering the same thing. It was a really cool thing to check out and I miss it.

Those 11.5 lb fish look like our 3 lb fish over here sitting next to those brutes. WOW.

SWEEEEET. nice work out there after a few too many days of hard waves.

AWESOME. Sounds like the guys running the tournament in Saugatuck should have gone up north to find some fishes.

When we fish, we are pretty consistent on speed no matter what we run. Our dipseys were puling right at about 2.7sog going north and 2.3 going south on Sunday. It changes day to day, but you'll know when it'd dialed in. That being said, if the fish are not buying what you are selling, speed is the easiest thing to change and probably the most important. Slow down, speed up, or just do some turns and if the fish bite on the inside of the turn, slow down, if they bite on your outside gear speed up. We run standard (package) length behind 8" protrolls and 8" spind doctors. We lengthen our flies (change out the line that comes in the package and redo them) for the 11" boards. I don't run any 10" spinnies yet, but I would do the same for those as well. Good rule of thumb is 4x the length of the attractor/board/paddle/etc. I really wish that someone (please big weenie) would sell an off the shelf fly package that has 48-54" line in it. I only buy BW flies because I like their hooks and quality, but I am getting really good at breaking their stuff apart and redoing them longer.

I love my HDS5. If the 8 is anything like that you are all set. Also, you can hook radar up (if that is ever a consideration for you) to the lowrance units. not sure about the hummingbird. May have the samea capability. Just pointing out what I like about my HDS.

Well the lake finally calmed down enough and EVERYONE and their brother were out fishing on Sunday. As you all know the lake flipped over Friday so it was not like we've seen lately where you are in shorts, tee shirts and no shoes by 7 am. It was sweatshirt weather for quite some time. Left the dock at about 5:15/5:30. Took a look in front, but didn't want to play bumper boats. Went out to 60ish and started setting northwest. NW to about 120, SE to 65, NW to 85 and SE back in to 50 before we pulled lines. Mostly ran downriggers down 49-70 (depending on depth of water), dipseys out 85 on 1.5 with standards, 5 color, full core, 100, 200 and did manager to drag the 300 copper for a short time. Riggers were dead. Tried spoons, plugs, large paddles, small paddles, spinnies, meat, long leads, short leads, nothing. Don't think we even had a release all day. Dipsey went early with our biggest fish on mixed veggie spin doctor with green fly back 85. Full core went twice with blue/green half moon flounder pounder. 100 went with double glow ace high. 200 went with green ladder back ace high. 5 color went with ???? - darn I can't for the life of me remember. 300 took a laker with a fat nancy. 7 for 7. Biggest 13lbs. DNR was at the Holland cleaning station taking sames of fish. Great work guys - thanks for all you do to try to help keep the fishery thriving.

Plugs were working this weekend. Seems early, but I guess everything is early this year.

Welcome. Another Dave I know I know.

WOWZA. Get out early before the crowd.

You have been having way to much fun in ludington. Great job.

Rods, we run rollers, but you can also run twillie (sp?) tips. I like running 10' roller rods (okuma blue diamond are the ones I use, but there are others out there too) on the outside and then you can run a 8'6 or smaller on the low/inside diver. Run your outside diver on 3 or at least 2.5 and run your inside/deep diver on 1.5 or less. You may also want to run a mag diver on the inside and a standard diver on the outside just to get more separation. Recently there was a thread that guys were talking about divers and running three a side. Try it if you like, but I would not turn - ever.

Add some bags to the mix. Trolling socks are great for keeping the boat straight. You will have to bump up the rpms a little on the motor and may burn slightly more gas, but your boat will go straight, handle better in waves, etc etc.

Well, it was a summer that everyone made it home and you caught some fish. Can't be mad about that Nick. I think we all wish we could fish more, but family is far more important than fishing (yep, I said it).

RIGHT, I'd like to see pictures of a steel ho.

Man, very nice trips and great to see the sunset on the lake.

Very nice trip.

Nice work getting in a quick trip before it got sloppy.

This is all new to me. Don, I was not aware you did this. Interesting. I'll have to give it a try.

Nice work Aaron. GREAT for a short trip.

I saw this on Lakeshore Outfitters web page. AWESOME. Way to go guys, and thanks for sharing the story.

Nice work Jon. Nice of you to put up with Ken. Hahahaha

Better ratio next time. At least you had a lot of action.

I had big jon trees. They were the kind that you could move into different positions. I loved them for boards, but I don't know that I would recommend them for dipseys. Perhaps the kind that are solid welded pipes. I would use a backer plate that is about twice as big as the mounting top plate to spread out the weight. Sherman has some great advice. We've done other "crazy" stuff before too so you can shoot that comment right back to me when the time is right.