SeaCatMich

Plugs will run successfully at almost any speed. In the fall when the salmon are staging I run a lot of plugs and troll in the 1.8 to 2.2 mph range when fishing right off the river mouths. This is also a great speed for dodgers and a dodger/squid is also good for staging fish. Offshore I will also put out plugs but run more in the 2.4 to 2.8 mph on the downspeed -- right along with flasher/fly or flasher/meat rigs and spoons. Silver Horde and Ace High plugs seem to work better than the J-plugs at the faster speeds.

Couple more notes on meat rigs. With flashers and flies the flasher actually gives action to the fly. With meat rigs the bait head and meat itself is what really gives the action. The flasher is more to attract the salmon by fooling it into thinking that another salmon is feeding on a school of bait. This is the main reason that the stretch from the flasher to the lure is much longer with a meat rig. It is also important that the roll of the meat head is not completely uniform. There should be a "kick". Think about how a wounded bait fish swims. It does a flip of the tail and then the body follows with a spin then it gets enough energy to flip the tail again. It is sort of hard to describe but you want the head to do this too... not just spin. The meat heads from both Big Weenie and John King are designed to do this out of the package while other brands require you to rig the bait correctly to get a bend that will do the roll with the "kick".

Sorry, said it backwards. Should be a rotation every 2-3 seconds.

The main thing I have found in running meat is that you want it to spin/rotate at around 2.5 to 3 times per second. Out of the package I have found that the Big Weenie spin correctly at 2.5 to 3.0 mph X4 downspeed. The John King heads work spin better out of the package at 1.8 to 2.2 mph speeds. Some heads need tuning to run with the correct rotation rate at any speed -- bending the head and/or putting a bend in the herring. Since I generally run a mixed lure spread and most of those lures run better at the 2.5 to 2.8 mph I prefer the BW rigs.

Integration between brands is much better now than in the past -- NMEA2000 is much better than the older NMEA0183 -- BUT it is still limited depending on what you want it to do. Most companies have gone to integrated multi function head units/displays where one screen can be used to display sonar/fishfinder, radar, chart plotting, engine monitoring and even autopilot information. Most now support multiple displays networked on their medium to high end lines. Various brands/models will definately be better than others for specific functions -- for example Garmin is highly regarded for GPS; Raymarine, Furuno,and Simrad for deep water sonar... Lowrance while good for fish finder and gps isn't so highly regarded for autopilot or radar. I would start by determining what is the most important feature for you -- fish finder, gps, charts, radar, auto pilot -- and then what features are absolutely "must haves". For example, maybe you want to have built in trolling patterns on the autopilot; or radar overlay on the chart; or a specific map product supported; or AIS integration for the VHF radio or viewing sonar/downvision/sidevison all on the screen at the same time... Narrow the field by which ones do/don't provide that feature and then look at prices and how the individual units work -- ie: are they easy to use and work the way you think intuitively. Another factor may be if there is any of the existing electronics you want to keep. How/If it will integrate into a new setup may narrow your choices. Early this summer I won a new Raymarine MFD (a78) and that was the deciding factor to push me over the edge upgrade my 10+ year old system. The main components I already had were Raymarine (fish finder, radar, autopilot... with Standard Horizon VHF and GPS/Charting interfaced w/ NMEA0183) and I was very pleased at how they worked. The old system had 3 displays (console, stern, bow) so to replace I needed to buy 2 new displays and a new radar dome. The new stuff is not yet installed due to some unforeseen medical issues, but I think it will be great. I probably would have stayed with Raymarine even if I hadn't won the new setup because I had good results from it and liked their tech support. The only think I am aware of it won't do that would be nice is forward scanning sonar... but the its cost wasn't going to have me getting that anyway.

I mainly have them work best in low light conditions -- the glow sticks in the old Northport Nailer glow plugs caused them to rattle plus the glow and were great for dawn/dusk. I would think that they would be good for leadcore/copper long lines too where the lure is away from the main spread and help the salmon hone in on its location.

What is the brand & model of the fish finders you have?

It really depends on the weather but late Sept could be hit or miss for bigger salmon in that part of the lake. Not too many streams for the fish to stage off of. But, still good fishing for a mixed bag of Kings, Coho, and Steelhead. My only experience with a boat in that area (actually a little north) is Dan Keating who owns Blue Horizon Sportfishing out of Winthrop Harbor -- http://bluehorizonsportfishing.net/ If there are fish to catch Dan will know where. Fun guy to go fishing with too. Call soon to get on the calendar. Lake Michigan fish size is generally smaller than Ontario. Kings in the 20-25# range are not unusual but over 30# is. Numbers per trip are down from past years but it isn't unusual. More of a mixed bag fishery with Kings, Coho, Steelhead/Rainbow, and Lake Trout... with some Browns thrown in.

The United States has been the global leader in regards to reducing pollution since the 1970s. Even if all fossil fuel pollution was eliminated in the US it would be an insignificant reduction compared to what is being generated in China, India, eastern Europe... Sorry, but it doesn't add up to cripple the US energy supply and/or cost to require us to use expensive "politically correct" energy such as solar and wind instead of coal and natural gas. Especially if the rest of the world isn't gong to as well -- when along with nuclear, those are the fuels we have in abundance -- sort of amazing how that is a coincidence. Somehow I feel that the UN will find issue with wind and solar and wave power too once they figure out that the USA with more flat land for solar and wind, and more coastline for wave energy will somehow be bad too. Eventually it is possible that solar and wind could be significant contributors to the country's energy base but not now and they are not even remotely competitive without significant government subsidies -- government subsidies which is a PC way of saying that the "government is paying for it" and since the government does not really have money, it has MY TAX DOLLARS, it is still us in the general population paying the higher cost.

Nice ideas in that link but it is not eBay policy. It is a "how to" written by an eBay member (actually a former eBay member) and is from Great Britain. Even the link they say to go to is UK based but no longer active. As with all purchases one of the keys to getting a situation like this resolved -- especially through eBay -- is to report the problem quickly. On eBay you have 60 days after the purchase to leave feedback and contest a purchase if it is not as advertised. What has frustrated me in the past has been when I contact the seller and don't get a quick resolution within that 60 day period. Consequently I now start with a complaint immediately -- it is also amazing how a seller responds much faster with an official eBay or PayPal complaint than just to bad feedback or direct contact. Here is the actual way it should be done: http://ocsnext.ebay.com/ocs/sr?query=1735&st=7&trackPos=5

I have had good luck working with Marc's Marine up in Eagle (just north of Grand Ledge). Has been outboard work for me so I don't know if he does I/O or not but would be worth a call (http://marcs-marine.com/). I would not recommend Bee's up in St. Johns -- over priced and slow. Grand Pointe up in Lansing seems good, but is expensive. There is a freelance guy in Lansing that advertises on CraigsList. He knows his stuff but comes across a little fly-by-night. He did some work for me on a couple outboards and no issues though. I think his name is Steve.

Too many people on eBay provide feedback only on the price and how fast an item ships. They put the feedback up before actually using the item. If you check this seller's feedback it sure seems to be the case. No real comments (outside of what I assume is brokeoff's) about the product itself. Too many people out there that probably can't even tell the difference between mono and fluorocarbon line -- which is a shame since they are paying a whole lot more for the fluoro. I was a little surprised to see that the seller was from Florida... and not from China. While lots of product is manufactured there for the companies but there is a lot of knock offs from there of fake stuff sold as genuine.

I agree with Gnarf. Had the plastic pins on my Walleye boards get grooves in them after a couple years of use. Didn't loose anything, but I could see either the pin getting sawed through or the line getting caught in the pin. Replaced them all with the metal pins from Calumet Marine. I'm pretty sure that Frank have a TX44 version too.

According to the DNR info page on the Pt. Sheldon ramp and it says that the Holland State Park does the management. The contact # listed is: (616) 399-9390

In Michigan, yes.