1mainiac

What they do is guide the line out smoother which helps prevent kinks. They put a lot of pressure on the tip section of the rod but prevent the line from making a 90 deg bend coming out of the tip eyelet. You learn fast to keep your rod angle a little lower than you might be used to.

I will put in a small garden this year. I have a lifelong friend and former business partner that grows between 17 an 25 acres of fresh produce every year year so hard to beat stopping by and picking up a few bushel from him he also has a 7 acre orchard and will trade for fishing trips. I helped him build the farm from a old horse pasture and helped build and run his greenhouses for years. If I lived closer to him I would probably still work with him as he is always begging me to come back. The wife wants a small garden this year so will till up a little patch about 20 x 50 in the back yard and let her have it. But since I can get fruit and vegitables by the semi load is hard to worry about a small garden when I can be fishing.

Mike I think you got the numbers backwards I would be happy to land a 35 lb'er LOL

Been a long time since I had smoked suckers but they were always good esp the black ones this time of year in cold water. We caught and released 60 of them last week Thur what a blast gave a few away and threw the rest back. I would have loved to keep the Walleye we released but did not want em bad enough to go to jail for em. Dan as a my grandmother used to say getting old ain't for sissies.

Off Shore standard boards was pulling 45lb copper with 2 4oz dive bombs one in the middle of the copper and one on the leader right at the copper connection. The board was tail dragging and did not want to track so I did not run it long. I am playing with the idea of building some bigger inline boards. Or possibly putting 2 of them together I am not sure yet some guys suggest going to the Church boards or the SST Off Shore boards but there is not a lot of size difference in them so I don't see a lot of gain. No matter what is is a lot to pull so I will play with it a bit I have also considered a set of out riggers for the copper but really need to know I can get it out past my divers or I just won't run it. The first time I ran copper I did not have it far enough away from the boat and a fish hit my high diver and got into the copper I got lucky and managed to clear it fast with no damage but learned a lesson about the underwater space all my stuff occupies and stacking long lines on top of them is not a good plan.

Pretty much all I have heard in regard to dive bombs depth is most say 1oz is about equal to 1 collor of core so speed dependant between 3 and 6 ft per ounce. I ran 2 4 oz DB on my 300 copper last year out deep and basiclly found out my inline boards won't pull that much as they would barely float under the load and would not track worth mentioning. So untill I get or build much bigger inline boards dive bombs and copper don't mix for me.

With wire rods there is no give in the line so a good hard steady pull is all that is needed. Because of the no stretch in the line I can't remember getting a fish on a wire diver that did not trip the diver when it hit. The one thing I know is when I stopped yanking on fish my success rate with both braid and wire divers went way up. The stretch in mono forgives a lot of mistakes that wire will not allow.

I agree the first thing I do is loosen the drag before they come out of the rod holders. Then just add drag a little at a time to slow them down. No hook sets just apply pressure and lift on the rod.

I have done several boats over the years and it is not a tough job I agree with Reel World I don't use marine grade plywood nor do I use thick plywood. I used quality 1/2 decking and once all the peices were cut I sealed them and painted them. Once the first layer was down I layed down a second layer and overlaped all the seams also water sealed and painted the second layer before installing it. I put baffles in the back to keep the foam away from the bildge pump and left a rod storage locker in the center of the floor on my last one. once everything is layed out with the first layer use a hole saw to cut openings to add the pour foam. Don't get carried away with the foam a little makes a lot of foam I think it took 2 quarts of each part in 2lb density to do a 18ft boat. When done you will have a dance floor you can be proud of my brother is pushing 400lbs and can dance on my old boat floor with now issues.

That is great Keith did not mean to dis the Big Jons or the Berts but I would love either but faced with buying as many as I wanted these do work well on a budget. Since they are in my Berts tracks if they give me any issue I can break down and buy the Berts. I ran both wire and braid divers off them all season last year and was pretty happy so I bought 4 more of them this winter. My primary goal has been to get everything I needed then to upgrade as I went along so I have a lot of Okuma gear some of which I bought 4 years ago with the idea they would last a season or 2 to my suprise they have preformed better than planned. So I when I hear guys telling people that some of the budget stuff is a waste of time to buy I tend to defend some of them. On the other hand I have blown up Attwood rod holder and Tight Locs pulling dipseys and never saw any disclaimer on them so I know some things just wont work or at least not very long. Just remember boat Break Out Another Thousand really does apply way too often. I traded a old CB for my 18ft Starcraft on a trailer most expensive cheap toy I ever bought.

I have heard nothing but great reports on the JR rods. The Twillie tip will work in nearly any rod Guide wear will be a issue but not for quite a few fish before it becomes a problem the JR rods have Special eyelets so wear is not a issue with them. The only reason I prefer roller rods is they are smoother and do not add to the drag. I mentioned this in another post but again set your drag in a straight line pull to see what your reel is set at then lift the rod and see how much pressure you can apply between the added leverage of the rod and the additional drag of the eyelets and tip it can be pretty impressive. A common issue with wire rods is most don't realize how hard they are pulling on the fish and can yank to lure right out of the fish. And often setting the reel at 8 or 10 lbs of drag can max out your connections when fighting a fish pulling with the rod.

I was a bit sceptical at first as well these have 1.5in dia ball mounts and really hold once tightened down I have not had a problem with them slipping running 10ft wire divers with mag divers on them they hold. If money were no option I don't think I would have bought them but then I would be in a much bigger boat sipping 20 year old bourbon while I waited for the rods to go off.

Usually a uni to uni but I also use loop connectors on my fly rods and some of my other setups cause they are fast and hold well.

We used to use this green Fiberglass filler can't remember the name but is sort of like bondo with fiber glass mat in it and you used resin hardener with it. If all you have is surface damage you can clean it out with a grinder or dremel tool and use a filler it is much quicker and I have used the filler along with glass mat. Once you get the area prepped cut a thin peice of mat slightly larger than the repair area lay it on a sheet of alum foil mix up your resin and apply it to the mat making sure you soak it all the way thru the mat then brush a coat of resin on the repair area and apply the patch use a roller to work it in and let it setup then peel off the foil. For small repair spots shread the fiberglass mat and mix it in with you resin apply it and cover with alum foil and use a roller to smooth it out and pack it down into the area.

Don't get me wrong I like the Big Jon holders but he said on a budget. You can't compare a 90 dollar rod holder to a 20 dollar rod holder. But here goes mine will lock in any position I put them verses 5 positions. I looked at the Berts to go with my tracks and talked to Vince he showed me how to adjust these to fit my tracks and they work great. So as far as on a budget goes I have 10 adjustable rod holders mounted in my track system for 150 bucks verses 890 for 10 Big Jons plus another 150 for the Berts bases to track mount them or even 530 for 10 multi set holders plus the bases. Or even the 750 it would have cost me to use the Berts rod holders designed for my tracks. No matter how you look at it those are all great rod holders but not what I would consider on a budget. Just like wireline rods we all pretty much agree you can't skimp on reels and the Okuma Convector series reel is about as cheap as you dare go but not every one can afford Talyora rods and Tekata reels at roughly 500 a combo plus line and so lots of guys use the JR rods or just add a twillie tip and get by. If you are fishing tournaments or taking paying customers you can't afford cheap gear but for those of us who just love to fish saving money is more boat gas or more setups to fish with.

I bought all of mine at Captain Gary's in North Muskegon he has a ton of the Ram rod holders and sells them on Ebay as well. I had to modify them to fit in my Berts tracks. He was selling them for 35 bucks a pair at the Grandville swap meet and if you buy a bunch he might make a better deal. I have 10 of them on my boat and they hold real good and adjust to any angle. http://www.captgarys.com/ . For the price I can't find a better deal anywhere I ran 6 of them last year and added 4 more for this season worked fine pulling divers all season long.

Everyones skill levels and resouces are differant personally I can build anything I see but don't always have the resorces to do it. Like the fishing arch I want and could easily build but don't have the correct dies available to do the bends or a good welder in my garage to do nice finish welds. So I stick to things I can do that save me money or improve on what I have I make a lot of my fishing gear Flies leaders harness's I bought rod holders on sale and modified them to fit my track system at a huge savings. I have made my own cannon balls in the past but sold the melting pot and dies years ago. One thing you can't tkae away is the feeling you get when you build something and it works cause every thing we fish with was someones crazy idea at one time.

Talked to Brett today will be at least another week to get mine out. He said the marina's were not going to turn on dockside power till the 15th which is keeping guys from getting their boats out. So that is going to slow me down a bit I expected to see a few boats gone already but as of today it looks like none have moved yet.

I have not had the money to buy it yet Tony I was talking with John Williams about the problem and he mentioned it to me as a answer. As I understand it you get a autostop and the new control for 70 bucks ea the new controll has a up down switch and a knob to adjust motor speed which works both ways. John posted on another site that they were doing some testing on a set of brutes and that it took a 42lb weight to slow it down that they were rated speed with 25lb balls and beyond. I love mine dearly but have had a lot of tangles and have dragged many fish as a result of tangles going down. One morning as I am netting a fish for my wife I see a salmon hit the surface behind the boat and my wife says that fish has been doing that for 10 min or so. I think crap it is tangled in one of my rigger poles so I grab one trip it nope and have the wife reel it in while I grab the second one it won't trip bring the ball up sure enough it is wrapped up untangle it and land the 8lb king on it for our limit fish for the day we were fishing in 50 ft of water. As much as I love the monster riggers they have some issues that will be fixed with speed control on decent at least.

I can see line haveing a effect on salmon in the top 20ft of clear water but beyond that I can't see where it has any effect. If you are concerned add a flouro leader with 20ft or so of flouro leader your line no longer matters. I personally like running a high vis line with a flouro leader that way I can clearly see the line and avoid tangles and because of the flouro leader all the fish see's is the bait.

YEEEEE HAAAAW Glad to hear it Mike I need to call Brett and see when mine can come home and visit me. Will call him tommorrow who knows maybe I can dunk mine this weekend as well.

You can fish you full legal spread till you are done fishing you are allowed 5 trout or salmon ea of which all 5 can be salmon but no more than 3 of any trout species per angler however you can catch 3 Steelhead and 2 lake trout and be legal or any combonation of 3 trout and 2 others. So if there are 3 of you you can run 9 rod with up to 2 lures per rod and catch a total of 15 fish. Those 15 can all be salmon or a mixture of trout and salmon as long as you have no more than 9 trout of the same species which is the 3 per angler limit. Remember fishing rules are for fishing and possesion rules are for what is in the box. Any legal fishing method is legal but you have to stay withen possesion limits for what you keep you can catch and release fish all day long. Provided you do not keep any illegal fish you are fine.

Not really bragging or complaining Frank Just when Chris made the note these fish cost a lot per pound I figured I would add up what I spent last year versus fish caught and see what the raw numbers were. I did not bother to amortize out the boat and equipment cost over time just most of the receipts in a pile so to speak. Since I won't be buying a boat again this year being able to average the cost out over more years will make it look much better. But the cost of this game can get to you pretty quick sometimes it is hard to see past the numbers. Like when my brother won't listen and wraps a fish on a diver around a rigger and loses the whole setup with the fish he is bummed cause he lost a fish. I have a hard time watching close to 40 bucks swim away. I try and not think about the cost but every now and then it comes up and my mind goes numb for a bit as I add things up.

I have bought a lot from the Outdoorsmen got both of my copper setups from there well one was a gift from there but I bought the second one to match it. Great guys and good selection of gear to choose from.

MI regs are 3 rods per angler 2 baits per rod, and you can fish the full spread till the last fish is in the box. New Salmon rule is 5 salmon per day per angler. The trout rules are unchanged still 3 and 2 for 5 fish per angler limit. 3 rod per angler limit now applies to all MI waters and species.