Turfwrench

I shall be out there tomorrow morning. Looking to get another mixed bag. My buddy was out there this morning, marked fish but no takers. Hopefully they will be on the feedbag tomorrow.

Thanks for the report. Was gonna head up there tomorrow for 4 days but the wind and wave forecast said otherwise. So am canceling trip till next week. God I hate holiday weekends!!!

Been fishing Sanilac for several weekends now, have been doing fairly good. Steelhead action has slowed but seems to be more coho in now. Been picking up a mixed bag every trip, steels, coho, laker, eyes, pink, and even got a nice atlantic a week ago. Walleyes are in the top 35', running the mini disk with spoons and deep body baits off the big boards. Steelies and ho's coming off the riggers set at various depths with the sliders running spoons. Still haven't hit on a king this season but still have faith. Been fishing anywhere from 60-115' water, fish have been scattered due to the winds and surf, find a pod of fish and work them hard seems to be my key to success.

Great job on the fish. Looks like a few fish want to get in the rivers - but I don't mind if they hold out for another week. Will be heading to Frankfort thursday for 4 days of fun.

Glad to hear the good reports, planning on coming up to Frankfort thursday evening for the weekend. Hopefully the weather will cooperate. I also love fishing out of that port.

Bow down and let them run! Seems no matter how long ya fight a fish it always finds a power surge just shy of the net and takes off at full steam. Lowering your rod while keeping the tension will let it pull the drag a lot easier and avoid break offs or the hooks pulling out.

I sold some on ebay last winter. I believe they were Luck Louis - you unscrewed the tail and popped the light stick inside it.

Yes Chris I was out there friday evening. I went out with a buddy that has an older model bird fishfinder and felt it wasn't marking well. I have an extra X67C that I use for ice fishing so we rigged it up with a portable ducer so he could compare the two fishfinders and took it out for a test run. We were only out for a couple hours and can't say we did any serious fishing but did get to enjoy the ever increasing wave size as she got pretty rough out there. Keep at it, the fish are there but seem to be scattered due to all the recent high winds and storms that have went through.

Hit the water before daylight and got set up just before light. Marked plenty fish until the sun came up, then they seemed to disappear. Worked a lot of water trying to pin down the fish, from 50' - 115. Ran an all spoon program for the day, 4 riggers with sliders and 2 mini disk off the side. Early bite was light as the fish would pop the rigger and nobody home. Later in the day they got a bit more active and bit solid. Ended the day with 2 coho, 2 steel, 2 walleye and 1 atlantic. Not a lot of active chatter on the radio. Overall, slow but none-the-less still enjoyable. All silver fish off the riggers, the eyes off the mini disk. The morning sunrise: The catch:

Those sure are some great fish. It always amazes me at the quality and quantity of fish that come from the rock. Looks like a beautiful day to be on the water. Last time I enjoyed great laker fishing like that was at Isle Royale.

Once again the wind reports did not match actuality. Launched before daylight to try the dark bite. Started in 40' and worked out deeper from there. Ran the big boards for a bit after it became light out. Winds were out of the north then switched around and came from the south and increased making it impossible to run the big boards so pulled them and just ran the riggers. Seems like the big blow earlier really scattered the fish, had a hard time locating any real big bait pods. Pulled up a coho in the morning then nothing. The fish we continued to mark were negative. Near 2:00 I asked my buddy if he had had enough as the waves were up and we were taking a pretty good rough ride. But as it was his first trip out this year he said he wouldn't mind staying longer. Good thing, shortly thereafter we hit a stretch of fish and action was good. We bagged 3 steelies, another coho, and a pink, lost another steelie at the boat as it lunged and broke the line, another that we didn't know what it was. The steelies put on a great show with plenty of jumps and flips. We also ended up with a bonus boat cushion that came floating by. Perch report had been good earlier in the week with some nice catches being taken but they too were turned off and nobody was getting any. Would be nice to get some stable weather, my back was killing me by the time we got off the water due to the high surf. Guess I had to take a little punishment to get some fish.

Yep, ya got me pinned there Heidi. I was pulling the big boards, and yes close to the freighter. The only thing is I do not have is a cuddy. It is a blue and white thompson though. For some strange affliction I like to work that particular shipping lane. Maybe it is because they stir the fish up when they go through. Give a holler this weekend if you are out. would like to meet up with you guys and share some stories of the day. Good fishing to ya!!!!

Truthfully Heidi I love the lack of "fishermen" on this side. Yes there are fish here and I will continue to prod the waters off of sanilac. I think it may be the best port on this side. The lack of patience and the desire to limit out quickly is not for this side of the lake. Putting your skills to work is the key to get some fish. I really don't care that I don't limit out every time out, I am happy to catch a couple. There is a lot of water out there and to capitalize on a few fish may not necessarily be just luck, could be that we actually fish for them. A couple pics from sat afternoon - - - yep, more great fish from Huron. Score=10-lb laker, 6.5 steel, and 3 lb coho. What more can ya ask for on a short trip??

Welcome Heidi........ I fish quite often out of Pt Sanilac. Been having a great time out of that port this season. Will see ya up there!!

Unable to get out on the weekend. Figured monday the weather would be nice since I had to work. So made the trip back to Sanilac after work for a few short hours in the evening. Lo and behold, more fish. Kicked the evening with 2 walleye, 1 laker and a nice 32" steelie. Had to go back again tuesday night and bagged 2 lakers, 1 eye, and 1 steelie. Highlines with cranks and riggers with spoons still did the trick. Fish were scattered about but a few still willing to bite.

That is kinda funny and may be true for some people, but seems I must get lucky. Got these fish within a few short hours on a morning with the wife. Maybe she is good luck or something.

Plied the waters off Pt. Sanilac sunday with the wife and my daughter. Action was fast and furious, anywhere from the highlines off the big boards to the riggers top to bottom. Spoons on the riggers, cranks on the boards, all had fish time. Seemed line no particular color was key. Talk about a mixed bag: 7 steelies, 3 coho, 2 pinks, and 2 walleyes. To all the nay sayers - there are still fish to be caught in Lk. Huron - if you are willing to put the time and effort in. :grin:

I run big boards that I made myself, they are double boards. I like the big boards for the simple fact that I have used them for years and am comfortable with them. To me they are easy to deploy, easy to set lines off of. I use shower curtain hooks and attach the line to them via rubber bands. I have ran as many as 5 lines off a side but boat control is critical when running that many lines. Seldom have I lost a fish due to slack. The big advantage that I like is that when I do have a fish on it is only the fish I fight, not fighting the board too. I have used the inlines and while I feel they have a usefulness, which to me would be a day when I only wanted to run a couple high lines, I prefer not to run them. I am not a fan of pinch pads as I feel they do weaken the line. I also do not like to drag a board while pulling in a fish. I think there are enough fish lost when one attempts to remove the board from the line to net the fish. If slack is a concern, both styles you will get slack when a fish strikes due to the angle of the line to the board and the angle to the fish. The best thing to do is try them both and experience the differences between the two.

Here piggy piggy piggy - come to Michigan! That is one dandy king. Would be sweet to see a few of those bad boys back here.

Nice catch again Frank. That is too bad. I don't like a lot of traffic either. There sure are some inconsiderate people out there. Last weekend while fishing the slot I found a pod of fish and started circling the area. Out of nowhere several boats converged forcing me out of my pattern, must have been watching with their binoculars. The other thing that really gets my gourd is when trolling out in the open basically alone here comes a boat flying by and tries to see how close they can get by ya. Just wizzes me off. Yes there is a lot of water out there. No need for anyone to crowd other people out.

I have the c-map maxx wide card for the great lakes. So far I don't see any problems with it. The maps are quite clear and do have some nice features. Depth contours seem to be on according to my fishfinder. I posted a couple screen shots of it under Standard Horizon CP180 review thread.

After several months of researching the numerous chartplotter options available and almost becoming brain dead from it, I finally purchased the CP180. After all the bad reports on Lowrance lately it made it much easier to pick up this unit with the 3 year warranty. I hooked this unit up in the house to check it out and punch in my waypoints from my handheld. This unit has the external antenna and I was surprised how fast it locked on the satellites in the house. Picture clarity is amazingly nice. Was quite easy to mark and edit waypoints. It sports a lot of features I like. In the cursor mode while scanning around it displays the distance away and bearing. Can also run in in dual screen mode. Zoom in and out is quite fast either by step zoom or quick over/under zoom. MOB function is easy to use and remove. The toggle switch makes it easy to move the cursor around quickly. Now I have to finish mounting in the boat and will be all set. As I don't have a lot of dash room this was the perfect size with a 5" screen. I did purchase the C-Map Maxx Wide card Great Lakes to go with it and that I feel was necessary. The unit without the card just displays the shorelines and basically blank water. Looking forward to getting out on the bay next weekend to test her out live.

It is too bad but some people just don't use common sense. I was out sunday in the heavy fog. On the radio someone spoke of another boat running on plane in it near them and couldn't see them. The wife and I were discussing it earlier as we passed what looked like a section of docking that went to sea with the wind. At speed and heavy fog that was a piece that would do some serious damage to someones boat. I don't believe radar would have seen that!

Thanks for the info. Now hopefully the docks will go on in this week, would like to get up there this weekend.

Battery care - for prolonged life. All terminals need to be kept clean!!! This includes the case of the battery. Simple methods of cleaning including a solution of baking soda and water liberally sprayed over the terminals and case. This first and foremost will neutralize the acid on the battery itself. You will note foaming on the surfaces with the acid or corrosion as the soda does its job. Rinse with plenty of fresh water. Take a wire brush of file to the terminal post to refresh the lead ends for proper contact. Also do this to you connections to the battery. Reconnect you leads to the battery and spray with an electrical spray or a gel type coating. This helps not only keep good connection between battery and wiring but also helps prevent the cakes from building up on the terminals. Charging a battery: do no use heavy amp charges to bring them back up, rather a slower charge of 10 amp or less. Either use an automatic charger or frequently check the state of charge on the battery. High amp charging or unattended charging with no auto shut off can cause the battery to boil over. This results in acid on the surface of the battery which in turn promotes loss of life, (excess corrosion on the battery surface thus drawing down the life of the battery). After charging the battery check the fluid level in the battery, at this time fill battery with distilled water only!!!!!!! Do not overfill, fill only till water level is within the splits in the fill area. Overfilling results in the same as boiling over, fluids on the battery case. You do not need recharge upon adding the distilled water. There are a couple of ways to check a battery for its usefulness. The first and the most easiest is the load test. Most of us have seen these devices, clamp the two leads to the battery, it displays the current voltage of the battery. Then flick the switch and hold for 10 seconds as it puts a drain on the battery. The needle will indicate if battery is good, weak or bad. The next test is specific gravity where you check each cell in the battery with a hydrometer. Now here is the nuts and bolts of finding out if the battery is good or bad. Each cell should be within .05 You may have 5 of the 6 cells in the battery satisfactory and one cell that is bad. In this case, sorry, replace the battery. If all cells are consistently low than your battery has neared the end of its useful life. Now for those sealed batteries that you cannot check each individual cell: the green, red or yellow only indicates the condition of one cell in the battery, therefore not reliable as far as the rest of the cells of a battery go. Hence the load test is the best way to determine the life of these types of batteries. Winter storage: Unhook the battery and store in a cool dry place. Concrete has no effect on modern batteries contrary to the olden day when it may have had an effect. Make sure to fully charge battery before storage. An undercharged battery or near dead battery will freeze and render it unusable. An active battery will not freeze, an undercharged or nearly dead battery will be severely affected. A maintenance charge once or twice during the storage is beneficial as a battery will normally self discharge over time. Refer to above charging guidelines. I deal with batteries everyday in my job. Yes there are better brands than others but all batteries will last longer with proper, simple care. These are things that I try to impress upon people with the electric golf carts that only get a couple years out of their batteries and cry at paying almost 1000 to replace them and the cables. Keep them clean, keep them fully charged. Hope this helps ya all.