BenLubbs

Nice job guys

42" behind an 8" paddle, Looks like i'm going to have to tie some new leaders.

Thats the truth.

Who goes fishing that early, I mean come on And like Dave said, the river fishing the past few years has been really tough is no strong run, but hopefully this year is different

That's not true Kevin, if I was only going to run two rods on riggers, one would get a Mongolian beef moonshine in the morning/evening. Then then for the rest It's pretty much a crap shoot for me. I've caught some fish on a glowback blue dolphin, a yellowfin, and a few others. Also, be sure to run sliders. I've been catching fish on my free sliders but my fixed sliders have been dead.

Remembered that I never added pictures of the trip so here they are Fighting the brown Happy Captain reeling in a fish Got a double Nights Catch Me with the Brown

Just remembered that I never added pictures to my posts Josh fighting his fish Josh and Sarah working on the double The happy couple with their fish

I've seen a standard Walleye boards pull 350 coppers just fine. I only have walleye boards on my boat.

You find one fish and you are sure to find more in that area Makes a GPS invaluable.

Thanks for the rides Dave. The weather alone made for an interesting weekend

Nice job on the fish, that first one and the one on the left in the second picture sure have some color too them already As far as the weather, this weekend was crazy. We were heading out saturday morning with storms off to the south and by the time we got on the water there were storms poping up right in front of us. Glad you made it back safe.

Nice job guys. What's the fish on the left, never seen one of those before:lol:

Well this guy defiantly was not under power and there was no light visible from the back side of the boat. He had a mast light but it was obscured by the mast past midships. He had no stern light. If I had been running in I don't know if I would have seen him in time.

It was a rough morning out there for sure. At least you didn't get skunked right?

I don't know when the change took place but the replacements are long lines (leadcore and copper). I catch a majority of my fish on my leadcore/copper setups and have days when the downriggers don't go at all. I've heard that a lot of it has to do with water clarity after the zebra mussles came.

Went out tonight with 5 friends on board, two of whom had never been big lake fishing before. Got lines set in 70 FOW in front of Tunnel Park by 6:15 trolling strait north. We were marking fish right away and I was hoping we'd get some hits right away. No such luck. trolled north almost to Portsheldon and then swung it around back South. Started heading it a bit with boats on our deep side pushing us a little. Got halfway back to Holland and got a hit on the 5 color with a miami dolphin on it. Handed the pole of to one of the newbies and a short time later it disappeared. Then the rigger (55 down) with a UofM Frog Silver Streak and Blue Chilly Willy free slider goes. That one comes unbuttoned shortly after handing the pole off too. Then the wire diver 110 out with Blue/Chrome SD and Yogurt Striper fly goes, followed by the same downrigger again. Both fish came unbuttoned after handing the poles of :mad: We stopped getting hits again after that so I started changing out to the glow spread. Pretty soon we got a fish on the 5 color with a Glow Bloody nose went. The newbies just wanted to see a fish so I ended up taking that one, a decent 6-8 lb Chromer. As we're unhooking that fish the rigger 40 down with a Sliver Streak Anaconda and mini glow yellow fin free slider goes. Fish runs across the back of the boat and then back toward the center. Somehow it ended up getting tangled in the line and the mainline spoon hooked it right in the belly. Well then it stopped fighting and we ended up slowing waaaay down to get it to the boat. Another Chromer. Soon after that the same downrigger went again but after two seconds of tension, came loose. After that we kept marking fish but couldn't get them to go. All the fish came in about 65 FOW directly in front of Holland. SOG was 2.7-3.1 MPH. On a side note, Does anyone know the laws on boat visibility after dark. On our way in while pulling lines we came up on a sailboat anchored in 50 FOW strait out of Holland. I didn't see him till he was less than 100 yrds away:eek: Then he turned sideways and he had his nav lights on but did not respond to radio calls asking if he was under power. I got around him fine because I only had 4 lines in the water at that point but still a closer call than I would have wanted. I've noticed several times now that sailboats are almost invisible at night from behind. The have nave lights up front and then the only other light they have on is halfway up the mast and only visible from the front. Makes them virtually invisible at night. Also, when anchored aren't you supposed to have your nav lights off and only white lights visible from all directions?

I may be in, I know the family is going up north sometime in August which would leave me without a tow vehicle and a crew. I'll let you know for sure after I check the calendar.

Welcome. You'll be hard pressed to find a better source of information than this site.

The Outdoorsman in Jenison has strips and whole herring.

Great pics Mark. Looks like everyone was having a great time

I sold the older Rivieras today. Both of the Proo's downriggers are still available.

Went out with a friend from school who I also work with and his wife. Got on the water around 7. Set up in 65 FOW heading South west. Got to 82 FOW and the 3 color lead with a regular Miami Dolphin goes. Josh grabs that one. Less than a minute later the 7 color with a Mod Blue Veggie UV (BLL) gets a rip. I grab the pole and start handing it to Sarah and I feel the fish come off. Josh it still. fighting his fish 15 minutes later when the high diver at 125 (reg dipsey w/ mag ring set on 2.5) with a blue/chrome SD and Yogurt Stripper fly goes. Sarah grabs the pole and lands a 5ish lb laker (was kept because he flopped in the net for 5 minutes before I could get the hook loose). Josh finally got his fish to the boat and we landed a nice 10lb Steelie. Reset the lines and spun around to go back trough the same water. Got too our waypoints and the rigger down 40 with a regular yellow dolphin and a regular mixed veggies free slider goes (fish hit the slider). Josh grabs the pole and starts cranking as a nice chromer starts jumping behind the boat. He got tension on the line but the fiesty sucker threw the hooks back at us. Went through the same spot a couple more times but we go joined by other boats and didn't get anymore hits. Our last fish came well after dark on the 7 color with a Mongolian beef moonshine. The fish ended up being a nice cookie cutter king. SOG was 3.0-3.2 on a south troll, 2.4-2.7 on a north.

I'm going to make it a quick one. Headed out late tonight with two friends. Got on the lake around 7:30 and it was flat calm. The lake turned over in the past day so made a couple passes infront of the the channel looking for cold water and couldn't find it. Started heading out with my eye on the graph watching the temp. Dropped off to about 62 in 60 FOW so I set down and started setting lines on a west-south-west troll. From the radio chatter no one really had any thing going. Ran a mostly spoon spread with a tincan/sng on one diver and a f/f on the other. Drove around most of the night marking fish but not getting any hits. Once it got towards sunset started changing out to glow spoons. By this time we were headed north east back toward Holland. Got lines set and soon after took a hit on the five color lead. I was setting one of the downriggers so grabbed the pole and as soon as i grabbed it the diver on my side started going. On of my friends grabbed the diver. My friend got his fish to the boat first, a 5ish lb laker on a white/scale tincan with a MI sunset spin-n-glo on the wire diver dragin' bottom. That fish gets itself wrapped up in the net and i'm still fighting my fish. I get my fish to the boat and see that it is a HOGGG Brown. My friend finally frees the laker from the net and gets the Brown in the boat. Came on a Stinger Glow Wonderbread (stingray size). We weighed the fish on my scale at the cleaning station and it was 10lb 8oz. I was ecstatic because its only the second brown I've ever caught and the first on the big lake. It was a great fight and that thing was a football We took another laker a little while later on the other wire diver pulling a 10" Mtn. Dew SD and at Big Weenie Cornbread fly. The first two fish came in about 70 FOW and the last came in 65. SOG was 2.7-2.9 MPH. I'll get pics up tomorrow.

I was wondering if that was what it was about. I might be heading out tomorrow night too. If you need a hand try giving Ben'den Rods a call.