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I still have a couple of Flatfish from years ago that always caught fish was going to run them last year but never did. I will try and rinse them off a few times this year. We used to run them behind Pink lady divers with good success. I have also caught Kings on a lot of bass plugs and other weird stuff like rubber frogs and hula poppers behind downriggers. I really think the list of things they wont hit is way smaller than the list of things they will.

Nice boat Nick I looked at a Sportcraft 25 WA a couple years ago with twin outboards but personally like I/O or inboards better. The only rated speed I could find for a 221WA was a outboard model with a 250hp which gave 44mph as top speed so you should be faster than my 26 as I can barely hit 40 on good water WOT and cruise around 30 to 34 mph. I hope you get it soon as you got a lot of gear to get mounted on it for fishing season.

cool glad you hada good time with the kids Mike. And sorry for sleeping in was playing poker on line and lost track of time so never heard the alarm this morning.

One other comment get one of the ball snubbers to go between the probe and the ball easier to handle and takes some of the shock out of the probe connection.

I used the crimps when I got mine and it worked fine for 2 season last year I lost a probe and replaced it I crimped it as well. This year I am switching to the Klincher setup and yes it will work the same on the Depth Raider as it does on the Sub Troll they both use the same cable and similar antenna setups.

I fish them till there is nothing left never retire anything that catchs fish. Some of my peanut flies used to be Salmon flies.

I think you will be fine lots of guys use similar setups for years with no issues. I have used a set of the rods that several others dislike for 2 seasons with no issues as well. The advantage to what you are going to do is even though you will have to work a little harder for each fish it is more forgiving to mistakes. What happens to many with the cheaper roller rods is they make a mistake and the line jumps off the roller and disaster strikes. They then hear about the Shimano and other high end rods with better rollers and blame the problem on the cheap rod they bought. Wireline fishing is not for everyone yes it catchs fish and is highly productive but like setting a bear trap you do it right or pay the price.

I spent the day helping a friend look for a new fish finder GPS unit. Here is what he narrowed it down to based on his budget so I will ask for opinions from you guys. He is looking at a 500.00 max price and is not going to be blown away with a lot of features as he will likely never use them. Ease of use and being able to count on it working are his primary concerns. Hummingbird 597ci Lowrance LMS 520 CDF ok your turn. Thanks Jim

Dynamite. Since they won't go for that I would suggest what works for me is to consider how they eat in the ponds. The feeder kicks on and hurls pelleted food on top of the water and they hit it as it floats down or right on the surface. So keep roll casting in front of the pack and tight line fish. When I fish for trout in the stocked lakes or in streams I never allow the bait to stop moving or myself to lose contact with it. Just like trying to pull Brooke trout out of a small hole in a stream just keep working the bait thru the zone. Also the bite is barely noticable often just a twitch of the line so you have to maintain contact with the bait all the time and no big hook sets just lift and maintain pressure. With a little practice once they get it down you will never be able to afford to take them to a trout pond again. I helped teach my newphew up at the Hatchery pond in Parris MI along with my kids a few weeks later he talked my brother into taking him. The look on my brothers face when his kid caught 90 bucks worth of fish in a matter of min was priceless. I used to take my kids there a few times a year and always carried a pair of pliers to pinch the barb flat that way they could catch as many as they wanted but were only allowed to keep one fish each. I don't remember what they charge at the show but if your kids get the hang of catching them in any of the pay ponds bring a healthy wallet.

I will be there today Fri for a few hours with a friend. Was planning on skipping it this year as I don't need can't afford much and I know I will get lured into something I can't say no to. So anyhow the long haired bearded freak will be wandering around I will try and say hi to a few guys.

Thanks Arron I did not get the video to work As my Quick time player would not show it guess I need a upgrade. A proper snell is a much better knot for our application and does not require both ends to tie. If you use Franks idea of the tubing a Palomar would also work just fine. I know several fly makers that use a palomar knot on their production flies. A Worlds fair knot is also a fine knot if you want to add fire to the knot wars. I use a lot of knots. The Worlds fair knot is a favorite of mine for tieing mono to lures and swivels and such I prefer the Palomar or Uni for attaching braid to swivels. But for fly rigs I can't beat the Snell for single or multiple hooks in a line. I can snell on a crawler harness to your main line in a hurry when my fingers feel like working. I used to make a stealth crawler harness for walleye fishing When the Flouro super leaders came out a few years ago I would run a 12 to 15 ft leader and just snell on the hooks and gear as I wanted which gave me a no knot setup at the business end.

I keep about a dozen pre tied on the boat and have another 10 sitting in frontof me on my desk. I need to pick up some more Gamma and hooks to get thru the season I have had several guys look at my prepackaged hook and leader setups and wonder where I buy them most are suprised when I explain I make my own. I think if you go to a quality Flouro leader material you will never return to mono for leaders again.

I snell all of mine with 40lb Gamma Flouro leader material not cheap with the Owner hooks but no failure issues in the last 2 seasons. I used to tie them in my fly vise but have gotten to where I can snell them faster free handed. I build my own meat rigs as well and snell on multiple hooks for my own crawler harness's. My J Plug harness's look as good or better than any you can buy.

I have to agree with Arron I don't care for pancake weights after having them swim around my other weights a time or 2 when getting into a cross current. I am pretty much a round ball guy they track fine and no suprises.

Ok my update on ramps as of this afternoon. Fishermans landing has 1 dock in and is still iced in Thin ice in the Channel and lots of floating pack ice out front. Hartshorn is somewhat iced in and has been used but did not look like anyone went out there today as there was way more ice there today than 2 days ago. The launch by the old Clipper is still iced in all the way out to the main channel. I did not get down to the Jaycees ramp westof the paper mill but was told a few guys used it today. 1 Transducer was lost due to backing up thru the ice but they made it out. I talked to a guy at the baitshop who caught a small perch 1 perch was their total for the day. He said they were gone from Muskegon lake that they went out front into 50 FOW and several places but never marked a fish. I heard a few Steelhead and Browns were boated this weekend but no details. The peir fishing as reported by others has been fairly good.

I got my Depth Raider slightly cheaper than that but it was at the 06 show in GR. From what I have seen add nearly 200 for the Fish Hawk. Getting ready to start my 4th season with the Depth Raider. Honestly I think the Sub Troll was around the same price back then I liked the small footprint of the display as I did not have a lot of dash space on the old boat.

Here is a neat site for knots I use the Albright to connect a lot of stuff all my wire is tied to the backer with a Albright knot. I used to use crimps on my wire ends but have pretty much gone to knots as it is easier to see a problem with a knot on wire then a crimp. Crimps tend to look fine till they fail knots start to fray and get ugly so you can see when you need to cut them back and retie. Every time one of my diver connections fails it is about 40 bucks so I am trying to stop failure alltogether. http://www.animatedknots.com/index.php?LogoImage=LogoGrog.jpg&Website=www.animatedknots.com

Update yesterday Fishermans Landing was mostly open with some light ice around the docks and a bit of shelf ice floating out front. It is 51 deg here right now I have to run over near the lake tommorrow to take care of some business so I will make the rounds at a few launchs. My bet is most of them are open now also should point out the launch at Mona Lake was open the other day as well. So fishing will be going on here very soon.

David unless you find one at a really good price there is no need to hurry untill the water temp starts to build this summer. You are welcome to come take a ride on my boat and check out the Depth Raider and we can probably get Don Fishsniffer to join us with his boat then you could see them both side by side. Even the guys who complained about the older Fish Hawk units battery consumption and large dash eating display loved them. So it is not a case where any one is way better than the other it really comes down to personal preference.

I chose the Depth Raider because I liked the display better. There are some who say the probe in the Sub Troll is better I have no issues with mine it does everything it said it would and the batteries last nearly forever over 2 seasons on the first probe battery and I will let you know when the second one stops working but expect it to work well into next year. As far as removing the downriggers there is no difference between them unplug the antenna takes about 1 extra second.

Copper requires huge reels not really any way to get around it I bought both of my copper setups ready to fish from The Outdoorsmen in Jenison. Actually I received one as a gift and bought the other. They are Okuma CV55L reels with 150 yds of 20lb mono backer 300ft of 45lb copper and 20 yds of 20lb mono leader. I have 6 other core rods and a bunch of Dive Bombs so I can hit pretty much any depth I want so I got both in 300ft of 45lb copper. Wire goes with several schools of thought setup wise I have a CV30D I bought pre spooled with 75 yds of Dacron backer and 600ft of 30lb wire I have never seen the knot. There are many who use the same reel and just spool on 1000ft of 30lb wire. My second wireline setup is a CV45D This has 150yds of Dacron and 600ft of 30lb wire again I have never seen the knot so it may be over kill.

I think it would be better on Sun as it would give more guys a chance to prefish on Sat. Will be easy for me to switch dates on the calander.

Sounds great Mike will be looking forward to it.

Tony I use the Off Shore boards and like them alot I may however get a couple ofthe Church boards as they track a little better with Copper setups. I do not like the releases on the Church boards don't like the old ones and still don't care for the new ones. So I will convert them to Off Shore style releases when I get them. I don't like the board sliding down or coming off so I use the Snap weight clips for the rear of my Off Shore boards and they never let go. When I bring the board in we pull it off in the boat with the fish still well behind the boat. I have pulled everything behind my boards and it all works I run up to 3 per side with no issues and have ran up to 14 lines on my boat. 4 riggers 4 divers and 6 boards. Once you get the hang of running inlines you will wonder how you ever fished without them.

Last year when we went for Browns at Port Sheldon we headed south along the shoreline and had no luck we ran about 2 miles south I think and decided to move out a bit and troll back trolling north in about 25ft we ran into some Steelhead and a few Coho's and gave up on the Browns. Ended up being a nice day but no target species that happens to me a lot as I always run a outside board and it seems to never fail that we get action on the outside and go with it.