1mainiac

Randy you won it it's yours use it how you want. Personally I would not trade a Fish Hawk for a boat ride but someone might. My Depth Raider is over 4 years old and I would not trade it for a charter trip. Not that the charter trip is not worth the money but that I can fish all I want from my own boat.

I think The Outdoorsmen in Jenisen has some parts in stock. 2UNREEL I have never been impressed with my Magda reels for the last couple of years I have expected them to blow up but they just keep reeling in fish. One thing I do know and that is my job won't pay my bills and unless I find a better job soon all of this crap will be in a moving sale as I leave MI for the final time. Cause one thing I know for sure there are very few careers that don't pay better in other states that cost less to live in. So untill I pack it up and sell the rest if I want to fish this is the gear I got to work with.

Just a curiosty are you actually going to try and troll or just jig? I guess I ask because I wonder how it will work with 2 lines if you get a fish on and have to turn the boat around to fight the fish? On the other hand I could probably tow you off a planer board reel maybe use you and Jay as big Otter boats LOL. I may have to get Jay to bring his along some time and drop him in behind me could use it as a stealth presentation.

It is easier to ask forgivness then permission. My wife on the other hand knows if the fish are biting I am not gonna make it back in time for my own funeral. First thing is shut off the cell phone and lose your watch you need to pay attention to those rods.

I guess my point is you are very low in the water making it much harder to see esp since you will completely dissappear in 1 to 3 ft waves. I am a very safe operator I was a Coast Guard boarding Officer long ago so I know and abide by the rules. I also know how hard it is to see little boats esp when they seldom follow the rules like the guys anchoring in the channel ends. In the coming weeks the harbors will fill up with boats full of guys who only fish the fall run and have no cares whatsoever of the rules or polite fishing. Here we are a group of guys who even when we don't agree would still drop everything and help each other out, Of the guys I have met from this site there are none I would not pull lines to go help if needed nor would I be afraid to fish in tight with them. The issue is soon we will be amongst all the weekend warriers and just like the rivers and piers during the big runs I will be far away. I have a few more days of fishing in the morn to finish out the WMFL and Great Lakes fisherman events then I will not be fishing in the morn again till next year on the big lake.

Well Shimano Okuma Diawa are all made in China by the lowest bidder. In the long run we all want quality equipment but are to cheap to buy the stuff we used to buiild here so now it is all imported. For me I have given up on a lot of hopes of buying quality american made gear and just do my best to at least buy from local shops. As such I stopped shopping the internet for deals. I purchase nearly everything I need from a few local shops. My post had nothing to do with me being better than anyone else just that I have put tons of Salmon in the box over the years with equipment many consider cheap junk. I have listened to differant people rag on rods and reels for years and I know several charter guys who have way more trouble with their high end gear than I ever have had but then they fish more than me so that has a bit to do with it and they hand the rod to anyone with the price of admission. I can understand you being bummed to find a cheap plastic gear failed and cost you a fish I would be mad as well. But the level wind is not a high torque area and many high end reels use plastic gears because the are quieter and self lubercating. Would have been any less bummed to find the same cheap gear in a Shimano?

OKUMA is hard to beat for the money sure you can buy more expensive reels but they break too so it is hard to beat a solid budget reel. I paid around 26 bucks each for 6 Magda 45 reels 5 years ago with the idea I would throw them away when they failed at least they gave me something to get going again with. They all still work and catch fish every trip out. If it were not for the ability to buy cheap gear I doubt I would have 1/3 of the stuff I have sure I would love Shimano gear but I can outfit most of my boat for what a couple of diver setups cost. I don't have any fancy high priced gear in my boat but I can put fish in the box every trip out and can hold my own in most tournaments. It has been a long time since I got skunked.

Good point Don I always keep several pretied setups on the boat so I can change out leader and hook in a couple of min or less if need be.

I think the idea is cool however having been in the fall madness for several decades I am not sure how safe it will be. Those guys jigging in the channel ends every year scare me cause sooner or later someone is going to die there. Either their small boat is going to get run over or swamped by the wake and waves from boats coming and going. Over the years I have heard too many people in big boats joking about how much their wake beats the little boats up when 30 ft boats comes in on plane and pulls the throttle back they plow a huge wave. Personally I think they should all get tickets for blocking the waterway. Even my 26ft puts up a big wave when I shut down to go to no wake speed and the only way to avoid it is to drop to no wake long before you enter the channel. Sorry guys but I really don't want to see anyone get hurt and this is a bigger boat wins area some of these boats are like sending a Pee Wee football team to the Super Bowl.

I have a partial spool of Seagar 40lb flouro that I had a couple of fish break off not sure why but I stopped using it. I know it was not the knot that broke because 2 of the failures came back with 9 to 10 in of leader behind the flasher and I run 18 to 24 between the flasher and fly. I don't want to advocate that one leader or lure maker is way better than another I think most of the companies make a good product and we all tend to have good luck with certain ones which makes us more confidant with them. Many times we try something and it fails so we tend to avoid trying it again. I know I have a ton of lures and setups that I almost never run and I am sure others catch lots of fish on them but even with several hundred spoons and over a hundred J Plugs and I am not even sure how many flies I have on board I bet I could put the stuff I run on a regular basis in a Barbie tackle box and yard sale the rest. But I am a nut job when it comes to tackle and when I see something I don't have I often buy it. I do admit it is nice when you hear someone saying they are catching fish on a lure that you have one on board.

Very Nice Kevin

Nice job Jeff We could not get the spoons to catch anything.

All of the counters work about the same the they count rotations of the wheel and are geared based on size of the wheel as to how much line pays out per rotation. Unless you have the line wound perfect on the spool it will never be the same twice. There are several options if you want to be more accurate that I have played with over the years but now I just have gotten used to it and know about how far down they are based on where they hit bottom and boat speed. I am running 400 ft of Cannon camo cable on my Big Jon riggers at 2.5 mph they hit bottom in 65 ft reading close to 65ft out with 15 lb balls. With a 12lb pancake on my probe rigger which has 300ft of coated cable it takes 78ft out to hit bottom under the same conditions. My other out and down has 250ft of standard cable and takes about 72 ft of cable with a 12lb finned ball. If you want to know exactly how much cable you have out you have to measure the cable not how many times the wheel turns. To do this you have a couple of choices on is to get a line counter mounted on the boom that the cable passes thru and use that or another option is to mark the cable like lead core. But because the cable can bunch up on the spool and as you let it out just like on your line counter reel as you get closer to a empty spool you are letting less line out with every turn counting wheel rotation is not ever going to be accurate.

About 4 years ago I went to a seminar on Salmon fishing given by Love It Charters. They were very straight forward about several things one being keep your program fairly simple and work on finding active fish rather than trying to get inactive fish to bite. When it came to flies they were very clear nothing on their boat except Owner hooks and Gamma Flouro leader material I kinda thought it was a bit of a commercial but tracked my fishing success for the season on flies my success ratio was below 50% with factory tied gear most of which came with VMC hooks and Big Game leader. So by mid season I began tieing my own with Gamma and Owner hooks and the catch rate went thru the roof with Owner Trebles probably close to 90%. When I began tieing Tournament flies with a Single trailer hook there was another improvement and with the double single setup I am useing more and more I am finding if they are hooked something else will fail before the fly setup they are also easier to deal with in the net. I would be willing to bet the few failures I have had in the last 3 years can be linked to damaging the knot with pliers removing the hook from a fish. I have not lost a single fish on a fly rig this year and would bet overall we are well above 95% of our hits making it to the cooler. So on days when I hear guys losing more than they catch I am wondering if a few changes in the program would solve that.

This has probably been covered but how many of you tie your own leaders for flies? I have gotten to the point that I almost never use the factory hooks and leaders on flies and based on the number of lost fish per boat today in the Dreamweaver Tournament has me wondering how many used the factory setup? I snell 2 Owner or Gamakatsu 3/0 Octopus hooks on Gamma Flouro leader and have found my hook up rate is much higher and once they are hooked they stay hooked. I also snell on Owner trebles with a single Octopus as a trailer on some of my setups.

There were some very good box's weighed today I beleive the winning box was 69.3 lb plus points for a 119.3 total score. We weighed 53.1 pounds plus points for a 103.1 which I beleive put us in around 16th place if my count down on the board was correct. Big fish was 21.something lots of big fish around this morn. I rolled the dice on a plan this morn it lost so we burned too much time there were boats with 5 or more fish by the time we got out to the fish. We still managed to get a decent box to weigh but not what I planned on. But hey that is fishing I knew where most of the guys were going and I made a choice to try something differant knowing I could catch up if I had to. We put every hit in the box and did not lose any gear so all in all a good day. I was amazed at how long the fish stayed out of temp and active I went west for a bit traceing the bottom with my probe and did not find any cold water till around 85ft but the fish were still active in 50 to 60 ft 2 hours later most of our fish were in 53 to 58 deg water I can't remember many times they stayed in that warm of water hours after sunup.

Nice catch Don We started in the wrong place I stayed too shallow and by the time we moved out the action had slowed so we had to pick away at what was left. Was not happy with the color selection in the lure pack except for one fish all of ours came on the flies not one rigger hit all morning.

Got my lure pack and we are fishing in the morning it is expected to be lumpy at best calling for 2 to 4 ft near shore and 3 to 5 ft offshore. Any one who can't fish due to weather can still get their lure package and come to the raffle at 12 pm. Forecast for Sun is not much differant and lots of guys can't stay for Sun so it is a fish if you can tourney at this point with a raffle at weigh in. Keep in mind it is for charity so we have to take what we can weather wise.

I have 4 of the wilderness rods full core on 2 of them and the other 2 are setup for riggers. I also have 2 of the Firewolf ML rods setup for riggers No problems yet I like the Firewolf rods as they are very light action and make catching fish a lot of fun. I am still using the Okuma Mooching rods I bought 5 years ago for my braid diver rods.

Mark my agent in MI is Robert Farmer of Rose Roberts agency I have not used him in years but I am sur ehe would be happy to represent you for a fee.

I fished for several years back in the 70's with no riggers Used 1 and 2 lb balls and Pink Lady's. We did not have lead core or line counter reels my uncle bought a Mac Jac rigger and we copied it to make a second one. We built nearly all of of gear back then God we used to get some pigs back then there were lots of times we would limit out and not have a fish under 20 lbs. Sometimes I think we make this way more complicated than it really is have fun go fishing don't over think it get some snap weights a couple of diver setups and run lures behind the boat odds are if you find fish they will bite.

2.2 to 2.5 for most of what I run 1.8 to 2.2 for plugs and big flashers

Having hand grabed a few kings Terry it ain't much fun if the fish thrashing ain't bad enough you have to dodge all the hooks. Great job and thanks for reminding me to put the spare net back on the boat.

Yea Mark was doing the math in my head on the way home even called Mike to get his totals cause I did not remember what his exact weight was. .45 is not much of a lead going into the last 2 events but hey it is a lead we'll take it. When the sun came up and you guys were right in front of me and a couple of fish ahead of me I knew it was on. I should have got Mike to weight that little shaker LOL. When I saw all the boats heading north and west and I was the only boat that went south and saw all the monster marks on my screen I was stoked. Then the sun came up and there you guys were catching fish.

Guys water in oil don't hurt much at Indy you can not add oil to a engine Andy Granitelli blew a oil cooler early in a race they fixed the cooler in the pits but could not add oil so they filled it with water and topped it off every pit stop because water evaporates. He might have won the race had he not had tranny problems. Anti-freeze in the oil however is a problem as it wpes out the bearings fast. As long as you are done adding water to the oil it will evaporate once hot your next few oil changes may look crappy but as long as you did not hydraulic the engine and since it still runs I doubt you did that. The motor sounded bad most likely because the lifters don't like water so they make a lot of noise. Once you get it filled back up with very cheap oil run it till it is up to temp and shut it off and let it sit for a day or so all the water will be in the bottom of the pan drain it and refill with good oil. It should be fine.