1mainiac

You know I am gonna be there Nick Hope the fish come back soon or I will have another long boat ride.

At least the lake was flat would have really sucked to make the run in 2 to 3 ft waves. We ran out at 3500 rpm and in at 4200 rpm flat out smoking in a 17 ft boat. We were hiting 40 mph coming in flat as a pancake just like the fishing. Times like these remind me I have a 100 gal gas tank and need to save it for when fish are around. Sure hope some bigger fish show up for the next tourny or will have to fish for grease balls.

300 and beyond is out of cell phone range for me out there we were about 12 miles out tonight in 350 ft.

Went out with Steve this evening we left the launch at 3:30 PM and got back in around 10:30 PM first time out in his boat this year. We started just south of the north nets in 185 FOW and trolled SW to 350 lots of shakers and knock offs. Picked up a couple of small kings in the 220 ft range Worked that for a while lots of shakers there as well tossed back more than we kept. Ended up with 4 small kings out of over 13 biggest was under 5 lbs we marked little fish and caught and released little fish all night. No fly bite at all pretty much every spoon we ran had a hit Orange yellow and blue were all good colors. 5 Color went several times but no fish big enough to keep 10 color same issue riggers at 50 ft and up took a couple of small kings and divers 120 back with spoons took a couple worth keeping. There are tons of small fish in the 130 to 180 ft range straight out and tons of small fish in the 240 to 300 ft range just don't expect any large tugs. Have not checked our total track but would guess we put 40 miles on his boat to end with 4 small fish was going to go out in the morning but cancelled not worth the boat gas.

Typical mid june fishing just go west I see most of the report boards saying 180 to 230 but I would motor out to at least 220 and troll from there. I was not planning on burning up boat gas this weekend or next but looks like I am going out on a friends boat tommorrow night out of Muskegon. Depending on what time we leave the dock will determine what I do as I have a few favorite spots I like to be at night that always seem to hold fish so there is a good chance we will do a little bit of recon and then make a plan as I have not been out of Muskegon in over a week so need to locate a few things to make a plan.

For a solid budget boat a older Starcraft Holiday or islander is hard to beat and there are lots of them to be found. When buying a low budget boat get someone who knows what they are looking at to inspect it before you buy it. My old boat sat in my front yard all last year ready to fish with most of the gear still on it no one wanted it till after I traded it to my brother. Old boats are pretty much free you pay for the motor and the trailer. I have no idea what your budget is but there are lots of boats for sale. The one thing you mentioned was fishing in the river and the big lake those two don't mix well for a lot of boats because to be able to handle big water the formula is differant than in a river or inland lake. The big lake wants high sides low center of gravity and a large percentage of boat under the water. You can fish the big lake in a canoe on a calm day but the first time the waves kick up you will wish you had more boat. I have spent hundreds of hours out in a 14 ft open boat with a 10hp Merc was only scared a few times now I wonder if we were crazy to ever go out in a boat that small. My brother in law still fishs in a 14ft open boat with a small motor but the days he can fish are limited. It sux to plan a day of fishing only to get blown off the lake fishing out of Muskegon is a advantage cause if you can't get out you can always stay in and fish for something. Be realistic in what you expect a boat to do and be honest in how well you can handle the weather and you will be fine.

I am going out on my friends boat Sat evening not sure what the plan is for Sun yet. Hopefully Mike will be able to hear again on his radio.

The Brutes look great Mike I can't beleive you sat there and worked on the boat with them yelling take me fishing all afternoon.

Bert's and Traxtech are 3 in wide and just under 1/4 in plate thickness. I am most likely going to make more of my own stuff for my tracks. I am building a new set of rod trees later this month can't see spending 150 or more each for what amounts to 30 to 40 bucks worth of material. I know they have fancy plating that I won't have.

Fast here Mike

Gotta say I sure would prefer a 9 rod event. It costs too much in boat gas to be rod limited and I have considered dropping out and running my rod's a few times. I can see trying to keep it a fun even event but am pretty sure all of us are setup to run more than 6 rods. We most likely put on over 40 miles between trolling and running yesterday and I don't want to think about my gas bill for that but to put in thart much of a effort and only be able to run 6 rods is tough.

The antenna wire should be a coax type wire so there are several options my Depth Raider come swith RCA conections so just unplug it to remove the rigger.

Very nice we skipped that section of water completely trolled from around 140 to 185 then pulled lines and ran out deep lot more action out deep but no big fish I could have used a nice 10 pound fish or 2.

Thanks guys Thought we had first for most of the day once we got out deep and started pulling fish. As we appeared to be well ahead glad a few others followed my lead and went out to get some more fish. Wish a couple of the bigger Steelhead we lost had stuck to the hooks and would have won. But it is what it is we had a good day and put a lot of miles on the boat. Other than a few changes in lures we started with 6 rods and fished them all day long we were getting fish so no need to change just about everything we did worked. Pretty nice when we had 15 rod setups we never even needed to try. I layed 6 rods out Fri night and we caught fish with them all morn. Only a couple of minor problems but we worked pretty well as a team and everyone got to catch a couple of fish. Big thanks to the guys at Fish On bait in Nunica for the tip on where the fish were and to Brians dad for secondary intel confirming the report.

Ran NW out to 145 set lines trolled out to about 180 Said this ain't working and went back to my orginal plan pulled lines found a small shaker on one legal fish so boxed it. Pulled lines ran out to 235 and setup on a SW troll got fish as soon as we set down much better fished the top 50 between 240 and 285 running S and SW ended just a tad north of Holland 9 for 11 with one undersize throwback so kept 8 couple of nice Steelhead rest small kings. Made the low run back to Sheldon for the weigh in 2nd place box so pretty good day though Nick pointed out I probably burned more gas running in than the prize money LOL but not doing it for the money had a great time. Steelhead Candy on a full core took 2 and lost one Yellow taill took a couple of small kings on a rigger 51 dn most every thing came on 5color and full core with orange and red colors on copper spoons.

You can tie a palomar with the Torpedo wire just wear gloves and pull it tight

I would like to form a group of vegatable lovers to combat the PETA group that kill and otherwise harm millions of friendly vegatables every year. Don't these people have any idea how much it hurts the plant to have it's fruit picked. Or to have its head lopped of to make one of these people a salad Plants have feelings too and they create Oxygen something we all need with the proper campaign we could get them to stop eating entirely then they would starve and die and our problem is solved.

Oh yea don't skimp on rod holders for divers the cheap ones will fail and you will be missing a rod. I will cuss if you put one of my diver rods in the wrong holder was fishing with a friend a few years back and while fighting a dbl we noticed one of his diver rods was gone rod holder and all just snapped off so the cheap rod holder cost him a complete setup.

The reason Divers are low is they pull hard all day and if you lay your rods out right your rigger rods will be bent over the back the divers will be low and to the side and your will start low and back and work high and forward as they get further from the boat. This allows you to work the spread without messing up any other lines. If you get a fish on your outside board the fish will take the board back keep the rod tip up till it is behind the boat and fight the fish behind the boat this way you can leave all the other rods fishing. When you reset the board send it behind the boat untill it is far enough back to clear the other boards and then set it in the holder it will swim right back into place.

To be honest I have never caught a keeper on my copper in going on 3 years of pulling them. Perhaps I should run them more but when the don't catch fish for me they don't get out as often one reason is I fish shorthanded a lot so being limited on how many rods I can run I stick to what is catching fish. I am not in much of a hurry to put my Diver rods away when they pretty much always catch fish. I had very few trips that I had more than 6 rods out last year and when the water rolled over did most of my fishing inside of 60 ft. Very seldom will I not be running a couple of riggers and at least a couple of divers add in a 5 color and a full core and that is my go to spread for the wife and me. Since to date the copper has not been very good gets harder and harder to pull stuff I know works to try something I have little luck with.

Actually Kings are low light feeders they do not feed much in daylight or in darkness they feed in low light conditions such as dawn and dusk. As such a dark cloudy day is usually much better than a bright day. During bright light they tend to go neutral which is why we switch to long line stealth approaches to try and tease them into biting. They need low light conditions to sneak up on the bait fish so short range visability is in their favor. They need to remain unseen as long as possible to eat if the bait can see them it will run which could cause a big fish to use more fuel in the chase then it gains in the meal. Ideally it wants to remain just out of sight of the bait ball and run thru and grab a few on each pass thru. As the water gets clearer and the sun comes up this is harder to do so they tend to suspend and go neutral. Now stick bait right in his face and he may wake up and grab it because they will eat nearly 24 7 but only actively hunt in low light.

Not picking on anyones antenna Nick just passing on info perhaps this new one is differant but I have broken several of them over the years from cheap ones to very expensive ones and they have pretty much all been the same inside. And the center conductor on the coax is a solid copper core so even the old antennas could be advertised as solid copper core element.

One thing to consider when buying the Shakespear antenna it is nothing but a peice of stripped coax inside a fiberglass case. I went thru 3 of them before I got the one on my boat which I payed more for was 89 bucks don't remember what the model number is. I have a antenna analyzer and the first 2 were total junk this one does not do a very good job of band coverage but is at least close enough to use. I did a RF feild strength test against my 2 meter radio I ran my marine radio on 25 watts with the 8ft whip and my 2 meter on 5 watts using a 19in peice of coat hanger for a antenna the 2 meter won so I was not very impressed. I like the construction and reports I hear about the Digital antennas and have heard of a antenna made in Italy that actually has a tunable elementwhich would be great because at these freqs a very small adjustment will make a huge differance. The one Shakespear antenna I like is the base loaded with the steel whip as it can be tuned while I realize it does not offer as much signal gain what they don't say in the ad's is that poor tuning takes away most of the theory gain. At a 1 to 1 SWR all of the RF power is transmited into the air as the SWR goes up the Effective radiated power goes down fast. On the best channel on my radio tuning wise I have a 10% loss in ERP and on some channels it approachs 22% loss This loss is sent back to the radio which adds to the heating of the finals as the finals get hot the radio reduces power to protect itself. Many of the radios you hear out there that are breaking up are lucky if they are getting more than a couple of watts radiated from the antenna.

Weather band is very nice dual or tri watch so you can monitor several channels is very nice make sure the radio is at least a Class D Icom 304 is a nice radio with plenty of features you will use. The raymarine 49 or 55 are nice radios Mariners Center also has some pretty good deals on Ray and Icom radios http://www.marinerscentre.com/ might give them a call the have some close out Raymarine units with most of the features you need.

I won't weigh another laker unless it is over 25 lbs or the only fish I have.