1mainiac

I have tried a lot of the releases out there and ended up building my own setup using Blacks and Off Shore releases. I modify the blacks so it cannot release and attach a Off Shore pinch pad to it I can then switch from medium to heavy releases depending on what I am pulling but use meduim for most. I remove the factory snap from the Blacks and thread the down rigger cable thru it and secure it above the ball with a light crimp and a bead. The 10in of cable between the Blacks and the pinch pad provides enough movement to see shakers and light bites and everything is above the ball and the cable spins freely thru it so if the ball spins on the way down it has no effect. I have very fast riggers basicly Big Jon Brutes so had issues with down speed causing problems and tangleing the releases no issues theis year at all. My hook up rate is around 90% or better and no major training need to set line let it back stick it in the pinch pad and send it down then put tension on the rod and wait to reel in a fish.

here is one product you can get at Home Depot for moisture http://www.damprid.com/indexf671.html

Keep in mind if you shrink wrap it you should put in the dissicant bags to controll moisture. I was going to shrink wrap mine last year but found I could store it indoors for about 50 bucks more than the cost of having it wrapped with the dissicant bags. Also as it was indoors I could work on it pretty much any time I wanted to all winter and not freeze my butt off doing it. Mine will be back indoors in a few weeks one more fishing trip and then fall clean up and get it winterized.

personally mono is my favorite line it is more forgiving most of the fish lost on my boats over the years have been on braid and wire lines. I have ran my riggers down over 200 ft and had no issues with mono. I do think you need to match your line to your application and have found some setups like a certain line better than others but I take a lot of friends and family out every year who don't always know how to handle the gear and mono is much smoother and more forgiving on mistakes. yep there are times it does not trip well when down deep but if the fish is that small who cares I just hit the up switch on the rigger and bring it up till it will release. I have had releases fail or get tangled and still not lost the fish as the mono would stretch and let the fish fight against the cannon ball.

http://www.yachtworld.com/boats/1997/Aquasport-245-Explorer-1704842/Clinton/CT/United-States http://www.yachtworld.com/boats/2004/Aquasport-25-Explorer-1995703/Pensacola/FL/United-States http://gratz-pennsylvania.olx.com/1997-starcraft-expedition-fishing-boat-iid-8214197 Trophy 2359 would be a nice boat as well. 2301 Sea Swirl also a nice boat Way to many choices how much money ? all out fishing or does he have to make room for family use? 235 Conquest by Boston Whaler would be a great choice as well. My boat is great however it was a comprimise with the wife she wanted a stand up head I wanted to fish this boat did both at a price we could afford. It looks good runs great but being a performance hull does not fish great in the heavy slop as it is a bit top heavy and narrow. I can run on plane in 3 to 5 ft waves made the run back from Port Sheldon in the Muskegon Tourney in about 45 min none of the guys wanted to go fishing with me afterword as we got pounded bad in 3 to 5 ft waves. We burned nearly 80 gallons of gas in 2 days of fishing but made the money and other than a rough ride back from Sheldon had a great time. Advantage to anyone willing or wanting to buy a boat right now there are a zillion choices. There are a lot of dealers who have not made a sale in weeks or months so if you hit the yards prepare to be live bait.

Welcome Bruce can I assume that we could get a shot at those larger inline prototype boards we talked about this spring. I love your product and would be more than happy to test drive a couple of the bigger boards on my copper setups. Oh and thanks for the tip on moving the rear clip on the OR 12's mine run a lot better now.

best way to learn is to fish with someone who uses them I run up to 4 per side and love them. Basicly you have a couple of choices in board Church or Off Shore I run Off Shore as my first boards were Church's and I did not know how to use them so had problems and got rid of them. Line should be Mono but there are ways to use braid but most of them work much smoother with mono. I have a couple more trips left in me this year lets go fishing. PM me

Great Job nice to see the Steel moving back in hope this weather shoves em in tight. I got a couple of weeks left and need 24 fish to make a 300 fish season on the big lake.

Well I have been promising to take the neighbor fishing all summer but never got it done so here we are near the end and I owe him a trip. So time for one of my evening rides got my buddy Steve to come along and we set out to take a boat ride with very low expections and no defined plan. left the dock at 5:50 and headed out with no idea to where yet a few guys fishing the Sand Docks but did not want to join the mini rodeo. Marked nothing in the channell so just kept going west looking for a sign started marking baitfish 40 to 60 dn in 78FOW and setup on a SW troll we were 0 for 3 when we hit the first set of nets so there are some fish in the bait but no hook ups. turned NE at the nets and ran back thru em squat went W for a bit and that worked better landed our first king in 85 ft on a full core with a Blue Flounder second and biggest fish came on a Flounder Pounder on a 300 copper 3rd fish came on a flounder Pounder on a rigger 55 dn and 4th fish came on the 300 copper Flounder Pounder again as we were pulling lines to run in. Ended 4 for 7 no big fish all between 3 and 6 lbs bright shinney and tasty. All fish landed between 70 and 100 straight out there are lots of small fish out there and once we got em going it was a lot like early spring fishing nothing big but good action and lots of fun.

I have to agree with Adam color is the least concern if the fish are hitting it odds are something is triggering them to hit it and color attracts but don't cause a bite trigger. action and speed cause them to attack the lure so any spoon getting hit continues to go back down no matter what it looks like. I have often bought spoons in multiples and then find only one or 2 work really well the rest are duds and sometimes the differance is unnoticable to me but apparently not to the fish.

well it has been a good year lots more friends and plenty of fish. I will be shutting down in a couple of weeks but have a few more evening trips in me. Anyone have a clue as to where the fish are out of Muskegon I have been getting a lot of mixed reports so as I am going out either tommorrow or Thur evening. Do I run deep or stay out front? I am leaning towards working the 50 to 100ft water out front and taking whatever I get as the last few Steelhead runs were getting further and further away from the launch and not sure if I want to run a lot of miles on a chance when I could probably get at least a couple of fish out front and save the boat gas for a couple of more trips. Any Ideas?

off the riggers 11" Pro Troll white w/ blue crinkle or Chrome and either green or blue and Rapture Hypnotist or Siggs Gold miarage flies. off the divers 8" Pro Chip flashers Blue Killer or Green Glow frog with any Siggs fly but love the Gold Mirage. Bluegreen Hypnotist, Blue Dolphin, No-See-Um are a few of my favorites. on slders I use Big Weinie Vibrator flies and also pull them on cores with small flashers or a blade setup.

The Steelhead are drying up a bit and seem to be further south every time I find them. Took wife out this evening for a dinner cruise and some fishing she did not want to go out deep we cruised around in the 9's and 10's around 200 to 250 1 rip on a 5 color very nice big Steelhead left with my lure for my second skunk of the year and the month. However since we only fished a little over a hourI am not concerned. There were fish caught in the 70 to 90 ft out front this evening but we were already out in 220 and decided to just enjoy the boat ride. Fish are very scattered right now a lot of the kings have moved up river and some pods are showing up but don't see any big staging any more. Good luck

Had a blast all season Mark glad you won was a pleasure fishing with you and your dad.

Terry that is a electric shift OMC drive might just be a electrical connection. If you want to update it to a newer drive let me know I think I have all the parts.

Nick forgot to put in my 2 zero's as I did not weigh my fish.

Fished with Mark " Just Hooking " Fri night we went 6 for 6 out in 250FOW so had part of my Sat morn dialed in. Only had one person show up Sat morn so fished it anyhow. Based on points standings I decided to fish out front and hope for a few big fish. They were not there and I stayed too long looking for them. Moved out deep way late and got a couple of fish. Such is life Went to weigh in but decided not to weigh a fish so offically ended with no score for the double event my choice. I had made up my mind that if I did not have a money fish I would not weigh any so donated my entry fee to the guys. I did get one nice Steelhead about 8 lbs and a small king about 1.5 lbs.

The problem is Jay went most of the summer without losing a fish on my boat however he has gotten cocky about it in the last couple weeks and farmed a couple recently. Glad you guys had a good time would have loved to spend a day on the water with your dad Mike. The report I got this afternoon is that the Steelhead have moved much further south the last couple of days.

Lowrance 525C DF have been very happy with it but a friend of mine bought a Cannon 787 DF this year and I am impressed with it. There are several features I prefer on mine and some I prefer on his. As a fishfinder I like his better Mine does a good job and will mark bait fish at 25 mph cruising but again the Cannon has a couple of cool features mine being a couple years older does not.

Don I have seen a few of your boxes so I know you did a little better than that however I won't go after you gear broke or lost record even though we have donated a lot to the fish gods. I did not keep tabs on Lakers this year since I returned nearly all of them to the lake I know we donated 4 at the Shootout and have brought in a few during tournaments. We kept a few as well but no idea how many we caught I assume somewhere in the low to mid twenties.

Hey Rick thanks funny how things work out some days you get me to come out where you are fishing and I crush em. I invite my buddy Steve out to fish behind me and he can't get much going then as I am working back I pass him and take 2 fish behind him. It was just my brother who never catch's fish day. A couple of years ago he went out with me 6 times and never got a single fish to the boat this was his third time out this year and he finally put some in the box and his kid was on fire I lost the only fish of the day so go figure. But honestly I probably would have stayed in the 150 range I have been getting fish in all week if you had not been out there getting them deeper and letting me know.

Yep that is what I meant the min's of Latitude Straight out of Muskegon is the 13's Duck Lake is about the 18's in front of Mona Channel is close to the 11's. The problem with saying I am out front of the channel is when you get out deep you can see it for miles. So I could say I am out front and be anywhere from the 12's to the 14's or further and there is several miles of water between them. But if I say I am in the 12 8's which is the first number of the last group added in you will be able to see me when you get there. This way I can give you a fairly accurate location. I did notice Monday that no one was fishing where I was when we went south but after telling a couple of guy where I was and how I was doing there were a lot of boats fishing behind me. The fish are widely scattered out there so go fast if you think you are going too fast speed up if you can run divers you are going too slow.

While I know several members keep running tabs on their fish count I have kept most of my reports to myself all year. This has been one of my best years in a couple of decades I have been out a lot 44 times so far much of this is due to having a bigger boat the last couple of years and living a few min from the lake. I have placed in the money and won a few tournies this year much of this I owe to Jay "Iceman08" he has been a great friend and fishing partner all season. My goal this year was 200 kings I will conceede that I doubt I will make it. I had a good run at it though and am currently at 172 Kings for this season I thought I was a little closer but for me Salmon is about done might pick up a few this month but am having a blast catching Steelhead my Steelhead count for this year if I include spring on the piers and rivers is 118 with 86 on the big lake so far. I expect to go well over a 100 on the big lake if current conditions stay. Oddly I have caught very few Coho this season only 7 fish. I did not do a good job on spring Browns and gave up when the salmon showed up early in mass so only 3 browns and 1 Atlantic. I did not fish a lot of differant ports this year I only launched out of Muskegon and Port Sheldon and only 4 trips out of Port Sheldon. So there it is 271 fish in 44 trips that is roughly 6 fish per trip and not all that bad considering many of my trips have been 3 hour evening cruises with friends and family I have managed to send nearly everyone I know home with fish this year and my brother who has been my biggest fish repellent was out with me Mon when we pounded the Steelhead for the best day of big lake fishing in his life along with his son. I got skunked one time this year ( same Brother) and caught fish both days of the Muskegon Shootout when many boats came in with smelly boxes. If this sounds like I am bragging well maybe I am it has been a great year and I have a lot of guys to say thank you to. But top of the list is Jay and Mike Jay for putting up with my crap all season and Mike for setting up this site which made it possible to meet all of you guys and share some info and ideas. Anyhow to all my new friends here thanks for a great season hoping to pound a few more before I put the boat awat till next spring. Jim

Well they have cut the plants down for the last 4 years so there are less of them to start with. Most of our rivers are too warm for them to spawn successfully so the natural reproduction they said was causing too many salmon has not happened in the last few years. The final answer is there are bigger fish but a lot less of them. I expect next year to be about the same great early season catch's with very little left for a fall run. I imagine the bulk of the 4 year olds ran in last weekend during the 30 mph north winds that brought us the cold water. I have brought this up several times over the last couple of years and most guys dismiss the idea but if you consider the weird short run we had last year it adds up. If you cut plants by over 40% in many areas odds are you will have less 4 year old returns most likely bigger healthier fish but much less of them. I have switched to Steelhead and am having a blast.

A little deeper today but report is nearly the same as it has been for the last 8 days. Go west and catch Steelhead today went 11 for 12 in 250 FOW south most of the fish came on a long south run from the 11's to the 8's and on a 5 color Steelie cane took the most fish with a copper glow tail second also got a couple of lakes on flasher flies on divers and Ace Hi Yellow tail took a couple on full core also got fish on Moonshine Flounder Pounder and a Red Flasher and Siggs that was in my lure package I won in the big King contest yesterday. Speed has been key this week if you think you are going too fast speed up nearly all fish have been when running fast 2.8 to 3.4 at the probe when it was down often way faster on the GPS. Avg speed today was close to 4.2 down wind and 3.8 upwind. Was planning on pulling lines early so my nephew could make it to work on time limited out on Steelhead so was not a issue. Set lines at around 7 am pulled lines around 10 am darn nice day. Thanks to Draggin Balls II for letting me know how well he was doing this morn as we started fishing in 130 and after talking to Rick headed west where it heated up fast.