its an addiction

Will be getting out as soon as the ice is gone. whether it's an inland lake, lake erie for walleye or new buffalo for coho and browns. can't wait!

Great thread and tutorial. I'm an owner of a handful of Magda's and Convector's. In order to do the upgrade I need the carbonex drag washers, reel oil for the bearings, and cal's drag grease for the drag washers? Is there anything else that I might be missing before I place an order? It's not necessary to replace any of the metal washers is it? It didn't look like it but just want to clarify. And sorry if I hijacked your thread eliminator. Gosh I love this site! Such a wealth of information. Thanks guys.

Welcome to the site! I have learned a ton from this site. Same as ssplook, i fish out of a small 16' Smokercraft and also have to choose my days wisely.

That's a good combo you mentioned from Northwoods. If it was me I would have gotten the convector 30 from Northwoods, but i would have ordered some daiwa Wilderness rods. You could get the Daiwa Wilderness 8'6" M action for 14.95 plus shipping from Fishusa.com. shipping is only 5.95 i think from fishusa. Unlike fishing with a rod in hand for gills/perch/walleye the sensitivity is not cruicial with salmon. I've had a lot of time with these rods and they handle just fine so far for me. I thought gill/perch/walleye rods and tackle was expensive. Once i broke into Salmon gear it's become one costly habit. Dipseys, downriggers, leadcore, copper, big reels, spoons, flashers, flies. lol. It all pays off as soon as you get a screamer on the line and your forearm hurts soo bad you want to pass the rod off to your partner. good luck with your quest on appropriate fishing gear. I can say if you can do anything get the most you can afford. I've been in the process of updating my accupdeth 27lc and my magda 30's since the first season in 08.

Yup. I ice fish almost every weekend and I still got it. Nothing beats a nice spring day out in the boat.

Well that makes sense then. Thanks for enlightening me on the subject. I'm not worried about dragging shakers since like you said we have mainly big fish, and also I only fish six lines with my partner and we are always checking and changing up until fish start hitting.

I understand that with the chamberlain releases you can crank down on the rod to remove some of the bow in the downrigger line so you don't have so much slack to reel in when it releases and still have a light release. My question is why do you want a light release on the lure end? I'm talking for Salmon as well. My thinking is you would want a tight or strong release on the back so when the fish bites it has some resistance to pull the hook deep into the fish's mouth. With a light release wouldn't it be releasing as soon as it hit? A lot of times with mine I see the rod bounce a few times before it releases, or sometimes it doesn't release at all, and we just yank up and it releases and reel reel reel. Am I in the wrong to have them set tight so where they don't release on the initial hit?

Sounds like a great morning Robert. Good work.

Thanks for the report. I'm going to try to get over to that area this weekend if the winds will cooperate.

I got the insulated waders from cabela's and like them. The boots are attached. I chose insulated because most of the time I fish the rivers are in the spring and fall. If i go in the summer, I'm the guy in gym shorts and ol raggity tennis shoes. This was the 2nd season with the cabela's waders and they are great so far.

I hope it's not too late for my input. First off, let me say I am no expert with river salmon and steelhead, but am an experienced angler on the river, considering I grew up on one. But, I have tangled with my fair share of river steelhead/salmon. Let's start with the terminal tackle. One of the most important items in my mind. I would advise only using the top of the line hooks, swivels, and line when going after the salmon and steelhead. For hooks, I like to use size 2-6 octupus style by gamakatsu or mustad. It will vary with what you have on the hook. I use a lot of wobble glo's and spawn. Line, I like to use power pro. I like it's great line diameter to strength ratio. The thin line cuts through the water better than mono and allows me differentiate better between rocks and bites when drift fishing. I use 15lb and a leader of anywhere from 6-8lb fluoro. For your rod it depends a lot on what you want to fish with. If you intend to drift fish with spawn and wobble glo's, or cast small inline spinners you can go with a light weight rod. If you are going to end up on the piers casting 3/4oz to 1oz spoons or big cranks you would want a M weight rod. If you intend to both, I would say M or ML would suit a wide range of baits. Also, I stop at Lunker's frequently in Edwardsburg, and every time I tell myself not to go back. Their stock selection is a lot of times scarce, and their prices are too high. I would advise finding the rod you like in the store, and save yourself twenty bucks by ordering the same rod online. I hope I have helped, and let us know what you end up with.

Yah, stupid wind. Ruined my plans for the long weekend in my 16' boat. I guess it will be the inland lakes this weekend.

I switched from the bulky LJ ones to the DW Ripcords this year, and my dipseys catch has gone up, though I doubt it has a lot to do with the snubber. I like the fact that they are clear.

Thanks guys. I checked out Frank's website too, but his selection of Ace-Hi's wasn't nearly as good as Northwood's. If I want anything remotely related to Salmon fishing I usually have to resort to internet shopping as whatever the stores do have in stock, even Lunker's in Edwardsburg, is very limited to a basic selection. They only carry Luhr Jenson J Plugs and I wanted to get more of the Ace-Hi's. I guess I will put my order in this afternoon. Seems like they are good people with an honest business. I just wanted to make sure because you never know with ordering off the internet sometimes. Thanks again for your responses and help.

Fellas, Northwoods has the best selection of Ace Hi Plugs I've seen online so I was going to order some, just wondering if anyone else has ordered here and if it was quality service. I have never ordered here so any reviews would help satisfy my doubt. Thanks.

Your welcome. I really like the boat too. The exterior sure does look good for an 88. Hope you love it and it gives you many years of good fishing.

I end up doing half my trips by myself and I agree with Killerbe. I also put out one downrigger with a spoon, a dipsey with a flasher fly, and a planer and leadcore out. Leadcore would vary but in the depths you stated I'd go with my full core and adjust from there. If I catch a fish or two on a downrigger and nothing on my core I tend to pull my leadcore and run two downriggers because realling in a full core with a fish and trying to steer the boat and net at the same time can be a PIA. a downrigger line with 80 to 100feet of line out sure beats reeling in a full core. I give each bait about 15-20 minutes and start switching out spoons and flasher and flies until I can get something to go.

I also have the HDS5 and have had zero problems with it since spring of last year. This is also my fourth Lowrance sonar with zero issues. Only thing I would change is to get a bigger display than a 5". It works, but bigger would be easier to read.

I have not had the opportunity to see it first hand, but have been trying to follow it closely in the news and on the net. Here is an article from today from the Detroit Free Press. It's the most informative I've read so far. It has video and pictures. The video really shows how fast and high that river is right now. That has got to make it extremely difficult. I really hope they can get it contained like they plan. http://www.freep.com/article/20100728/NEWS06/7280352/1318/Oil-spill-near-Kalamazoo-River-causes-stench-mess

Thanks guys. It turned out to be such a beautiful day we just couldn't leave.

Cleared the pier heads at New Buffalo at 6am. Waves were 1-2 footers with an occasional bigger one. Ran out to 50ft and set lines on a West troll and went out to 70. Nothing for the first three hours. We heard people in Michigan City were getting some in 40-50 ft. so we headed in on a East troll to check it out. We got one good Coho at about 10:00 am on a braid dipsey on 2 out 70 with 8" DW MD Spindoctor and green fly. Trolled until 11:30 and decided to find some perch. We drove around for quite a while in our search for perch. We marked a lot of big schools of alewives in 25-30ft of water. At our third stop we thought we finally found the the perch. Then my buddy hooked into a nice steelhead, which was a riot on the perch rod. We had the aqua view and put it down, tons and tons of alewives, so we moved again. We finally found the perch just south of the pier heads around 3:00 after taking a swim break for an hour or so. For the first hour and 3 different spots all we were catching were 5-8 inchers so we kept moving. The next spot was the difference. We proceeded to catch our 2 man limit of perch and finished about 7:00. We caught some real hogs at 13inches. We were getting a bite within 10 seconds of our line in the water every time. My friend John with a nice perch. At home with our limit on the fillet table. He wasn't excited to clean all those perch. After we got our limit of perch we went for a quick swim and decided to troll for a few more steelhead/salmon since the lake was so flat. We started putting stuff down immediately leaving our perch spot. We had 3 lines down and before we even hit 30ft of water we caught a nice coho on the rigger down 20' with a double orange crush. Then we finally got five lines in the water and we caught a nice steelhead on a braid dipsey on 2 out 50' with a 8" DW green double crush glow spindoctor and green fly. My buddy John and his steelhead. After landing those two and getting all the lines in the water we were in 35ft of water so decided to head back in and fish right at 30ft. Once we got back to 30ft. on a N troll back towards the harbor the 3 color starts screaming with a superman spoon. Ended up landing a nice King. Me with the King. We ended up leaving the lake at 9:30pm with 2 steelhead, 2 coho, 1 king, and 70 perch. It was a long day as we watched the sunrise and the sunset on the lake.

Sounds like a nice boat. That's just what I want when the time is right. Something just doesn't seem right with them refusing a water test. Keep looking and you can probably find the same boat down the road and feel comfortable buying it too.

Congrats Dave. That boat looks like it should do you well.

Don't mean to hijack your thread, but I plan on going out of South Haven for my first time Saturday morning. Gonna troll early am and try for perch in the afternoon. Where is the closest launch to the lake? Thanks...