1mainiac

4 yr old fish are rare. I have only caught a few in my lifetime most of them back in the 70's when by the way we were getting 3 year old fish over 30 lbs. Biggest difference bait fish There was a time when most of the beaches had loaders and bulldozers with rakes to clear the dead alewives off them. I can remember many days when swimming in Lake Michigan meant wading thru dieing alewives. The salmon were brought here to clean up the Alewives since they had been tried in the late 1800's with no success the invasive onslaught however brought something they would eat. What has never happened well was reproduction on our rivers until the last decade when there had been enough of them to adapt somewhat to the warmer water and shorter lifespan. This coupled with less and less forage base made them a smaller fish that spawned sooner.

Scum line is called that because it is where all the scum collects on a temp break. You will see floating trash this causes lots of bugs and stuff to collect. Steel head will eat bugs all day long so they tend to hang around scum lines. Sometimes on the cold side sometimes on the warm side. Temp breaks are just that changes in water temp at the surface. Terry Dirty Dog can probably remember better then me but fishing with Don and him on the Tangled Mess a couple years ago we hit the biggest temp break any of have seen in memory. We only pulled a couple fish off it because we were about done for the day it was around a 15 deg temp break and looked like a step in the water. If I find a good temp break I will follow it til I limit out usually not taking very long to do so. Most days this time of year if I am not already dialed in I will spend as much time looking for my spot or sometimes more than it takes to limit out when I find it. Last year we took a 4 man limit of Steelhead plus 3 bonus kings in just over a hour of fishing. I just drive west til I see my water and stop to check and temp breaks I see when running out.

most years this is my favorite time to fish all the traffic is in the harbors or gone hunting. I prefer Steelhead so getting after them is a passion. Work the temp breaks and scum lines and when you dial it in the results are great. Most years I fish thru Oct with lots of limit catches.

What drive do you have? If you have a older Mercruiser without power steering I have a hyd steering system for it. Then you could get the Garmin or any hyd AP you want and have a great setup.

Terry I also have a pump if you want to come to GR and borrow it

The aluminum setup could come off the boat easy if you wanted it to would just require a anchor plate on the bottom with nuts so you could bolt it on or take it off.

210 bucks for a 10ft piece of 2x6 alum tube 1/4 wall and a 16in piece of 1/4 x 2in flat bar will give you the width you want and enough to cut the risers from it. 30 min with the welder and your done. will look good for years I used the stuff to build risers on my old boat and used a 2x8 for a top board was cheaper but did not look as good.

Keep in mind he is in a 24ft Regal which is a pretty heavy glass boat with a lot of sail area above the water line. If he is using a lot of gas trolling he needs a better tune up I can get under 2gph when I don't run the bags so he should be closer to Kevin with a 302. The big issue with a small kicker in a larger glass boat is lack of motor control so the days you can use it are limited or your stuck going the way it wants to go. Sure you can often find a good used motor but most of them are not cheap anymore either. If I was going to add a kicker to mine now that I have fished it for 5 years it would be at least a 40hp for a couple of reasons one it would have better boat control and I could bag it. 2 there are lots of those mid hp long shaft motors out there cheap. I pretty much had to give my 402 Merc away I should of put it on the back of my boat but at the time was thinking a 9.9 or a 15 I know better now.

If my boat came with a kicker I would use it however if i had put one on when I bought it 5 years ago I would still not have broke even on the cost of install. My 350 is pretty much dead on 2gph trolling the quote to put on a new high thrust Honda kicker with the mounts and steering was over 4 grand the 400 or so hours I have put on trolling in 5 years comes to about 3200 the kicker would of cut that to 800 to a 1000 plus the cost of the kicker so I would still be waiting to break even. Add in the days it was too rough to use a kicker anyhow and very little savings.

You might want to move north to Muskegon much easier run to deep water for Steel and young kings. And some deep drops and holes for structure. I have had dozens of 3 and 4 man limits on Steel out deep over the years. Often running out setting up and catching fish so fast the guys were complaining about not being able to drink their beer.

Not sure about Holland But Lakeshore welding in Muskegon sells and repairs Miller. Purity in GR also services them.

we are on our 2nd Miller in the shop I work in first one lost voltage control and was scraped. Current one does a decent job but we are not a welding shop just need a welder now and then. The Miller mig is easy for the guys to use I would rather have a TIG but like I said we don't weld all the time so pull the trigger and weld works for most of the guys. If I were going to buy a welder it would have to do mufti-process because for me it would be mostly Stick and Tig though I am very rusty at TIG welding. To me MIG is middle of the road and not really great at anything other than letting almost anyone weld. Yes I know there are some really good MIG welders but most people who have them run the same wire for all welds. So no matching the weld to the job like in Stick and TIG welding. I would try some flux core and see if it acts up because that would remove any gas issue. The other thing you could do is put a voltmeter on the output and see if the voltage is constant when it acts up. A sticky feed roller will mess up your welds also as will kinks in the wire feed line. Voltage should be stable while welding. Also since I just reread that it is a 130 is it a 115v welder My tote mig hates some of my extension cords I let my son take it to NC with him and he called saying it would not weld anything I asked him if he was using a extension cord and he said yes so I had him plug it straight into the wall and it works fine for him. That welder is going on 30 years old so it gets real touchy about how you feed it. Without actually welding with it it is hard to say exactly what is happening. Voltage issues tend to surge when welding gas issues for me seem to effect weld quality and appearance. Feed issues tend to make you erratic as the feed speeds up and slows down fast one min slow the next so the bead looks like your kid welded it.

10 years ago I got a great deal on a Cobalt 21ft that had the out drive stolen off it. Thinking I could fix it and have a nice boat cheap LOL. I sold all the parts on Ebay and the hull is in a landfill no matter how I did the math it was cheaper to buy a used boat that actually worked than fix it. Just like my fast cars and other toys there is no profit in it however if like mentioned above you enjoy it then it's up to you to decide what it is worth.

probably the voltage control board we have had several of them go bad last one was 500 bucks so we have a new welder instead of fixing it. If your using gas check you regulator as gas flow will mess with your weld also. Try some flux core if it does not mess up your problem is in the gas flow.

20lb P Line Flouroclear for last 4 years no issues yep I break one now and then but it works for me.

mine works wish the motor ran. I plan on fishing Muskegon this weekend maybe we can get together and see what is up with it.

Slow is fast fast is a sure tangle or birds nest when setting copper up Robert. Also set one side then wait for it to clear before setting another line close to it. Lots of times my short coppers are first thing out then the riggers then the divers then the long coppers. Long coppers need to be a long way from the boat if running divers down deep as the dive will walk out under it which is not a very pretty sweater to knit.

Not saying it had anything to do with any one group just that it is like this every year as all 3 groups of fishermen try to fish one spot then add in the guys who only fish here a few times a year. And mix in the me generation that can now afford boats so you have guys who go the wrong way and could care less about you or your gear. There is a reason we call it combat fishing and a reason I avoid it because I have a temper. A few years back I had a guy on the pier cast into my boat so I went to untangle his lure to send it back and he started ranting and cussing me out then he was running down the pier throwing sinkers at me so I said F it and drove off with his gear.

Late August jiggers in the channel perch guys north of the arms and combat fishing out front. Pretty much abnormal as usual which is why you won't find me fishing within 5 miles of that crap.

Offer is good for any weekend Robert the fall Steelhead are a blast and that will go from now till Ice in. There will still be some Kings around but most will likely run in the next couple of weeks as soon as we get our Sept Storm they will be up river.

For those who like numbers we put 310 fish on the scales this summer with a total weight of 2310.05 lbs. My bet is we beat that by 1000 lbs next year with the bigger fish we are seeing.

Here is the final sheet with all scores And this is the final score sheet with all boats at 5 events.

Should of posted this yesterday but here are the results. I want to thank all the guys and our great sponsors for a great season. Special thanks to Patty for keeping us in line and running the sign up as well as the cookies LOL. Once again Bill showed up with a great box however 7Mary3 could of beat him with a legal gold fish LOL very nice box by Jon and crew we just needed that mercy fish that never came.

All of us could give you advise but as I have told many people take me or one of the other guys fishing so we can show you. Much faster learning curve and you will likely get fish for dinner. My boat is broke my gear is not I have all next weekend and would love to fish.

Still boat less so if anyone needs a extra hand let me know