zgrinder on Fin Warrior

Hit the big pond tonight with Seafoam and Little Boat on board. It was great to run 9 lines on Fin Warrior for the first time this year. Set up prior to 6:00pm just north of Holland Harbor and gave the Steelheaders lots of room that planed out in front of us. Program: 300Cu with at green paddle and teaser meat rig to SB, 300 weighted stee with a green paddle and a water melon like Brads Cut Plug loaded with Tuna to port. High and low dipseys on port/starboard with spoons and SD/flies. Two downriggers, one light blue SD/fly and one spoon. Pushed one of the non used riggers to center and ran a blue-silver J-plug down the shoot. The 300Cu with meat in 132FOW on a North troll got hit immediately and we boated a 18lb king. There was much rejoicing as we optimistically thought there was more to come (Monty Python fans will appreciate that comment). Over an hour went by before a high diver, 42' down on a return SE troll with a mixed veggie got hit. It was a good fight but came off. Got the business end to the boat and the hook was gone on the Mixed Veggies spoon and the blank was bent 45 degrees inward. Don't recall seeing a spoon get destroyed like that before. Bent it back into shape, put a fresh hook on and put it back down (I actually like the spoon action better). Kept the southernly troll going and boated a 6lb coho in 119FOW on a down rigger down 75 @ the ball tipped with a blue SD and powder blue fly. That set up came alive again an hour later in 137FOW, same basic trolling direction, producing a 4.5lb coho. In between those two fish, we boated a 8.5lb SH on inside dipsey, down 50' tipped with a bloody nose spoon. Evil Alewife on a down rigger down 75' in 133FOW on a SE troll got pounded right at sunset. Unfortunately, we lost that due to a break off at the terminal tackle knot (I can't believe my double uni knot failed). There was one other 6 for 6 catch on the dock but no big kings. Radio chatter seemed like a lot of boats were searching a lot till dusk. Had a great time with new friends. They have some pics of the catch that might follow this post.l

Impressive catch of kings and I see that those tasty 8lb coho are still hanging around. Appears green was the clear winner in the color selection. Plan on giving it a go tonight.

Hey Ed, Check your inbox on the GL Fishermen site. Sent you a private note. Rich

Nice work with the meat rigs. Bouncy but no flies! Plus you get artistic points for capturing the Great Republic in the background coming into Lake Mac for a night landing.

I store two lengths of 25lb fluoro dipsey leaders on Tackle Buddy Snell Holders in my tackle box. 9' leaders are used for clean spoons and 7' leaders are used for dodger/fly set-ups. The 9' spoon leaders are tied off with a small 30lb coastlock snap swivels on the business end to minimize weighing down the spoon action. The 7' dodger/fly leaders are tied off with a 30lb interlock snap swivel. The different snap swivels also helps me know which is which when I deploy or store the gear. By trial and error, this is the maximum length of leader I can use to net a fish fishing solo - and that is pushing it. Most of my divers are clear Dream Weaver Deeper Divers although I have a few traditional dipsey hold overs. I have a pair of Chinook Divers but have not used them in a long time - struggled to get the releases set right. I believe the plastic divers are more forgiving in this regard. I set the depth of my dipseys using a Smart Troll probe attached to the line just prior to hooking up the dipsey. I have lost a number of probes over the years which has hurt the pocket book but have finally worked out a method of attaching the probe that has yet to fail. Plus I clip off that portion of mono and retie the snap swivel before each trip to assure fresh line is in the OR-16 clips. When fishing solo, I set my dipseys at 1.5. Trolling at 2.3-2.5mph, the Deeper Divers sink about 4' for every 10' of mono deployed. Traditional dipsey divers with the ring attached perform the same. One last thing, the weight in the Deeper Divers rattles around in the housing. I put that extra room to use by picking up a roll of lead tape with adhesive backing (2g per inch) on Amazon, unscrewing the back of the diver and inserting lead tape cut to the size of the weight profile (requires two side-by-side pieces, not one on top of the other), adhesive side down on the existing weight, and screwing the two pieces back together. Does it make much of a difference? I don't know but I am running with this idea for now. I do have two slide diver rods on the boat but have not run them yet this year. They are spooled up with 30lb Power Pro tipped with 80' of 25lb fluoro (leader and diver attachment location.) Had a bad string of break off slide diver donations a few years back and got reluctant running this program. This year, I changed all my knots over to a Double Line Uni Knot, both fluoro and mono. Formerly, I used a Trilene Knot for almost 30 years. Believe this knot is fine for mono rigs but suspect it is a poor choice for Slide Diver rigs. The Double Line Uni Knot will get hung up a bit in the eyelets if used as a knot on the back end of the leader but I am getting used to it. I have had one break off with this knot when a king hit a Stinger Kevorkian on a high dipsey at dusk and took the lure. Fish might have cut it. I could not find any evidence that the knot failed (no curled up line at the end).

Janet was on board for her first fishing trip of the season and was rewarded with a boat load of flies. Dropped lines just before 6:00pm, fishing closer to Port Sheldon covering 145 to 105 FOW running 4 dipseys and two down riggers, no long lines. The few times I have been out, most of the action has been on dipseys so I went that route plus it would be easier for Janet to handle versus 300 Cu. All our action came on northerly trolls where the boat speed was slower. Boated and kept 2 nice size coho in the 8lb range. First one came on an inside dipsey with a DW UV Green Dolphin down 54'. After a two hour wait, the second came on an outside dipsey with a DW UV Mixed Veggie down 33'. Switched over to darker lures for the night bite. Stinger Kevorkian on a high diver got three hits: Once nice king that flipped out of the water, bent the hook and got off, one drive by and the last rod in the water as I picked it up - a small 4lb king that was released. Netted and released an additional small king in the dusk bite. Downriggers down ranging 66-85' of cable out with spoons and flies did not see any action. Overall, 4 for 6 with coho for dinner tonight and a boat to clean this afternoon.

Very nice steelhead caught on the deep rigger. Hope you can figure out an easy means to store the boat while you repair the bunk board on your trailer. Are you thinking of fixing it yourself or taking it over to someone who can work on it?

Nice to get action on multiple set-ups. Happy you had a good day on the water except for the break off.

Nice catching! Hope I can find some of that action on my next trip.

Great pic on that herring! Agree, the fly bite was nasty.

Below is the full catch log table

Hard to believe Fin Warrior has been in the water since April 21st and this was the first time I wet lines. Fished the top of the water column with two dipseys tipped with spoons and on downrigger rigged with a SD & green crinkle fly two passes out. Set up just north of Saugatuck in 130 FOW trolling south at about 11:00am. After about 30 min decided to move out to deeper water. As I moved into the second of two slicks in 187FOW, the downrigger went off. Netted a 5lb king and released it. Made a quick adjustment to start turning south to follow the slick. Before I could get the rod back down, the port dipsey sporting a DW Mixed Veggie UV spoon brought in a 4lb coho which I kept. Just as I got the downrigger down to depth and finished the turn to the south, the SB dipsey tipped with a silver red UV spoon went off bringing in another 5lb king that was released. Got both dipseys back down and followed the slick in and out but the magic was not there. Changed direction to a north troll, back tracking my southernly run but not a bump. Did notice that the water temp at my Smart Troll probes dropped two degrees so on a hunch, decided to move closer to shore to get back to 54.5 degrees at 45' down in the water column. Got to that temperature in 170FOW and got a second hit on the dipsey with the Mixed Veggie spoon. Lost it at the back of the boat. Likely a coho by the way it was thrashing around. Pulled lines a short time later weary of the front moving in that broke up over the lake. Mid-day the lake was very flat and the flies were thick but not biters. The coho made for a great dinner! # Time Fish Weight FOW Latitude Troll Wind Dir. Speed @ Ball Rod Bait Depth Bait Temp Bait 1 12:19 PM King 5 187 42o 41.955 W SW 2.8 DR 20# 45 53 Dragon Slayer SD / Howie Green Crinkle Fly 2 12:28 PM Coho 4 192 42o 41.780 SW SW 2.8 Dipsey - Mono 45 54.5 DW Mixed Vegie UV spoon 3 12:35 PM King 5 194 42o 41.650 S SW 2.8 Dipsey - Mono 35 54.5 Silver Red UV spoon 4 2:09 AM Miss 0 170 42o 43.040 E SE 2.8 Dipsey - Mono 45 54.5 DW Mixed Vegie UV spoon

Two very stout kings. Nice reward for the effort.

Nice cooler of eyes you have there Ed. Great fishing!

That is walleye heaven!

Storm Trooper fishing! Appreciate the Snowman runs in the spirit of the day. Yes you need a pilot house - I see one in your future . Thanks for the report.

Thanks for sharing the pics. Browns are good eaters - enjoy!