1mainiac

Personally they pretty much all work but watching big fish eat tiny bugs in the water all day makes me think. I have caught some huge fish over the years on flies that were not much more than a hook with some dressing.

I seldom use more than a couple of inches of banded material the UV glow fly I took the pics of had 3 different materials each was roughly 1.25 in of banded mylar. The materials are blue UV mylar, ultra glow mylar and Halo silver fishscale. I will disclose where the head and beads came from as soon as they are available as I was told not to let anyone know where I got them just yet. I will say they have more than 10 times the amount of glow material in them as any on the market and are custom made for a friend. When he knows how many he will have to sell and final cost they will be disclosed sorry.

The Big Red should be Aug 6th and 7th always the first weekend in Aug. Called Fred and Manistee is the last 2 weekends of Jul and Holland follows them so that should be OK. Jul 9th is the Muskegon Shootout but fishing out of Holland should not be affected by that. Jun 4th is the Grand Haven but I don't plan on fishing it anyhow. So that leaves me open for the first 2 and the last one and a inter-league event in Aug if the rest of our guys like the idea.

I have honestly became herring impaired I seldom run it anymore my boat smells much better LOL. However 4 years ago it was my number one go to setup and I ran it all behind 8in Pro Trolls and Spin Doctors. The last couple of years I have been hit and miss on running it with so so results and have ran it behind larger paddles but still nothing like it was 4 years ago. Not sure of the change perhaps water clarity but I should check with Steve and Jay cause I mostly drive the boat but I don't think we took more than a fish or 2 on meat this year.

Here is a couple more pics of a new fly I am tying. Same fly 2 pics one under UV the other in the dark. that was under UV this is the glow pattern Can't say what the materials are yet as they are still not available for retail but should be in a few weeks. Just got a advance sample to try out.

Here is one of my setups I showed Don and he made his own right after he saw it. This is my vise it is a 3/8 bolt with a piece of 5/16 fuel line pretty simple to make here are some materials laid out by the way there is a chrome bullet head in the vise already. I use small scissors a thread bobbin with Kevlar thread short pieces of Bandaboo and banded mylar some clear nail polish and a whip finish tool. again simple stuff. take a bit of glue or nail polish and apply to the tube or head and make several wraps of thread around it to lock the thread down. Pick your outside color and begin wrapping it and the thread around the tube or head add additional colors or layers as you go. with a little practice you can make a quality fly in a couple min or less I have no problem tying 20 to 30 or more per hour when I am setup and have the time.

Not only is the crane a issue but what is the crane going to sit on and how do you get it to the location? This is at a dock my bet is they will have to bring the crane on a barge. They don't move fast I read about a truck going thru the ice on a lake in 30ft of water and the bill to remove it was close to 100 grand that number could have included fines and permits I don't know all that but still is not a easy job nor a cheap one.

Here's one under a UV light

The funny thing I found is there is no direct correlation between Lumens and Candlepower they are completely different tests. A Lumen is the amount of light put out and candlepower is the intensity of the light. So 1 lumen at 1 in or 100 yards is the same but distance affects candlepower ie you can measure bulb at 10ft and say it is 200 candlepower but the same bulb at 1 ft might be 50,000 candlepower and at 1in it might be 500,000. This is how most of the spotlight companies get away with their ads yet use the same bulbs and batteries as the other guys. LED lighting is directional however many companies are finding ways to arrange the diodes to give better and better coverage all the time.

I bought them thru the International dealer in Muskegon. They were around 65 bucks each and very well worth the money. I can order more if anyone would like a set just have to figure out the cash and delivery thing but if you call and ask for Sue in parts she will order them for you don't know if you can get the same price as me but I don't have the same job I had so I might not get the same price anymore either. However I can have a friend get them if price has gone up.

I have a set of 500 Lumen LED floods from Sound Off Signal in Hudsonville and they are insanely bright and have a good pattern. I also have several sets of other small LED lights placed in and around the boat the overall effect is way more usable light than I ever had with the 55w Halogens and total amp draw for all the lights is still way less then the halogens alone. At night I can swing the floods off to the side and light up my boards and I do mean light them up I have glow tape on my flags and 60 sec with the floods on them will recharge the glow nicely.

The Octipus drive is decent lots of AP's have used them however at 27 ft your pushing the limit on how well it will control the boat mine is a 26 and several guys suggested I pass on it. Including one of the guys who wanted to sell me the system as he said it would be marginal on my boat. If you have hyd steering look at the Garmin system.

Cool, Honestly best I can tell is come out and give it a try. If you honestly can say it sucked and you had no fun at all I'll give you your entry fee back out of my pocket. All we are trying to do is have some fun and promote what we feel is a great fishery. Down the road a ways I would love to toss in some fun twists like adding a 30min perch fishing window who knows. Or setting up a slam prize for best mixed box only one fish per species but that will all come in time. for now we made a few changes and have to see what it works like before we can say if it was a great idea or not. But first and foremost this is nothing like the cutthroat tourneys we fished back in the day.

Agree to disagree no problem I guess from my point of view it is a Salmon tournament. The reason trout were allowed was when the limit went down to 3 per species in the 70's when there were lots of big kings around and you could catch 5 per person you seldom saw a Lake trout. When the DNR changed the limits then trout became bonus fish which people went after. With Salmon limits back up to 5 fish there is no reason to target Lake trout for contests. With a few exceptions that I will likely never catch Browns and Steelhead run smaller so the bonus points even the field a bit. In any event right now the rules are what they are. Just a question were you planning on fishing the series next summer and the rules changed your mind or just making comments?

The funny thing is Aaron looking the results from this season all of the money places were decided on total weight anyhow. Even if you take away points per fish the big box still won every time. In fact there were only a few places the the points had much effect. We only had a handfull of Steelhead weighed and I think I was the only one who got any browns. What we saw was a lot of guys learning to expand their fishing ability and have some fun doing it. The points system will make a lot of guys consider how they fish and perhaps teach a few how to target what they want rather than just drag lures and take whatever bites. In every event you have a few guys that are dialed in from the start and then you have guys who have to fish a bit to find a pattern and some who just don't find one. So 2 guys in a small boat might have better luck beach coming for browns. 6 Nice Browns would be tough to beat but also tough to get. I honestly think in the end it will be pretty level and if we are wrong well we can always change it back. I also think as the season progress's we will see a lot more guys that are better fishermen and can build a plan of action to get what they want rather than just what happened to be there. Also the only way I would go for total weight would be a single species which would rule out growth rate differences for fish. Nobody shows up at a Bass tourney with a 20 lb carp and expects to win cause his fish is bigger.

I will have a bunch of J plugs at the swap meet I run them year round just size and color to match bait fish in the area and they will catch everything. I just really don't need 200 of them on my boat ok maybe only 170 but even I can figure that I have lures that have not been wet in a long time so time for them to find a good home. Honestly I ran plugs from day one this year and they caught fish nearly every trip and often the big fish in the box was on a plug so I always have one down somewhere.

Ken our schedule is the same as last year with 2 more dates added tentative dates are. May 7th May 21st Jun 11th Jul 2nd Jul 30 Aug 13th Aug 27th Assuming we all keep the same weekends as last year I think we only had 1 last year that conflicted. Our Jul 30th date is based on the assumption that the Dreamweaver will will be on the 21st once we have a final date on that we will adjust our second Jul event if need be.

Thanks Don and Steve this was not a one person decision none of it has been. Don and I set up a 5 person committee to go over the entire event and look for ways to improve on it. I think we did pretty good last season however not without some issues. So the first thing Don and I did was agree that mistakes happen so now what can we do to be better. One thing is to be more clear on what we want this to be and that is a fun event with some friendly competition. This is not a all out battle for money or prizes and if you can't fish in a fun event without getting carried away about winning this might not be for you. There is not any plan to make this a big money event Don and I have no intention of having to send out tax forms to winners. Yes we had some very nice sponsorship and prizes and we intend on having more of the same this year. Can we guarantee you will not lose money heck no but for a lot of teams it will be a very cheap day of fishing and fun. And there is a chance a few guys will get paid to fish. Every penny of tournament money is paid out 100% all of the sponsor provided prizes are given out we keep a 10 dollar membership fee to help us with expenses which came no where near what we spent to put the events on but that does not matter neither Don nor myself had any plans of making anything for doing this. I have asked for suggestions on every fishing page I post on and got very little response. Personally one thing I like about the points per fish is if you have a bad morning you can take a chance and go after different fish.

We are trying to run a fun event very similar to the WMFL there is very little cash involved yes we get a lot of sponsorship much of that is due to the fact we are not a big tourney and are trying to be a middle ground between small events that don't pay enough to cover boat gas if you win and big events that pay well but cost a ton to enter. Last season total cost to fish all 5 events was 160 dollars for entry fees and every boat got between 150 and 200 dollars worth of prizes plus anything they won by fishing. Every fishery and port is different but here Lake trout are fairly easy and consistent to catch all you have to do is fish for them and once you know where they are they don't move all that much. We are really just trying to have a fun open event that guys can afford to enter and have fun. Heck I would have loved to get points for the huge sheephead we caught in 70ft of water off Duck lake last year it might have been the biggest fish caught that day.

I have not chased salmon in the river in several years but they are not getting any bigger my go to setup is a St Croix 10ft medium action in 2 to 8lb test and run P Line or Maxima 8lb test. It won't drag one in but is easy to fish with and gives a nice fight and has taken it's share of decent fish.

Since you can catch up to 15 and only weigh 6 the no cull should not be a problem for many. Since it is similar to the WMFL points which lots of guys like I don't see the issue. I do thank you for the input. I don't target Lake trout as we don't eat them so to fish for them purely for a few bucks is not my style. We only caught a handfull of lakers all season cause I don't bottom fish much. If it were my choice we would not even weigh Lake trout. I don't consider them a sport fish that is my opinion Browns Steelhead and Salmon are planted as sport fish Lake trout are planted to try and replace a breed that was wiped out by mismanagement of our Great Lakes. But if you choose not to fish the events that is fine we passed out thousands of dollars worth of sponsor stuff last year and hope to do more this year. My bet is no one that fished last year lost much if any money based on what every boat got in prizes.

Had a very productive meeting today ironed out most of the rule changes still have to get the final rewording complete. But in a nut shell so to speak here are most of the changes don't quote me on verbage cause we need to get the final wording done. first we are dropping the charter captain issue event is open to anyone who wants to enter. It is still 3 man DNR rules for fishing so no more than 9 rods We will only weigh 6 fish per team and you must bring only your best 6 to the scale no sorting at the scale. We will try and make the scale available between chk in and weigh in for those who need to sort their fish. Points per fish will be 5 points for Lake trout 10 points per Salmon 15 points per Steelhead 20 points per Brown Trout All boats will stage inside the arms for morning check in Check in will be between 1:00 and 1:30 with weigh in starting at 1:30 Anyone not in line for weigh in at 1:30 will be charged a 2 point per min deduction for up to 15 min or 30 points anyone not there to weigh at 1:45 will be disqualified. No slipping boats at the launch if you use a slip you must make arrangements to take care of your boat and be on time. We are working on a protest system This will be ran by Don and Jon and unless they choose to bring it before the committee any decision they make will be final. We are going to 7 events with a best 5 for the port championship this way having a bad weekend or other commitment will not take you out of the competition. Tentative dates are with following day being blow date May 7th May 21st Jun 11th Jul 2nd Jul 30th Aug 13th Aug 27th Some things we are working on is getting a sponsor and prize package for big fish of each species for the season. Anyone interested in sponsorship should contact me or Don aka Fishsniffer Looking forward to seeing all of you on the water this year.

Several places Big Weenie, Purple Taco and Atomic. I don't make very many tube flies anymore I do most of mine on Glow heads. Here is one I just tied it is UV blue with a green glow head and gold crinkle

The same morons who elected Obama and have for generations slowly turned our country into a dump for garbage. I have complained about this crap for decades and people think I am crazy but it is all happening. Minor changes in the education system became complete rewrites of history I mean think about it a few tweaks to the Gettysburg address and it become a apology to the south for invading them. Those of you who have kids in school need to pay attention to what they are being taught cause depending on your age it varies wildly from what you learned in school. Most of the same subjects but taught from a different perspective with different outcomes.

Also PURE BS