Dave Mull

Thanks Rob. It's great to be here.

PMed you Gary.

Scott: Yes it was the same day! Thank you for the compliments. The works will certainly continue (if you can call it work). Just will be available in different venues. Dave

Milt: I sure will! You still have the Yar-Craft? I might be coming through in October if you're still fishing. Thanks! Dave

Jim: Thanks! I would love to!

Thank you for that kind offer and I will give you a call if I have a Saturday to get away! Always like fishing with new people--haven't gone on someone else's boat yet and not learned something useful. Dave

First, I want to thank Mike Heckman for giving me some space for a BLOG that aims to entertain and inform guys and gals who enjoy fishing the Great Lakes. The purpose is to provide news and commentary about things that affect the fishery along with new product info that might make fishing more enjoyable. The third major area of content material will be travel info about places worth visiting--and maybe worth avoiding--around our sweetwater seas and beyond. As the former editor of Great Lakes Angler (laid off and probably not getting asked back), I get some sneak previews of new stuff that is worth sharing. I also get to fish with guys trying new techniques and get to see all sorts of little tricks that some really good fishermen use to catch fish, organize tackle, make their boats more ergonomic--the kinds of stuff that the magazine used to cover in the Basics & Beyond section. Plans are to provide those kinds of snippets here, in words and pictures as well as video. I have the ambitious goal of providing five new entries per week, but I can't promise I'll be able to do that while in the midst of figuring out how to support my wife and 16-year-old son along with a menagerie of hobby farm pets, not to mention needing to support my own serious addiction to fishing and hunting. But I will do the best I can! This is truly a nice website for anglers and I am privileged to be a part of it. Dave Mull

Not for awhile Spawnwalker. Good to see you're still hanging around fishing sites! You still have your Lund?

Boltman, if you like animals, I'm betting you will grow to really like chickens. I never in a million years would have guessed I would be part of a family that owns some (we're up to around 30 with 10 new surprise arrivals). They are hugely entertaining and keep the yard (not to mention six dogs--only one brought by me into the union) free of ticks. My veggie garden is pretty insect free, too. It's great to have lots of eggs--don't really want to do the math to figure out if, with the price of cracked corn and "layer crumbles" we're saving any money--the people my wife gives the excess to certainly are. Problem is we're real softies and all the birds have names. When they retire from laying, they get to stick around instead of becoming stew. My suggestion is to not name any of your birds unless you use names such as "Ms. Sunday Dinner," "Soup" or "Barbie Cue." Not to say my wife has a problem (although I constantly envision a film crew in a van with "Animal Planet's Animal Hoarders" emblazoned on the side pulling up our driveway--we've also got three goats, two rabbits, three ducks, a goose, six cats and a goldfish--I mentioned I brought a dog into this marriage, right?) but she's started bringing handicapped chickens into the fold. Last trip to the animal swap she brought home three healthy chickens and Esther, a young black chicken with one good leg and a twisted beak. Will post a photo wherever that sort of thing is allowed to be posted on this site! More advice: Get your better half to agree to say, four chickens that are for sure chickens. We got a half dozen supposedly pre-sexed chickens and one of them grew up to be a rooster. Hence the 10 new babies. But I gotta tell you, Benny is pretty cool and I'm a little jealous of how often he has conjugal relations. We've lost some to predators and it's a terrible thing, but hey, they're just chickens and with any luck that really brazen coyote that just stares at Kathy when she waves the broom and screams at him when he pops through the brush line in the back yard will be adorning our wood floor by the end of winter. I've named him "Rug." If you want some more chicken advice, feel free to ask, but probably best in a private message! Dave

Just wanted to say I've appreciated the warm welcome I've received from Mike and a bunch of you other guys since I joined this fine site the other day. After 12 years performing a labor of love as editor of Great Lakes Angler and admin of the GLAngler.com website, I am no longer affiliated with that publishing company. Can't say I received a well-cooked deal, if you get my drift, but that's all behind and it's just best to move forward. Part of that moving forward is being appointed as a moderator and given a place to start a BLOG on greatlakesfisherman.com. I'm really looking forward to it and hope you guys enjoy whatever I can put together. A little background, I grew up in Michigan City and well remember the fanfare when people started catching salmon there in the late 1960s. I didn't get out myself until my Uncle Marty bought a boat and took me fishing when I was in high school--about 1974. Caught a dandy steelhead and was taken by the whole idea of catching beautiful big fish in a lake best known for so many silvery alewives that front loaders used to pile them on the beaches. Too bad we don't have that problem today! After getting a degree in journalism/communication, I started working at the hometown newspaper and was lucky enough to get the outdoor editor gig in the early '80s. I've been working in the outdoor industry since 1984, including stints in marketing for Starcraft and an agency that handled Shimano and Yamaha among other outdoor accounts. Started freelancing fulltime about 1989, got the gig at Great Lakes Angler in 2000. Now I'm back to freelancing. It wasn't entirely by choice, but now that the decision by my former boss not to bring me back has been made, it's onward and upward, making a living by writing, taking pictures and making videos in a brave, new digital world! I look forward to providing some entertainment and information to site members here--and learning a ton of stuff too. I live in Paw Paw, Michigan if any of you guys in the area ever need three rods more from a currently boatless guy who is happy to help pay for gas! I was already in one boat that sank--what are the odds it will happen again?! Dave

Others with more background fishing meat might disagree--so listen to them if so! I believe it's better to filet then brine. You get more salt and color throughout the meat, making the exposed stuff hold up better in the water when you're trolling. Good luck! Dave

I'll see you guys at the weigh in! Good luck tomorrow--hope the waves behave for you.

Soon as I figure out how to post pictures (using a PC for the first time in my Mac life) I will do so! Also forgot to mention what we found in the coho's gullet: a five-inch perch and about a four-inch goby. First time I've seen either in a salmon. Wonder if brown flies would work!

Slow day for me and my buddy Martin fishing out of his 16-footer Elinore yestrerday out of St. Joe. One lake trout on a wire Dipsy over 90 feet of water, set on 1-1/2 and back 180 feet. Big ring. Ate a Big Weenie Sushi Fly (the kind with an anchovy-style baithead in it) baited with a Slimers King Kut, green, soaked in menhaden cream. Saw quite a few fish between 70 and 150 on an out troll. Just got the one laker to go. It was a nice 12-pounder. Today I fished with Uncle Bud and one of his Florida friends, James Clark a first mate aboard on one oof the boats he fishes on out of Fort Myers in the winter. We were two for four, landing a 10-pound laker and an 8-pound coho and losing a king on a fluke break-off (the leader line somehow got wrapped around the spinny and broke) and one other fish, probably a king that just came unpinned. Anyway, it was really slow compared to yesterday when Bud and a friend went 9 for 12 in 90 feet of water, mostly on meat. Today, we started in 90 and it was the dead sea, even though the temp was 44 and 43 degrees anywhere past about 70 feet. We saw bait in shallower. We were feeling bad for James, a hardcore angler on a Great Lake for the first time. Finally at about 1 p.m. we had a flurry of four bites. The first we lost was on a 350 copper, fly behind a Bechhold FishCatcher. Second was the laker, which hit a rigger, sushi fly behind a Spin Doctor (sorry, don't know what fly, but Blue Bubble, 10 inch spinny) 68 feet down. Then we broke off the king on another rigger, set 74 down, then we caught the coho, a really nice male, weighed in at 8 pounds at Capt. Cooks so Bud could take the lead on the coho division (no 'hos had been entered--love having internet access via an iPhone) among the Michiana Steelheaders. It really was a good day when considering no flies, enough wind to stay cool, but not enough to make you seasick, and a really knowledgeable saltwater fisherman who appreciated catching two new species. It's great fun to be able to look at the Great Lakes anew when you have someone like that along.

I guess you can say that our big water trolling, and all the preparation, risk, joys, sorrows, expenses not to mention lost sleep can bring out the best and the worst in us. When I had a small enough boat at a wide ramp I launched at an angle behind those knuckleheads who backed onto the ramp and started loading their boats. Very satisfying. I pulled it off once anyway. Very satisfying.

Thanks guys.

Thanks Supertramp. Dave

Hi Guys, A friend who runs a tackle company asked me about fishing leagues on Lake Michigan, and I only know of a couple. He's interested in sponsoring the smaller, regular, weeknight and weekend contests, and possibly doing something to crown a Lake Michigan champion. I believe there used to be on on the Wisconsin side out of Sheboygan, but I haven't heard anything about it lately. If anyone can supply me with any info about leagues on the beautiful west side of the lake, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks! Dave

Hi Guys, A friend who runs a tackle company asked me about fishing leagues on Lake Michigan, and I only know of a couple. He's interested in sponsoring the smaller, regular, weeknight and weekend contests, and possibly doing something to crown a Lake Michigan champion. I have heard of a couple in Michigan--there's one in South Haven, no? I'd have fished it this year if I'd have had a boat! If you guys can supply me with any info on who is running a league on our side of the lake and anything else pertinent about the events, I would really appreciate it. Thanks! Dave

Hi Guys, A friend who runs a tackle company asked me about fishing leagues on Lake Michigan, and I only know of a couple. He's interested in sponsoring the smaller, regular, weeknight and weekend contests, and possibly doing something to crown a Lake Michigan champion. I don't know of any in Illinois, but if any of you guys do, would you please give me whatever info you can? Thanks! Dave

Hi Guys, A friend who runs a tackle company asked me about fishing leagues on Lake Michigan, and I only know of a couple. He's interested in sponsoring the smaller, regular, weeknight and weekend contests, and possibly doing something to crown a Lake Michigan champion. I don't know of any in Indiana, but if any of you guys do, would you please give me whatever info you can? Thanks! Dave

I've had pretty good luck just rolling fillets in dry, uniodized salt (I use canning salt). A product I really like is the Pautzke Fire Brine. Firms 'em up and gives them you choice of several colors. This stuff is especially good at plumping up fillets that have dried out in the freezer. Your fillets might have gotten warm in shipping? I've gotten a few packs that you just couldn't do anything to save.

Thanks for the welcome, fellows! I already do like it here. Can someone tell me what a Crazy B Spin Doctor looks like? The guys who won were using one with a Big Weenie Arctic, uh, something (need to check my notes) behind it. Dave

Slow going for most of the 40 boats in the Church Tackle/Tackle Haven tournament out of here on Saturday. Winner was Orginator, captained by Jerry Link. Caught nine fish total, he said,, mainly on Warrior spoons trolling in a long oval between about 105 feet of water and 150 feet of water. Top five (three lakers and two kings) weighed 65 pounds. I fished with Uncle Bud, and we caught seven, finishing in sixth place with our top five, which was the same as the winners, with three trout and two kings. Hottest lure was a blue bubble, 10-inch Spin Doctor on a wire magnum dipsy, set 220 back. Lure was a white squid with a hunk of herring on it. Biggest fish was a trout caught on a 350 copper, 11-inch Bechhold FishCatcher with a Church Baithead and a herring strip from Fish On. Didn't keep real careful track of depths, but it's safe to say all of our fish came between 105 and 120. Dave Mull