wild at heart

went straight out to 185 and had 2 cohos in first 15 min. Ended 4 for 5 with 1 steelhead, and 1 miss , and 3 coho. quit early because of rain and cold. Don't forget fri at 8pm finall sign up time on line for the $2000 first prize Holland Steelheaders tournament. more info in tournament threads or our website.

I was by Port Sheldon 2 weeks ago and was shocked by what I saw. Areas that I duck hunted 2 months ago were dry sand. There is mud flats on all the shore, some places 25 to 30 feet out form previous low's. There is no way I could launch my 22' cuddy there right now. I figure this means another 50 to 100 boats launching from Holland on weekends this year.

The speaker for our annual banquet will be Captian Ray Vanzytfeld from Early Bird. Come hear and question one of the hottest tournament teams on the "trail" and back to back winner of the 333 overall. $20 bucks gets you dinner and more at Beechwood Inn Feb 21. See our website for more info and to sign up. www.hollandsteelheaders.org

correction. the ages for the kids tournament are 6 to 16

First. Our 4th annual Mich Challenge May 18th has some Big NEWS. Community West CU has become our title sponcer and stepped up in a big way. First place is $2000 which I believe makes the Mich Challenge the biggest 1 day payout on the lake. $500 for big fish, $500 for the top out of town boat, and $100 big species prizes. Its a catch 15 weigh 5, with an entry fee of $70. You must have one registered member of the Mich Steelheaders on each boat. 2nd. On June 29th we will be holding our first annual Kids and Kings tournamnt. First prize is $500, with cash and trophies paid for 25 places. Ages 8 through 16 will weigh 1 fish each with a $25 entry fee. There will be species prizes and raffel prizes and t-shirts. Rules are very simple. We may have some spots available for underprivilage kids. We are looking for sponcership help for this tournament including a title sponcer. This is a great way to help get kids invovled in our sport. You can pm me if you have any questions or interest. You can get more info and sign up soon on our website www.hollandsteelheaders.org

Dave Mull will be speaking at the Holland Steelheaders 12/6 meeting at the Yatch Basin Bar. Drinks at 6, dinner at 7(provided by Request Foods). Open to all. Come see your freinds and meet some new ones. Dave will be speaking about this summers harrowing experience where 3 others and Dave had a boat sink under them in Lake Mi and spent 4 hours adrift. Dave will be sharing info with us to make sure this doesn't happen to us. Their will also be a Raffle.

your right Matt, dont know why I put laker.

Oh ya, a Tiger trout is a cross between a Brook Trout and a Lake trout,

nothing reaaly special Tom. typical 9 rod spread of 3 riggers, 2 dipsies, and 4 boards with copper. All the regular spoon and flasher/fly combos that you typically see posted on here. Mountian dew SD with pickeled sunshine fly and Double Trouble Moonshine spoon are always out. 1 rigger is always 1 to 2 foot off the bottom. Best advice is watch these reports for current info.

For 2012 we ended up going 353 for 497 on 39 trips for a 9.1 per trip average. we caught 242 kings 34 lakers 48 coho 22 steel 5 browns 1 tiger trout Our king catch was way up from 2011(130) and our laker(77) and coho(78) were down. The main reason for this is we started targeting kings in April(55) by running out deep rather than running to St Joe to fish for coho. We actually took 8 nice kings in March. We also spent less time fishing for lakers because we were getting kings in deeper water than I usually find lakers(no dissapointment here). The best sucess of the season is that we increased our fish per trip again this year subsantially from 7.3 to 9.1. We were well over 10 per trip at the end of July but had some very low numbers in Sept. Our total of 353 was our 2nd best ever. We took 370 in 07 for 53 trips. We only had 4 trips in Aug, we just could not get out. In May we caught a trout with incredibile markings. Turned out to be a tiger trout. We didn't do much on big fish this year. Lots of kings 15 to 19# but no 20's. Lakers, steel, and coho were smaller on average and browns slightly bigger. No break-downs and a minimal lose of equipment loss made for a very good season. We had 3 trips with over 20 fish and a dozen over 15. Best trip of the year was Friday the 13th of July pre-fishing the Muskegon tourny. We were 15 for 23 with 13 kings over 12#, a #8 steel, and a 7# brown in 2 hours all within 100yds of the peir heads, fishing with my twins. I last fished about 4 weeks ago and my son last wed and there was an incredible amount of bait out in 120 to 140(mountians). Im excited to get back out next year and anixious to see if we can find the kings out deep again in March/April. Best of luck to all, and I would very much like to see others yearly reports.

problem is that the natural reprodution your talking about is mostly up north of Muskegon to Manistee and we don't see those fish much.

correction to above post. Holland is only getting 15k kings planted this year.

last trip of the year for us. we left at 3 and got caught in a storm cell about 4. Lots of lightning and it rained as hard as I've ever seen it on a boat. Nice after it passed but we only managed 1 small laker. we fished 100 to 140 and we marked more bait than I have ever seen. Ball after ball from the bottom up about 40 feet. Lots of hooks too but just couldn't get them to go. I talked with Dan Keating a couple weeks ago and he saw the trawler out doing the alewife surveys and got him on the radio and they said they were getting lots of alewifes and counts were looking very good. I also heard that Holland and Saugy were only going to get around 22k in king plants each which is down about 50+ percent from last year. Less plants and lots of bait could mean some bigger fish years with less quanity for the next few years.

your quitting way to early, some of the best fishing still to come. good job Mark

good job Tim, glad you got your 20 #

Dont worry Joe. With 4 or 5 different speices of browns running around you see some major variations. Chances of getting an Alantic this far south is pretty slim. We had 2 browns that were 8 and 9# in the Brown Blast 4 years ago that you would never of thought were the same species. If fact we thought one was a spring king until we got back in the harbor to take pictures and saw the square tail and white mouth. Gained us some bonus points though.

Tim would never brag about this but I will for him. On Sunday he fished solo in 3 and 4's with 1 line, in an 18'er and caught the 3rd biggest box on the am side for the day and placed 3rd in the 333 in his very first tournament in the Muskegon Tri Port. Now thats dedication or being crazy, not sure which one yet.

Erik, Is it correct there is no late sign up fees? Can you sign up at the captians meeting?

Tim, Dirty Dog, Ryan, and JH I'm with you. I fished the Muskegon triport and hated the format. We worked to not get small fish but still did. It changes your whole strategy, and chance becomes a big factor. I have fished the BRC for 6 years and am seriously thinking of skipping it even though my whole vacation is planned around it, including being at Holland State Park that whole week. Why would I do this? It was not fun concentrating on keeping fish off and not on catching more. I think the BRC is the best run tournament I've fished and you get a lot for your money, but the format and like Tim said, pay all that money for 5 fish. Sunday we were done by 9. I am thinking of fishing the Waypoint/Saugatuck now instead. You can fish out of Holland and drive your catch to Gables. Best part CATCH 15 WEIGH 10. I will also be fishing the steelheaders mens the week before the BRC. CATCH 12 WEIGH 12.

we had it happen twice this weekend on brand new Moonshine RVs where we lost the treble while it was out. Both times though the split ring was damaged. Never had it before and I run a lot of Moonshines. I think the fish get some tourque on them and works them out.

I believe the depth copper runs is directly related to speed. Its been documented that 45# 300' at 2.5 runs 55 to 60 foot. Slow down to 2.0 and youll drag bottom in 70fow. slow down for lakers to 1.5 and you can collect mussels in 90fow. Lead core worked because it swam up and down in the water column, copper does it even more and I belive thats why it is so effective. We speed change all the time on our boat so the copper is always rising and falling. you wouldn't believe the number of strikes we get within 5 to 10 seconds of throttling up or down. No alewife ever swam 2miles in a straight line ar the same speed. Salmon are famous for following baits for long distances with out striking, but speed up and pull away or suddenly start to fall and bang. Copper also creates more trurbelance going throught the water because of all the bends, mends, and kinks, it also creates more drag going through the water which effects yhe depth it runs.

thought about not posting todays trip because I don't think it will be of much news to anyone, or any real help, and braggin bugs me. But since I've got some nice pm's and comments at the cleaning station I will just say its all the same. 80 to 100fow 50 to the bottom, earllier the better, Mt dew SD w/ green flies and Moonshine spoons including the new Rv Series. Big kings, and even some smaller ones showing up, lots of steelhead. Heard one guy saying Jplugs were hot this am, so we put 2 out and 1 went after about 2 minutes for a 14# king. Fishing couldn't be much better so get out and get some. For the guy that fell in up to his neck trying to hold the boat this morning at PS at 4:30am, that jumped in boat and took right off, THIS BUDS FOR YOU. Oh, this mornings count, a lot for a lot.

we figure you land about 50 to 60% of airborne steelies behind boards. They get off because when they get slack line behind boards they can shake the hook free. there are 2 things that I know that will help. You can run your outside boards to trip and fall back to a bead this lets you get direct conect to the fish quicker. Ourwise reel like your life depends on it, if you can keep tension on the line when they jump its harder for them to flip the hook.

thats the one Cameron