1mainiac

Just got off the phone with Don winds are building in Muskegon so it looks like the wave report is what it is. Sun is looking very fishable so we are taking a blow day tommorrow and will fish on Sun. Hope to see everyone there. Forecast is for 4 to 6ft which is beyond what we will send guys out in we have too many smaller boats to run a contest in those predicted conditions.

yep and it is always the precurser to the fall run cools the river down and raises water levels.

Talked with Don and Doug on the phone today Sat is looking very unlikely with Gale warnings until Sat morn we will not fish in predicted seas beyond 3 to 5ft and only fish 3 to 5ft if it is laying down current off shore forecast is 5 to 8ft for Sat if this holds we will fish Sun which is calling for 1 to 3ft. We got a nice package from Gary and Karen at Big Weenie so remember to thank them for their continued support. We will make the call tommorow night so check back here or on the other pages.

After a few years you give up and buy a Auto Pilot what a world of difference on my boat no yelling at the driver no tangled lines. All 4 of us at the back of the boat fighting and netting fish and no issues. I would have to say as far as a boat improvement goes it might be better than beer. And I have never seen a boat that beer would not improve LOL.

Strangly enough only 2 issues cause a boat to track badly both are easy to fix. First you have to get rid of any excessive play in the steering by excessive I mean like a quarter turn of the wheel before the drive moves. Now you need a flat calm day lock the drive centered straight forward and put the boat in gear bring your trim tabs if you have them all the way up and make sure you and anyone else in the boat is centered. If the boat does not go straight adjust the trim fin on the lower unit above and behind the prop till it will go straight. The trim fin is counter rudder to the natural side push of the prop once set correctly the drive will track right and then you can use the trim tabs or move weight around to correct any lean and still drive straight. Lots of guys would be amazed to realize they are not holding the wheel straight ahead when running at speed. So they end up using the trim tabs to level the boat while they kepp turning to keep it straight all the while loosing speed and wasting gas. The guys who put their tabs all the way down to take off are the worst. It is normal for the bow to come up under power once it gets to planing speed it will come down if your drive is set right. Trim tabs are to correct a badly loaded boat not to make it plane. If your boat won't plane without them it is underpowered or poorly setup. With 4 or 5 fat guys and a ton of fishing gear my boat will plane nicely and I seldom touch the tabs.

I sure hope it settles down from the current offshore report for Sat which is 5 to 7ft however Sun is looking very fishable so stay tuned. I will hope to have Doug make a weather call Fri night if it looks like we can fish Sat. But if the wave report is still big for Sat we will cancel and fish Sunday.

Fish dock is not fishing this year from what I understand they always put up the net reports and also noted where the other nets were. If I was closer to my boat I would run out and mark them but that costs gas and time. One thing to remember is they are fishing in cold water which is why they are deeper right now. So fishing around them usually brings me a few fish. The only time they bother me is when they sneak up on me and I get closer than I would like.

Did it back in the early 80's in a 25ft Carver was a long boat ride from Grand Haven took a lot of beer to get there.

Just a reminder the Big Weenie Contest will be held in Muskegon this Sat. Due to changes we won't have a league battle this year. Looking forward to seeing everyone there.

Depends on the weather and the river flow actually. What I have noticed in fishing them since the late 60's is that every year we get a big storm in late August or early Sept That seems to get the river flow up and cool the water which seems to ring the bell for the fall run. It also means lots of us with boats miss the best part of the run because we don't fish during the storm LOL. So what happens is every year the fish start piling up just off shore out front and we start planning on when they will make the run then the storm hits and blows us off the water for a couple of days and when we get back out the fish are gone.

Some of what worked was a BW poofster with a UV BW paddle 90 dn on a rigger took big fish same combo on a wire diver 90 back took a nice king. fish in the pic came on a 300 BR 45# copper with a Ace Hi green splatter back. New Moonshine RV spoon took a Coho on a free slider with the rigger parked at 70dn. Moonshine Flounder Pounder took a small king 95 dn on rigger. Another Flounder Pounder took a nice Steelhead on a 300 copper. Don't remember what the other fish came on all fish came on a north troll in 120ft north of the nets we turned around in the 18's but pulled lines shortly after as it was getting funky fast.

Weather shortened trip went 6 for 6 in roughly 2 hours fishing tonight but since we were getting shocks off the wire rods and my LED lights were blinking on their own decided we had better call it quits. Riggers Divers and 300 coppers all took fish was fun getting my boss's son to catch 3 fish tonight in fact he took the 3 biggest kings and his dad took the 2 smallest fish. Here is Tyler with his first fish of the night he said he would stick with go kart racing and not make his dad buy a boat. Tyler is factory sponsored by Coyote Motorsports and races in a couple of classes.

Or do what I do every year head west and fill your box with Steelhead while the guys are cussing each other out and running over their lines.

When I ran them a lot I ran very heavy fly leaders and short all less than 18in I also found they spin out much past 2.5mph. SInce I switched to paddles mostly Pro Troll but some others as well I am back to longer leads and faster speeds. But for me it is and always will be a mostly spoon bite because of the action as you can see in the section where you had a spoon down it was darting back and forth while the Spin Doctor looked like a sheephead on the hook LOL.

nice video but reminds me why I don't like Spin Doctors in several sections you can see the Spin Doctor moving wildly while the fly behind it hardly moves.

I have not bothered to wet my lead core this year and likely won't till time to chase Steel off shore in Sept and Oct. Copper is always good for close to 1/2 the fish in my box 150 and 200 have been hot all year. we run between 5 and 8 copper rods every trip and 9 fish has been our worst trip this year on my boat.

As to the subject the only way to insure a box of big fish is to not fill it with little fish. This has led to lots of rule bending and outright cheating in some cases. The simple fact is if your in a bunch of small fish they are what you will catch. You might be able to find a few bigger fish among them but you will get lots of small fish. So you have to move and try a better spot. I think of it like finding old men on a park bench They don't want to fight for a spot and don't care for a pack of kids running around them. So I pick the quieter stretchs and look for spots they can relax and be comfortable.

it is a charity event the Dreamweaver B4K every year in Muskegon limited to 60 boats sign up early. Only cash prize is big fish all the other prizes are raffle tickets all of the sponsor stuff is raffled off to make more for the charity. Lot of fun and great cause.

Or you could do my Dreamweaver stratagy which for the last 3 years has been show up at weigh in and buy extra raffle tickets. 3 years ago we had a storm hit at 5am so we went to breakfast to wait it out it had not cleared up after breakfast so we called it and went home since I had a extra 100 bucks I went to the weigh in and spent it on tickets. I won a charter trip hockey tickets and several other things So after fishing the Dreamweaver since it started my best win was a no fish trip. Last year we had boat problems had to switch boats forgot the lure pack so could not weigh any fish and won stuff agian. Did not do as well this year but still got a nice package in the raffle.

Saw a strategy used in the Grand Haven Off shore many years ago. We were not fishing in it but ran south out of Muskegon early to fish. As the sun came up we saw a few gallon jugs floating one was close to the boat so we netted it and it had braided line tied to it so we pulled it up and there was a nice king on the other end we pulled 2 more that morning the same way. Don't know who did it but I bet they were bummed when their special fish were gone.

Nice box Don maybe next year I will weigh a box kinda wish I had weighed mine and then Dq'd myself LOL. There were a lot of nice boxes and we would not have won even if we weighed. Our big fish was 17.6 but we fished our program so had no legal fish to weigh. Still had a great time and will be back again next year it is all for the kids in that event so I don't mind not winning but it has been 3 years since I even weighed a fish so maybe next year we play by the rules and see what happens LOL.

Mostly for me it comes down to intregrity of the events. Clearly money is always a issue more so for me due to the wifes car accident 2 years ago which wiped out her income and removed her from my fishing team. I have a huge problem with the way many events have been run I will however probably fish some of the bigger events again in the future but if it is a weigh 5 event I will only do the 333. The big issue for me with the Tournament Trail is the rules changes from port to port which really means it is totally unstructured so the idea of going port to port is a waste of time. So for many they pick their home port and maybe do one north and one south of home. The flip side as pointed out by a couple of guys I fish with is we spend more doing a couple of major events than we spend to fish a entire season when we skip the big events. Fishing my home port of Muskegon in the Shootout with prefishing and the 2 day event we avg 200 gal of gas for that week we have been out 8 times this year and have not burned a 100 gal yet granted 3 of those trips were in the 17 but they still netted nice fish and a good time.

Yep nice Brown

I buy quality welded ring ball bearing swivels and put my own Duo Lock snaps on them. But I would not run a single peice of gear without a good bearing swivel.

What no fish on my Ace High plug LOL nice job Mark.