1mainiac

Guys today was a great day on the lake we got to the launch early had very little traffic the lake was very calm and we setup in 60fow. It was a great day and we were slamming some really nice kings it seemed like everthing we put down took a fish we were one short of a huge limit when the damn alarm went off and I looked out the window to see it was still winter LOL.

I looked up the specs on that reel it is a nice reel but really not enough line capacity for copper I also wonder if the line guide can handle the size of a copper connection going thru it. Based on the line fill calculator you would end up with roughly 175 yds of 30 lb power pro for backer and 20 yds of 20lb mono for a leader with a 300 copper in 45lb. Also no need for a line counter on copper and core setups my bet is it would make a great wireline reel for a diver rod. For copper setups it is hard to beat the Shimano 800's or the Okuma CV55L for the ability to hold a huge spool of line on a budget.

To make it a long shaft about the only thing you save from your motor is the powerhead. To be honest you might end up spending as much on the parts you need as it would cost for a differant motor. I have a 40hp Merc that runs fantastic I spent 700 bucks having the engine gone thru 4 years ago however the mech forgot to add oil to the lower unit ( long story ). Anyhow they would not replace the lower unit but did finally settle up with me for a somewhat fair deal. The reason they would not replace the lower unit was it cost more for the parts than the engine was worth once it was fixed. You can try Van's in Grand Rapids or Camp & Cruise in Marne, or Max's shop http://www.outboardjunkyard.com/. Good luck

That is the plan Andy no real pressure to win on a 4 man team you lose 7.50 ea for a day of fishing that s like what a couple of beers nowadays. Can't even stop a McDonalds on the way back from fishing for that. 30 boats in would pay out roughly 1st 250 2nd 140 3rd 100 4th 70 5th 40 6th a lure package or other sponsor provided gift. plus would have a big fish of 150 bucks and 150 put in the port championship fund to be paid out at the final event. I don't think we will get 30 boats but we could and 30 boats for 5 events puts 750 in the port championship fund which would pay 375 for 1st 225 for 2nd 150 for 3rd Plus any sponsor prizes one I have going is a full day guided river float trip for 2. I am also working on member only discounts from some of the sponsors. I am not pushing the sponsors very hard right now as far as having big demands for one reason many of them are in the same boat we are in there is not a lot of money to go around and they have to see return on their investment. This means us supporting them as well.

For those who wondered what happened to the GLFTT it kinda disolved so to speak. The are no hard feelings Mike, Don and Myself are still friends there was no fight or arguement the simple fact is we found ourselves going down differant paths. Mike is and has been working hard on other projects and was really only able to provide Don and me with a starting point. So rather than keeping Mike and his website tied up Don and I have agreed to carry on under a new name. That is the Muskegon Summer Challenge Salmon Tournament (MSCST). This is a similar tournament to Mikes only it is a 1 port only event. For those who want to try a major pro am event and wonder how you would do this is a great place to work on your team. There are still a few final details to work out and we are open to suggestions so feel free to comment. Here is the basic idea 9 lines, Shotgun start at 6am from the pierhead, Keep up to 15 legal fish, weigh your best 10, Open communication event, Launch anywhere you choose, Chk in at 1:15 manditory, weigh in at 1:30. 10 dollar membership, 30 dollar per event, break down of event money is 5 dollars goes to big fish, 5 dollars goes towards the port championship, 20 dollars pooled for event winners. All event money paid out 100% and will pay down 20% of the field in cash and prizes. Prizes are being donated by sponsors and I am still working on what I can line up. We are planning 5 events with the boat with the most points being named port champion. The breakdown on port championship money will be 50% for 1st place plus any sponsor prizes 30% for 2nd place plus any sponsor prizes and 20% for 3rd place. 10 points per legal fish plus weight for total points. Website for more info is www.mscst.com facebook page is http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=349195759401 This is going to be a fun event geared at preparing you to fish the big events I am working on have a couple of the events being sponsor theme'd with the idea of getting the sponsors to show up and hopefully bring goodies to share. Also look for more info on this and a possible article on us in Great Lake Angler magazine.

That I could live with if I only need one other licensed person on board I would be in I won't win but at least can afford to play. The idea of having to register everyone I fish with in case I get lucky is not worth it. Have a couple of guys I fish with a lot register and making me and them legal I can live with that. It does however rule out guys fishing by themselves. So I enter and one evening I am bored and head over to the pier and the heavens smile and give me a huge fish i am all alone would it be legal? Not trying to nitpick much but kinda playing devils advocate as to things I could see happening. I guess my point is if my word can't be trusted so I need to carry a legal witness with me anytime I fish seems like a bit of over kill. Again not trying to be too critical but it seems like some of this comes down to the group saying we can trust them with all the money but they can't trust us to follow the rules. Also I am not even sure Charter boats should be allowed to register as anything other than witness's for their customers since all they do is assist people in catching fish. So another question if I am registered and catch a winning fish while on a charter boat am I expected to split the prize with the boat? I really think the only requirement needs to be the person who enters the fish as his needs to be the one who actually caught the fish. Also I can see a lot of minor issues popping up no matter how you run it I do however think it is a cool idea but involves a lot of careful wording to keep it clear.

Location pick a site in a place people will use. Don't have too steep of a ramp or major angle changes. Know for sure what can and can't be launched there. A staging area for guys to prepare the boats prior to launching is a nice plus so people are not preping on the launch. Controlled traffic flow and space to prep will speed up the process and allow more guys to use the launch faster. Fishermens Landing in Muskegon is a great ramp setup but is at the wrong end of the lake so I almost never use it. The reason is it cost me close to 10 gallons of gas extra to run the boat the full length of the lake and back. At 3.00 or more per gal I will use a closer ramp that is not as nice. However it is a great layout for a ramp and has a fish cleaning station, tons of parking and a good flow you can get a lot of boats in and out in a hurry there.

Garmin GPSMAP76 is a nice handheld that you can connect to your radio for the DSC function and use anywhere you want. I have a older GPS76 that I still use even though I have a GPS plotter fishfinder combo because I can use the GPS76 just for GPS only and leave the fish finder in split screen with mostly fish finder showing. I also like that I can take the Garmin in my car and other boats and get a lotof uses out of it.

Make sure you run a ground from the chassis stud on the back of the radio that makes a good path all the way to the water.

Well the ground path is actually more important than the antenna they are all pretty much the same though I have heard the Digital VW520 is one of the best it gets great reviews. I have a Shakespear I have had many people comment on how well my radio works I am not impressed yet however I am a Ham radio nut so I tend to get overdone about things LOL. Simply put the antenna bounces the signal off the ground (water) so 2 things come into play first the size of the Ground field you can light up and second the height of the antenna. VHF frequencies will pass thru the atmosphere so a low antenna with a small ground field will send most of its RF up thru the clouds into space. Think of it like a bank shot in pool only you are shooting several balls at differant angles all at once. The better ground you have the larger reflective area your antenna has. The higher the antenna is the further away from the boat the signal bounces off the ground (water) all of this creates a elevation angle of the antenna system the lower the elevation angle the further you can hear and be heard before your signal passes overhead and into space. If the antenna is correctly rated a 5 watt radio with a 9db gain antenna will be as strong or stronger than a 25w radio thru a 3db gain antenna if every thing else is equal.

Before I switched from Progressive to Boat US I went over my policy line by line with Boat US I also took the Boat US Quote to my Insurance agent. To have him compare the difference he agreed he could not even come close to the same policy for anywhere near the same price. With my Progressive policy my trailer was not covered nor was much of my fishing gear as it had a 1000 dollar fishing equipment rider. With the Boat US policy all of the equipment mounted on the boat Down riggers rod holder Etc were added to the value of the boat and become part of the boat value. Plus the policy includes a 5000 fishing equipment coverage.

I have Boat US insurance I had Progressive for a year but got the Boat US policy for half what I paid progressive it includes towing and allows me to buy the policy based on a preset boat value. My Progressive policy was set a a max of 17k however Boat US allows me to insure it for a agreed value of 25k which includes all mounted equipment on the boat. Plus a 5k policy for fishing equipment 1000 for personal effects for a agreed value of 31k in the event of a total loss. This also includes towing and reimbursment of lost tournament fees. I had to have a survey filled out and sent in a bunch of pics of the boat. Total policy cost was under 400 a year and boat is completely insured while in storage as well. My progressive policy was nearly double that at 750 a year.

I will start out with a few questions and some answers 1st you need a Marine starting battery connected to your engine. Personally I would go with a diode style isolator to charge the rest of your batteries while the main engine is running there are several styles that would work just make sure what you use is at least capable of 50% more than your alternator is capable of when under way. So if you have a 90 amp alternator on your main engine you would want at least a 140 amp battery isolator. The rest of your stuff needs to run off true deep cycle batteries get the maximum amp hour rating you can afford and buy matched batteries. For instance a average group 24 marine starting battery is roughly 75 amp hours but a deep cycle group 24 can be 105 to 125 amp hours and there are some that are much better than that. Amp hour rating is just that a 100 amp hour battery is capable of putting out 100amps for one hour or 1 amp for 100 hours. Now start doing the math how much power do you use everything on your boat has rated power consumption somewhere you need to know it. Lets say you start with a 200 amp hour load bank of batteries which is pretty common for a couple of batteries. Assuming you start fishing in the dark you use your running lights for 1 hour of fishing this is roughly 5 amps used up your fishfinder will use roughly 3 amps per hour so a 4 hour trip is 12 amps your VHF radio will draw about 1 amp when not talking on it so for 4 hours another 4 amps. Got the stereo on low about 5 amps like it loud 12 amps subwoofer thumping 20amps or more. Small electric downrigger 7 amps ea it all adds up and fast. I blew my lower unit several years ago we were a couple miles from the pier so we decided to try and make it on the electric trolling motor well we made it back to the launch it took over 4 hours and both of my trolling batteries were distroyed.

I prefer it be a individual tournament where you have to catch your own fish however if I have to register everyone I fish with never mind. I will not even consider asking friends and family who fish with me a couple times a season to pony up in case I get a big fish. If I am in and I catch a big fish and do not cheat that is all that should matter if everyone in the boat has to be in I won't be in. But that is just me others might not care.

Southwest Michigan Area Salmon cHallenge or S M A S H

one other thought would be Muskegon great fishing camping lots of things to do and close to Grand Rapids Grand Haven and Holland. You did not say when you wanted to come the fishing is pretty good here from May thru Oct with a few lulls lots of small lakes and rivers to occupy your and the families time spend a afternoon in a Kayak on the White river and take in a show in GR the same evening. Really any place you pick I am sure you will have a good time I just find Muskegon to be a great port and close to lots of stuff including Ludington. Now if fishing was the only option I might make other suggestions but sounds like you need a family plan and Muskegon is hard to beat west in the morn to fish and north south or east in the afternnon and evening to keep the wife and kids happy.

Some issues would be the Lie Detector is not even admissable in court some people can tell the truth and fail others lie from start to finish and pass. You could have a 4 person boat and 2 fail and 2 pass now other than the loss of money on the tests what do you do? For the most part the biggest fish will be caught in the last 30 days or less so it would be better to narrow the window down a bit. Also a 30 lb fish will lose several pounds sitting in a cooler overnight but I still like everything except the everyone in the boat requirement I would hate to have to throw someone overboard so they would not be on board when the big fish was caught LOL. I would do it but I sure would feel bad LOL

All my leaders are 4ft or 6ft with flasher flies I run 4ft with spoons 6ft.

they do have some great after season sales though and when you compare prices the new ridgeback rattlers are close to 100 bucks. Everything about our sport is expensive.

With the cost of lead pushing 2 bucks a pound I am assuming the 3.00 cost was for the new bolts if not please send me 2 I'll go 10 bucks ea plus shipping LOL.

Yep but still the tools nearly always belong to the mechanic I have both Dewalt and Makita and have owned several other brands as well. Dewalt is great but overpriced batteries and heavy I have a bunch of their stuff and it sits unused cause I won't pay what they want for new batteries there are a couple of things I want and when I really need new batteries for one of my tools I will buy one of them and get the new batteries for all my stuff and a new tools at the same time. 170 bucks for 2 batteries or 199 for 2 batteries a charger drill and a case any one else notice that. Sometimes I think they put junk batteries in the sets to get you to buy more batteries.

Mechanics own their own tools they are not provided by the sponsor when shooting a commercial they may use a provided set of tools but in real life we buy our own. Large shops and business's buy the big stuff that everyone shares but that is it. Many places offer tool and eqipment allotment's which is much like mileage reimbursements but you buy and own your tools and they come and go with you. I have been in several shops over the years where I was the only one in the building that owned the tools to do certain jobs, where I currently work has added a huge amount of jobs we can do in house because I am there and know how to do the work and have the tools to do it. Showing someone how to do certain jobs is not that hard getting them to buy several thousand dollars worth of tools is a differant story. I had more invested in my tools than my home untill I sold my big boxes I still have the tools just not the 25,000 dollar tool box they used to be in.

Same here Ken never saw a reason to run a long leader after core a few feet of flouro or good mono is all you need a few extra yards of backer is more important to me than a long leader.

6ft is what all of mine are made at works great I could run longer on my boat but 6ft works and is tourny legal so is where I cut all of mine 5ft would also work no real need to worry about stealth as the fish have to swim thru all of your gear to get to the sliders any how.

Well the reason I like short sliders is that number one less mess to untangle and number 2 when you get a hit on a slider it yanks the bottom lure up to the fish zone and puts the second lure in front of the fish. This can cause a second fish to try and take it and suddenly you are fighting 2 fish on one rod this is a true double and sometimes a netting nightmare but in the end it is all good.