Turfwrench

My favorite bait shop set me up with Shimano TDR dipsy rods with twilli's spooled with 1000' 30lb Mason wire on Convector 45D counters. He also put just enough dacron backing to make sure reel was filled to capacity. I can't tell you how pleased I am with these rigs. They are in the water every trip and have counted for numerous fish in the box. The Tdr's handle the dipsys and the fish quite well and the 45's are plenty fast enough to reel in a slack line and still good power stroke when bringing in the fish on them. I have the wire in both stainless and the brown color but it doesn't seem to make a difference color wise for the fish. And the real beauty was still under $175/set up.

Limits of fish are far from the criteria that I judge the day by. Catching a few fish of quality is great and a limit is a bonus, at least for those of us that fish Lk Huron. Time spent with my family or friends on the water have a greater impact on having a good day. Catching limits of fish in waters that have plenty of fish is not a real challenge but fishing waters that have limited fish provides you with a real challenge to put fish in the box and will put your skills to the test. Now that to me makes for a great day!

I have left fish before too Brandon, sometimes it pays off really well.

J, I don't call it the dead side........I call it the skilled side. If you can consistently catch fish here......well you can darn well catch fish anywhere. Need I say more??

Good luck Brandon, hint, hint, run the blue green dolphin after the sun is up!

Some great fishing to be had in lower Lk Huron. Are you missing out on it? Yes there are fish and plenty of them. 85-125 fow was our ticket. Fished waters from my Wpt's from last year, way south of the pack (yep, we had a good bunch of boats out there) and it held fish. Steel, Kings, Lakers and pinks, and walleye too. The eyes were taken 80 down or the riggers @100fow an 156 back on the wire dipsy. They have made the turn out of the bay - several boats hit up a few eyes. Yes, we have!!!! a good fishery!

Sounds like you had a great time and got plenty of fish too. I fish mostly Pt Sanilac and I will have to say that there are plenty of fish out there that makes it worthwhile. Mixed bags are the norm and some real nice fish can be had. No, we don't have the great numbers of kings but this has been a great season so far for salmon over here and managed 3 good kings last week. Are we on a comeback......maybe...I am sure not to the extent that it once was but still enough fish to keep me going back. It does amaze me that more are not fishing it but that is fine. We don't usually have any boat traffic issues out there. Will be heading out of Sanilac in the morning to give it another go.

Ok, the easiest way to describe it: to a 3 way swivel attach one of the 3 rings to the main line on another ring attach 2-4' piece of mono and then attach diving bait to this short line on the last ring attach a 6-8' piece of mono and attach a spoon lower the body bait in the water and it will start to dive, then toss out the spoon. The body bait will dive down to depth pulling the spoon down with it. So in the water the body bait will be running a bit deeper and in front of the spoon, the spoon will be fluttering up a bit higher than the body bait and further back.....most fish will hit the trailing spoon.

When I have a fish on I normally don't slow down unless the situation dictates. I only run 15lb Big Game line on the riggers so once in a while I have to ease it up when the fish gets down in the prop wash.

I too am a speed troller. I like to cover water like Jim knowing i will be putting my lures in view of more fish. Zipping a lure past a fish can trigger a reactionary strike and usually is a violent strike at that resulting in a more solid hook-up.

Will do Brandon....I usually go on the weekends but felt I needed to take the day off work and get to fishing. I hear you on the haul, takes me 1 hr and 15 min to get there myself but worth the drive.

As you know Pt Sanilac is where I do the majority of my fishing. Spoons rule these waters. Running sliders either free or fixed should always be on your rigger lines. We have boxed a lot of fish on them. You may want to consider using single hooks on your spoons. You must keep them real sharp. Our hook-up and catch ratio went way up after switching over to the singles. Never really had a lot of success running paddles/dodgers, etc out there unless targeting lakers near the bottom but found running mag spoons in their place near the bottom will get the lakers. Yes on the wire divers, I run 2 and they have accounted for plenty of fish in the box. Braid has a disadvantage here as the sea fleas stick to it an can be a real pain, and the fleas do get bad out there at times. Running highlines either off inline boards or big boards should always be considered. These lines have taken plenty of steelhead, walleyes, and an occasional atlantic. Usually I run my highlines with a 3 way swivel - running a diving body bait off a shorter lead and a spoon trailing behind the diver on a longer lead. A deadly tactic. Keep in touch, the fishing is still good and anticipating it getting even better!

Nice fish Brandon, these are ours from today, worked 90-120' various depths produced. Fished were scattered up and down the water column. 3 kings, 1 steel, 1 coho, 1 pink, and 2 lakers

Hmmm....interesting for sure. But as I see it in a way your buddy is correct. If the boat is traveling 2.5 sog according to the gps then yes your bait is also traveling at 2.5 sog. Now lets put the current into place, sog has no bearing on current speed but indeed does affect the action of the lure as we all know. If heading into the current the bait will indeed be acting as it is being ran at a faster speed and with the current would certainly look to be going too slow. With that being said, I would inform him that the Fish Hawk type devices measure the "action" speed of the lure at the depth you are running and if a particular lure best performs at 2.5 then he would want that lure to look as though it is running at that speed either with or against the current.

Save the alewife campaign??? Is that similar to your save the perch campaign??

Some good fishing to be had out on S. Lk Huron. Glad you did well and enjoyed your trip. We fish Pt Sanilac every weekend we can get out. These are our fish from last weekend. Plan on being out there Sat an Sun. Give a holler on the radio if you are out. Turfwrench Ch68

Was nice meeting you today Brandon and was glad you got into some fish. It sure was nice out there and the fishing wasn't too bad either.

Pm sent, I will be out there tomorrow.

Enjoyed the video. Looking forward to hitting it up as I have not fish out of HB yet. Heading up tomorrow to get in a little scouting on the water and will see ya Saturday at the Can.

They put one dock in Lexington on Wednesday. We will be hitting it in the morning. Some have been out this week and have got a few fish. Nothing real stellar on the reports yet but there are some fish around! Will post when we get back.

One dock now in Lexington.

Beautiful fishing weather we are having but unfortunately there are no docks in yet. Quite disappointing considering several docks were put in the saginaw river last month because of the Shiver on the River. Sure would be nice if they would get them in. There are a lot of us ready to get out.

Last weekend I attended a seminar @ Andersons Probait in Pt. Huron. One of the topics was border crossing presented by the US Border Patrol. Being that I do fish a few times a year in Pt Huron and hearing of the horror stories last year on Lk. O it only made sense to attend this one. The law for Canada is: you must call in if you plan on fishing Canadian waters or going ashore in Canada. If you are traveling from point A to point B in the US and cross into Canadian waters doing so there is no need to call in as long as you do not stop or fish in those waters. When calling in to fish Canadian waters you may still be asked to report to Port x for inspection if the Canadian authorities deem so, if not you may continue on to fish and no requirement to call back in to US when you return as long as you did not go ashore in Canada. Now the catch here is that if you do have to report to the Canadian port for inspection you have now landed in Canada and are subject to report back to the US upon return. So it seems the US now has the same requirements for the Canadians doing the same on US waters. Fair is fair. Either way it seems like too much bs for me just to fish across the line and is not worth the hassle.

Well Grant, rumor has it they will have the docks in. I had heard they were going to be in yesterday but guess that didn't happen. Also Lexington is supposed to go in by early next week. Weather looks good for Tuesday so if the docks do go in I may have to hit up Lex and give it a go. Looked like a good mud line/stained water @ Sanilac from what I seen on the harbor cam.

I have not used swimbaits that large but have had success running the Matzuo 4" swimbaits clean off the downriggers and have caught several nice lake trout on them. Have also trolled them in saginaw bay for walleye with good success.