Whatahoot

I'm with you FBD! It can really be tough, especially from pictures. I'll stick with being jealous and live vicariously until I can get out there myself! Thanks Ed! Rick

White Lake Canvas has made several awesome covers for me. Highly recommend them. In Holland, Nautical Needle is good and as mentioned Canvas Innovations does good work also. I suggest talking to a couple of them, they will look at your boat and give you and estimate and design input before starting. From there you will be able to decide who you think will work well with you. What-a-Hoot

Thanks Ed, I think we're all going a little stir crazy about now!

Nice catch guys! How do you like to prepare your gills? For those hand sized gills I will filet them or take the heads off, gut them and scale them. Salt and pepper (maybe a little Old Bay) and fry them up in a cast iron skillet on the grill until the tails are crispy (keeps the smell and mess out of our kitchen). Now I'm hungry, What time is the fish fry?

Good job! We fished Holland from 9a to 2p and saw all of the marks in 40-50 fow but couldn't get a hit. The water was turning over all day. Strange currents and temps at 50 fow kept changing from 48 to 52 to 55 to 58 in short distances. Went west to 100 fow and marked nothing. Went back to 60 fow and hit a nice steelhead on 225 cu and blue dolphin reg. spoon. Only to come up 2 ft short of our net when it did a 5th Spin-o-Rama and spit the spoon at the net. Got a great look at what looked to be 8 lbs. pretty fish! We ended up 2 for 3 with 2 Sheephead in 50 fow on our way into the pier heads. One was huge, easily over 10 lbs.. Lot's of grass in the Holland Channel made it rough. Long day for a white striped cat. But a Friday on the water ain't all bad!

Thanks for the report, glad you salvaged the trip! Sent from my iPhone using Great Lakes Fisherman Mobile App

Thanks for the feedback. I agree with others that keeping a log can be a drag (pun intended). I haven't kept a log all these years because I tend to remember what works in certain conditions and stick with what works for me. Salmon fishing on the big lake with 6, 9 or 12 lines (vs. solo fishing with single rods or less than 4 rods) at once presents a unique opportunity to keep it all straight while we are trolling. Especially as I learn more and pay more attention to what is in our pattern at any given time. I will start trying different methods and see where it all goes! For recording what worked, I will start taking more pics of the fish with the lure in it's mouth before cleaning up. I also like the pics Dirty Dog regularly posts with lures on a piece of paper with rod/depth etc written next to it, including "hot" for the those that deserve it. I like it.

Thanks, I also thought of a whiteboard, we could take a phone pic at the end of the trip. Looking for ideas and as Lured Inn said, "sounds like fun" is what I fear will happen in reality. That's why I'm looking for creative Ideas that may just work :-)

I am thinking of starting a fishing log (for the first time in over 50 yrs of fishing!). I got motivated after this weekend when we broke off a fish (broken snubber) and my buddy asked what tackle we lost. I looked at him with a blank stare because I couldn't remember what we had out on that rod... LOL! I think they call this disease CRS?!. Not to mention trying to keep all of the fishing report details straight by the end of a trip. I know some guys keep a log so I am wondering how you keep track of not just what fish you caught (fishing report details) but how do you keep track of what stuff you have out on your lines and adjust for what's hot during the run. Keeping track of 6, 9, 12 rods is getting difficult. We do change baits occasionally during a trip so "scripting" our setup to start won't work (like the first 10 football plays). I came up with an idea for a log book format that I would keep on the boat (clipboard or a binder) and scribble down notes and details as time permits (hopefully too many fish to take time out!). It would look something like this in the pics attached. Curious what works for you guys! Thanks!