danthebuilder

http://www.cgaux9wr.com/programs/ve/documents/Handout%202%20-%207012.pdf

I made the mistake of replacing both hubs without checking the cost of an axle. You can get a new axle for ~$150 at wolfs marine in benton harbor which includes the hubs. They have a giant shelf with many different kinds & sizes.

What species can you not catch from shore?

Sounds like a great time. Welcome to GLF. Pretty awesome that you caught the biggest fish you've got in 4 years when $$$$ was on the line. Thanks for the awesome first post.

Welcome!

I believe that is the holland buoy. They decided to move it further north this year.

Welcome to GLF!

pretty sweet looking rig

That's a nice fish. Thanks for the report.

We have a 2 mile trip to the launch. We had a little less than a 1/2 mile left but were 1/8th of a mile from another relatives home who were happy to house the boat. We put on an old hub and the castlenut/pin and greased it up and went VERY VERY slow. Most people put more miles on their trailer in 1-2 trips than we do all year. We replaced the hubs 3 years ago and totally neglected the maintenance due to the low miles and other projects. They say failure is the best way to learn and this was definitely a lesson learned.

Thanks for the south haven report!

Went 3-4 in 155-165 FOW. BLL Frozen Toad Yellow/Green took 1 coho and 1 steelhead on a dipsy set at 1.5 out 30 with ~20 foot leader on that. Finally got the skunk smell off my dipsies. Brads Thinfish red/black 100 behind a board. (steelhead) Lost a fish on a rigger 25 down with a custom made spoon that was yellow/green/white. Somewhat similar colors to the BLL frozen toad. We tried 130 fow to 185 fow. Could only catch fish within 155-165. Great day on the water. It was flat as can be. I do wish there was a few more people out there. Kinda far from South Haven. Also, just a reminder to check your bearings more regularly than us. =) (this was 2 days ago and is now fixed.)

Went 2/2 started in 135 fow. Trolled out to 201?(fish finder hit limit.) Picked up a coho at 150fow and 180fow. Both 20 back on a board with the red/black brads thinfish.

There not on this side of the lake. So they must be in the middle.

I hope you go to court & fight it.

So did I but I was going for walleye in South Haven. The pier guys had better luck.

Docks are in and 3 boats are out. People have been out almost everyday that the waves aren't up. I haven't been out yet. I do know that the park area right next to the launch has always been shallow. For anyone that's not familiar that's the only land on the river that doesn't have slips on it. Don't go on that side of the river in just that one spot and you should be fine.

I used to wear those. They have gone downhill in their quality. Where the sides screw into the front breaks very easily now. I am no longer a fan & wouldn't recommend them. I still haven't found a decent replacement though. I want the same quality ones they made 2 years ago. Now the ones that they sell last 2-3 months if you're lucky.

The price of natural gas right now is $4 a million BTU's. The rest of the world is paying around $12 a million BTU's. The gas companies are trying to get permission to export natural gas. People want to use it in trucks and other uses. I think its fairly safe to say we will see $8-10 natural gas. When that happens. Wind power is going to be the cheapest thing out there. You'll be glad we're working the kinks out now. We can't rely on 30+ year old nuclear power plants forever. Then you got coal plants that don't make financial sense to build anymore or environmental sense to operate. As for the bird comment I love hearing it because it points you out as a person who doesn't know what their talking about. It's pure ignorance to be against wind turbines because of their bird kills. Why? Because there are things we do that you accept that kills millions of birds. The wind turbines do kill birds but no where near the amount killed by cars & house windows. Nuclear power plants kills hundreds of thousands of birds a year. Fossil fuels kills millions of birds a year. Lights at airports hundreds of thousands of birds. Should we turn off the lights? Are you giving up driving? Should we make windows in buildings illegal or stop all usage of fossil fuels in the name of birds? NO! Of course not. But you wanna shut down wind... When there record for bird kills has improved greatly and they do a much better job than almost all the examples i said above. Even when calculated out to the MWH produced. When it comes to wind power they have also learned some things to help greatly reduce the bird kills. Such ideas of turning off the turbines when the birds migrate through the area on their runs south for the winter and north for the summer. Not building them in pathways that are heavily trafficked during these migrations. That's where this bird kill thing all started. They build these small wind turbines in a large migration pathway. One wind farm was responsible for half of all the bird kills. Its clear that we have learned a lesson for this. Changing the speed the blades turn has also reduced the bird kills. So if you really love birds. You should be for wind. As for the government land thing. Do you know any wind farm owners that are upset that the government is going to allow people to build them in the lake and it will be cheaper? I wonder how much cheaper it is to put a wind turbine in 100+ FOW than it is to pour a cement pad and build one on land... You also know they can write a law mandating that they remove/tear down once the life cycle is up. They did this for nuclear power plants. They must put X dollars a year into the fund so by the time the life cycle is up they have money to tear it down. We're also not dealing with salt water in the great lakes so we won't have near the corrosion issues the oceans have. I understand the wind isn't also going to blow. But I also understand that they build gas plants to only be used during peak usage/time of high rates. I have nothing against gas plants being used on the less windy days & days of heavy bird traffic. It appears that the natural gas plant owners have no problems building them when they're going to be used for non-base-load use. We could turn our 100 year natural gas reserve into 200 years. That would be great for our national energy security. Those subsidies for wind are about 2 cents a KWH. Its not that much. Other sources of powers have subsidies. With everyone removing their subsidies. Wind would win. People factor in the costs when comparing wind to costs of power plants that were built 30 years ago and already paid for. Not costs of what it would cost to build now. Those things can't last forever & some are showing signs and are having to be shut down more often for maintenance. I don't hear many people crying about the other subsidies to be done away with. The wind subsidies are definitely money well spent if you look at the big picture.

Why would you put them so close to shore?

Disney land for boat owners.

I plan on putting mag dipsies in them. Seem solid to me. I would call them if you want them right away to see if they're in stock. They took about a month to ship to me. Which wasn't a big deal because of the winter time. I emailed them and they replied within 5 minutes apologizing and explaining that they're now anodizing them and the delay was with that. Hopefully all those problems are now sorted out.

Are you guys going to wake up against the war on government waste? They aren't cutting waste. They're cutting things we care about. This project is a prime example. The article said the project lost funding... So you blame the army corp of engineers and say how inefficient they are... REALLY? I wish you guys could have seen woodtv this morning with the republican state representative from holland talking about Synders $1 billion a year road project. Instead of asking everyone to pay the $120 a year. He talked about cutting some outdoor programs. He named some stuff that brings money into our state. I bet they will eventually find some money in the salmon stocking program. They're going to clearly spend a lot less money this year because they're not planting as much fish. That probably means in the future they will require a lot less money! Look we made them more efficient!!!! Where do you think this waste comes from that they find? We used to have a state police station with a dozen or so cars. Now we have 1 car parked a few miles north of town and 1 car parked a few miles south of town. We all know the DNR has been hit pretty hard with budget cuts. We all know the schools have been hit hard too. While I would like to fire a good amount of teachers. I would replace them with ones that do a good job. I am sure that wouldn't save any money. Welfare? I had to deal with the department of human services to get a background check. I sent multiple faxes and multiple letters. No response. Even though it was required by law for them to respond. I show up in person and wait in line for an hour. I explained that they failed me and she talked about budget cuts and talked about how much people they used to have and what they have now. She took another 30 minutes but got me the letter I needed to go to camp. It was a giant hassle & would have costed a person with a 9-5 to take off work to go get this done. At what point are we really saving money? You got deadbeats taking money from the state. I know some of them personally. One is mentally retarded. Can't blame him for being that way. The others have kids. I am not willing to let some kids starve in this country because their parents don't' know how to hold a job. If anything I'd love to spend more money in this sector and work more with the kids. So they know that ANYONE can go to college and they can literally do anything they want to do in this country. That's the way it works all you have to do is work hard. They don't know this. They think you got to be rich because that's what their lazy parents told them. Instead they follow their parents pathway get pregnant and we repeat the cycle. We need to fix this & it would save a ton of money in the long run. It would cost money in the short term. I got a friend who lost his job went on the bridge card for few weeks. He called them to say he got a job and to end the benefits. He left his point of contact multiple voice messages. It took him a couple months to end the benefits. Now, he did not spend any money during this time. He could have & would have never gotten caught. I know someone who deals with these case workers. They are required by law to visit people and make sure its on the up and up. There isn't enough hours in the day to visit 1/10th of the people they are in charge of. How are you going to cut without harming the kids? SO!!!! I will grumble piss & moan. But I would rather pay the state the $120 per vehicle than find government "waste". The alignments, hubs,bearings,tie rods, and rims that I blame on the roads that I have replaced in the past few year has been a hell of a lot more than $120 a year per vehicle.

Looks epic

Any walleye areas that are fishable within a ~2 mile or so range? Walking 5 miles one way in the open isn't very much fun. I probably should just stop trying to haul around the kitchen sink with me.