its an addiction

How far offshore do you have to go for those bad boys? I'm hoping to plan a fishing trip next weekend. Have always wanted to go to Huron in the fall.

Thanks for the report. I've been waiting to hear one from St. Joe. Hope the weather cooperates for the ol 16footer this weekend.

I agree with KJ. I always put enough backing on my reel to fill up the whole spool.

Thanks for all your input guys. I'm going to go with the SPF that Nailer and Priority1 suggest. I sure did learn a lot about the different types of wood throughout this whole process though.

Thanks for the input guys. I was leaning towards getting what you all suggested, but had a buddy who insisted I needed treated our my regular SPF lumber would rot out in a year. I ended up going to Home Depot yesterday and got the untreated SPF lumber. I didn't want to risk it like you all said. Took me forever to find a good looking 2x4 at Home Depot yesterday. Would it be worth it to stain the 2x4's, or just unnecessary work? Thanks guys.

Hey Fellas, My bunk boards are in need of replacement. I've talked to people who say you have to use pressure treated wood since it will be exposed to water and pressure treated is rot resistant. Well, it appears that one of the materials that the wood is treated with is copper. Most treated wood requires hot dipped galvanized fasteners and I've read that most of it is corrosive to aluminum. Apparently there is a newer pressure treated process called Micronized Copper Azole, opposed to the ACQ(Aresenic Copper Quaternary) that is supposedly safe with direct contact with aluminum, but upon further research I've found this from a manufacturer website of the MCA ... Aluminum building products can be placed in direct contact with ProWood Micro CA pressure-treated wood products used for interior uses and above-ground exterior applications such as decks, fencing and landscaping projects. Examples of aluminum products include siding, roofing, gutters, door and window trim, flashing, nails, fasteners and other hardware connectors. Aluminum contact is not recommended when ProWood Micro CA treated wood products are immersed in water or are subject to frequent and prolonged wetting or other severe exposure conditions. In such cases, a moisture-resistant protective barrier should be placed between the aluminum products and ProWood Micro CA treated wood. The wood will be covered with marine bunk carpet I've purchased from Cabela's. But does anyone have knowledge or experience with replacing bunk boards and what type of wood they have used or what type you would recommend and why. And thanks for anyone who stuck through and read my lengthy post.

No snubbers for leadcore. Is your diver rod mono or braid or wire? Some people choose not to use snubbers even with braid or wire. I wouldn't stress on it. Go fish!

I've used both the strikemaster lazer and the Nils 6" hand augers. The Nils is so much better and was by far worth every penny and I would have been happy paying more for it. I used to break a sweat drilling holes, not anymore. I could drill hole after hole and not get tired, no sore arms, no sweat, and it was lightning fast. I've heard their power augers are the s**t too.

I run Cabela's 20lb fluorocarbon line for all my leaders on long lines (cores & copper). For leaders between my dipsey and flasher/fly or spoon I use the a heavier, i think 30/40lb leader material. To make/replace fly leaders I use the leader material in 50lb test. That leader material is too darn expensive in my opinion to be using 10-20 foot for long line leads.

I want to know who the smart guy was that thought carpet was a good idea to put in fishing boats? Geez. Carpet is such a pain. I clean my carpet at least three times a season and it's always filthy after 3 or 4 trips. I haven't dealt with moss, but I've used diluted Simple Green in a bucket with a scrub brush with great success. Scrub it down a few times and rinse it until there are no bubbles. It got worm dirt, goose poop, fish blood, coffee stain and chew spit out of the carpet.

Wow. Those are some great looking smallies.

I was kinda thinking some of you guys were crazy for having 20+ set ups on the boat, and then I realized you probably fish 9 or 12 lines, while I'm on a 16 footer and only fish six lines. I have; 2 mono rigger 2 braid dipseys 1-2color 1-3color 1-5color 1-7color 1-10color 1-300' 45 copper I use dive bombs on the different lengths of leadcore if need be to reach a certain depth.

I put masking tape on the top of the foam and just wrote what number lead it was on with a sharpie. After that I put clear packing tape over it to waterproof it.

I've got 8'6" Daiwa Firewolf M action rod with a Daiwa Accudepth 27LC right now. I plan on updating the 27's to okuma CV30's. I also run 20lb mono at all times. The light line setups I could see being fun from time to time to fight big fish on light line with light action rods, but to me I want to get that fish in as quick as I can and not have to play him out for 20 minutes because I'm using 12lb test. I always want to be able to crank down on the drag and control that fish if I have to and be able to try to turn his head when he's going the wrong way. Maybe for early season coho action I could see 12lb test, but not in the later parts of the season. JMO, but I'm not pro.

Lots of good information guys. I appreciate all that took the time to respond to my inquiry. I think I'll just hold onto the wire divers and pick up some rods for them in a couple months for the deeper summer fishing, which ones I do not know but I like the idea of having a rod with the guides that won't be damaged by the wire instead of messing with a roller rod.

As per my previous thread regarding what's the big deal with wire line, I am ready to make the switch over to wire for my dipseys but I have one thing holding me back. I don't think I want to switch over to wire if i have to buy two new rods, because all of the designated wire rods seem to cost a lot, at least to me and I've been trying to really up my savings. So, what I want to know is what rod do you use for your wire dipseys, and what is the best copper rod for the money? I currently run 10'6" Daiwa Heartlands Dipsey Rods.

Not familiar at all, but you could fish the maumee river. I know it can be hectic but if you are close enough to catch it on a weeknight it might not be too crowded.

How in the world would it shut down the downrigger bite? Sometimes I think people over analyze fishing, and don't realize we are fishing after FISH that have a brain the size of a pea. Anyways, I appreciate all of the replies guys, and I'm nearly certain I'm going to use the PP to replace some mono backing on my leadcore reels.

I'd say if your fishing Salmon you don't need to worry about a release as it's easy to tell when a fish is on. Drag screams or it doesn't. Walleye, different story.

2003 SmokerCraft 161 Stinger. Not as big or nice as I dreamed, but it gets the job done!

I tie cranks and body baits, but spoons i will use a coastlock swivel.

Thanks for the replies guys. One thing I don't understand that I've heard quite often regarding these types of questions is that wire dives deeper and cuts the water better than braid. It seems like the 7strand wire has a diameter of .015" and that 30PP has a diameter of .011". So how does it dive deeper and cut the water better when it has a larger diameter of 30lb Power Pro? Is it because of it's material make up being wire and made of metal that it is heavier??? I'm starting to think I might change one to wire and leave another to Power Pro and see what happens.

I purchased two Okuma CV30D from an online retailer and when they arrived yesterday they were spooled up with wire. This wasn't what I paid for nor what I wanted since I was upgrading my downrigger reels from small Daiwa Accudepth 27LCs to these CV30's. Now I don't know what to do, because I have all the other Leadcore and Copper and Dipsey set ups I want. So, I'm debating on selling the CV30's with the wire, or fishing it and stripping off my Power Pro on my dipsey reels and replacing with mono to now use as my downrigger reels. I wanna know, What's the big deal with wire and should I switch over my Power Pro dipseys to Wire? Keep in mind I run a 16' boat with one other person 95% of the time, so only 6 rods at a time are used and do not want to run two dipseys on a side.

Generally, for me it seems to be the brighter the color the better for the coho. Orange, Purple, Green, Red, Pink. There are two launches in St. Joe. One on the Benton Harbor side of the river and one on the St. Joe side. I haven't used the one on the Benton Harbor side, but the one on the St. Joe side takes a credit card and cost $5 a day I believe. Maybe a couple bucks more. It's off of Anchors way and Anchors ct. by Brian's marina.

What a shame. hopefully we can all learn from this as far as small boats going out in freezing cold temperatures. It's a different story when the water is 70 degress but not in the 30's. Hope the family is also able to cope with such a sudden catastrophe.