1mainiac

Since I run divers under all conditions they accounted for more than half my fish this year. With the rest divided between riggers and core I will always run my divers but the number of core and rigger poles will vary depending on cond and people in the boat. If I were fishing alone it would always be 2 divers and either a core or rigger to make up the third rod

I used to run em long Nick but have to admit the way I ran them this year worked really well.

Strangly last year a friend I chat with on the radio ( Ham Radio ) who did a lot of testing and research for Rhyes Davis had me make some changes in my dipsey program this year and drop the meat rigs. Honestly my dipseys were hot all year and I had many trips the rigger poles went untouched. First thing I changed was I ran shorter leads on every thing behind the diver Spoons 4 to 5 ft back plugs 5 to 6 ft back as maximum leader lengths. for flasher fly setups I ran 24 to 30in behind the diver for the flasher and never more than 3 times the flasher length back to the fly. The reason is the water is getting clearer if you attract a fish get the hit as soon as he sees it don't let him think about it. Shorter leads make the fish think the attracter is trying to get the bait and cause them to decide to get it first. Salmon are aggresive and will often strike just cause they can and if they feel they are competing for a food source they will go all out to get it first. Keeping the diver setup short makes it easy to manage at the back of the boat and reduces problems netting. I go after the fussy spooky fish with long leads behind the balls and SWR setups as well as using my core program. So when runnig a full program the divers get the aggressive fish the SWR and long leads off the balls picks up the tenative ones and the core program goes after the rest.

You should go see them live they come to GR every year I saw them down in Houston years ago. Kinda like mixing Pink Floyd and Genisis and christmas music the live expereince is beyond belief. I have often thought about doing my front yard for christmas and digging out my old PA and lighting gear. Maybe if I win the lottery I will do it at least then I could afford the electric bills and distrubing the peace tickets.

Well it depends on what kind of rods they are my braided line dipsey rods are 10 ft OKUMA MOOCHING rods very stiff lot of backbone not anything I would want on my riggers. My old down rigger rods are Okuma classic pro 8 ft medium action and I bought a couple of Diawa Wilderness rods 862mr they work well on my riggers and at under 20 apeice I may grab a second set for spares. But if you want a wild time at least a few times a year I use my 10ft Steelhead rods on the rigger with 8lb test. My personal best is about a 15lb king that required pulling all the gear and running down with the boat on 8lb Maxima. Was like one of them Marlin fights you see on TV took forever but had a blast. I love light gear and as much as I love big fish catching 10 to 20 lb kings on 30 lb line is not as much fun. http://www.daiwa.com/Rod/detail.aspx?ID=259 those are the rods I mentioned good luck I got 2 of em on sale last spring for 15 bucks ea which is why I tried them they worked fine for me so will probably get a couple more.

Frank I used to fish out of Grand Haven on a good day the run from slip to the lake would be close to 45 min all no wake. Put a couple hundred boats in the channel and you might just as well drop lines you ain't moving. I have seen down riggers on a canoe and guys in paddle boats in the channel it was not pretty. I can launch from Fruitport 3 min from my house but is well over a hour to the lake minimum roughly 14 miles of no wake zone.

Frank the last couple years have not been bad but I remember what it was like at times when everything that could float was in the channel. Hell I have seen fistfights between boats and everyone stayed in their own boat they were that close.

Well I see it this way since Salmon are non native fish brought in to control a non native Alewife problem which they did we have 2 choices for the future. Continue to reduce or eliminate stocking them or increase bag limits. You notice they put maintaince levels in the rule which means they can adjust the limits as needed similar to to what they do with deer. Monitor the population and the success rate and adjust the bag level to meet it. The big advantage will be that guys who are compelled to fill the box every trip will no longer have to target other fish like the Lakers and Browns and Steelhead. The odd thing is we mostly brought them in to wipe out Alewives but in the process built a solid sport fishing industry to the Great Lakes. Like it or not the high cost of fishing is cutting deeply into the number of guys on the water even at the tournament level nearly every event last year had less than expected turnout. Even the combat fishing had less pressure the last couple of years. I can remember when you could walk from boat to boat and had to allow up to a hour to get thru the channel. We used to put down lines in the channel cause you were not going to get thru anyhow so might as well fish your way out and in. Not once did I get bottled up at Muskegon this year I was able to drive thru and go fish every trip. Most of the time I was out this year I would say 30 to 40% less boats. And if you love catching them and can't eat them all try releasing them. There is no rule that you have to bring home a full box every time just like you don't have to shoot every deer you see.

Nice catch Jay guess I should have got up early and came over maybe Sun

Cool that will hopefully cut down on going after lakers to fill your bag. This is something i had discussed with GLF Mike that would have a effect on tourny bag limits if passed should make for a fun year on the water next summer. As now we will no longer have to pull up and try to hunt down Lakers to make a box. To me it has always sucked to be on a good school of fish and have to either quit or pull off and go deep after Lakers to finish the box. Yes I know you could try for Steelhead or Browns but for me Lakers are always easier to seperate from the others due to their colder water life style.

Ok finally had a chance to catch John Williams today had a great chat with him. I am going to put together a few units and will be looking to have some guys test them this comming season. I think they will work best on 20 - 30 ft boats to improve speed control and stability when trolling. will have to see how many I can get built and and then see about picking some guys to run them. So any guys running bags to slow down that would be willing to try a differant method let me know. I am going to start building them as soon a weater warms enough to work in the unheated garage.

Pretty much all the probes except the Cannon hook up the same. The probe attaches to the DR cable and has a short cable below it that you attach the ball to. Usually a lower test line between the probe and ball so it the ball hangs up you only lose the ball but if the probe comes off you lose the entire setup. In 3 years I have lost 2 balls and 1 copmplete setup. Not cheap by any means but still the best investment I have made as a single purchase to improve my fishing rate. While I still like to see a mark on the fishfinder now and then I now run my unit in split screen mode and often have the chart as the larger portion. The fish alarm will tell me to chk the screen to see what depth the mark is at but the probe tells me if I am fishing a temp they are likely to be active at and if my lure speed is correct. Also I talked with John Williams today and was informed they have a new control box for my DR that will give me auto stop and speed controll. I may try it out next season if my wallet permits as the down speed on these Brute equilivant riggers is smoking fast probably approaching free fall speed. Often causeing the setup to spin on the way down and making it neccessary to hand adjust my depth at times. Also with a 15lb ball it will slingshot the ball at you as it clears the surface making it tough to stop correctly when resetting lines in a hurry so speed control and auto stops will be a great improvement.

Put me down for all of them Rich.

Bill I will look forward to taking you up on the offer.

Thanks Joel will be in touch after the Holidays. This Thread is not just about fishing tournaments it is about meeting new friends and fishing together. Most of us come to this site for similar reasons to get a report ask a question share a idea. As we read the other reports and ideas it is easy to consider that it would be cool for us on the west side to trade some trips with the guys on the east side. When I look back on my season I realize how many times I fished shorthanded as did several others so I thought this year I would do more than just chat with guys here I will try and fish with some of them. Tight Lines Jim

Did they go out of business? Website is down and see a few post mortem sites stateing that Big Jon is doing their repairs. Was going to see what the auto stops would cost to add to mine and they appear to be gone.

Since CAZ has posted his scheduale and Mike is rolling on getting his lined up for the season. I had trouble doing tournies last couple seasons cause I have no real team I have some family and friends that are willing to fish with me but I end up with all the expense. Simply put I don't have the funds or the teammates to compete all out. I have a pretty good setup and should be able to fish with the best. So I will lay out what I have and see if any one is willing to try this with me. BOAT 1989 Four Winns 267 Quest 26ft walk around 260hp OMC Cobra with full canvas on a trailer. Depth Raider, Lowrance LMS 525C-DF fishfinder chart ploter with chip, Garmin GPS76 as backup, I am converting to Hyd steering the winter and hope to have a Auto Pilot this spring. Back of boat is open flat floor with wash down. 4 electric down riggers 16 rod holders 6 inline boards also a 6 ft dual mast board setup. Boat is Coast Guard legal insured and ready to fish and can be towed to pretty much any port budget allowing. GEAR 18 rods 2 SWR 2 braid 2 wire 2 5 color 2 10 color 2 copper 6 rigger. Mostly Okuma gear but it works and is all less then 5 years old. Hundreds of spoons J Plugs and Flies can put down nearly any color combination. Dipsey's flashers pretty much everything needed to fish is here but have room if you want to bring your favorite setup as well. ME Well the boat name pretty much covers that I would fish 24/7 year round if I could. I have fished on Lake MI since the late 60's was in the Coast Guard Res from 76 to 80. I can handle the boat and the weather and know when to get in. What I can fish in may be more than some can handle so I will never force anyone to stay out if they are scared. Vote of the crew always wins for me. Well to be honest if the fish are hitting I might ask to suck it up for a little longer but hey never had anyone complain about the weather when fish were biting. Treat me and my gear with respect and I will do the same for you and yours. 2 years ago I felt the only thing keeping me from doing well on the tournament scene was my boat and equipment solved that with my wallet last year but could not crew and fund all the events I wanted to fish in. Sound like something you are interested in let me know perhaps others can get together in this thread as well and maybe we can trade trips with some of the guys on the east side.

Well the boat is still here had several people agree to buy it but no one returned with the money. There is nothing fancy about these old boats it is just a great starter boat for Salmon and big lake fishing. It is big deep and roomy for a 18ft boat it will need TLC but I fished in it for 3 years and it always made it back to the dock.

I have seen several good reports on them out of my price range esp since I have not ice fished in over 20 years. I hope to do a bit of it this winter since we should have a good ice season but still cant afford that. I have a small handheld that does a decent job and also a Hummingbird portable so will be using those.

Frank I have not had a landline since 98 been on Verizon very few dead zones.

Well let me clear some of this up nearly all of my glow spoons are magnum spoons. Untill this year I never bought any glow spoons in smaller sizes. As such my glow program has always been big spoons plugs and flasher fly combos. This year I bought a few of the Nitro spoons and some other smaller glow spoons and they worked well. But if I am dropping lines at 4:30 am the first thing down will most likely be magnum Moonshines as my dark approach is big and bright so to speak. Next approach will be dipsey's with either glow flashers and flies or small glow spoons. Since I often fish with just my wife that is our 6 rod setup in the dark. If there are more people in the boat I have room to make changes if not as the sun comes up I pull 2 riggers and put out a core program that most of the time was 2 5 color setups targeting Steelhead and Coho since they taste better. The only times I had enough people in the boat to run the 12 rod setup was during the tournaments with 6 rod limits. So carring 18 rods is kinda overkill as I hardly ever used my copper setup or my wire divers. Except for the 19 lb king I caught and the one my wife caught all of our big fish came on magnum spoons this year. So I pretty much always have a big spoon or 2 down. The night I was talking about we had 10 rods out coming in in the dark 4 mag glows on the riggers 2 flasher fly combos on divers and 4 small spoons on the core setups we never had a fish touch the big spoons all night we got 3 fish on flies and the 3 I dragged on the core setups for a bonus. But as a general rule I think the mag glows do better in darkness maybe just cause I fish them more in the dark.

Very true Frank it is why the flies work and I always go to smaller plugs and spoons as the sun comes up. A small Black Raspberry and a couple of the Nitro spoons were my go to lures as cond changed in the early morn. Big and glowing were my plan for darkness but as we approach sunup I would begin to switch out to the Nitro's and flies. As soon as I can see well enough the core program goes out usually with small spoons. And the flies go out as well. My evening program is just reversed I start with small stuff and flies and add bigger glows as it gets dark. The big dif is if I have room around me I will leave the cores out in the dark even though I can't see them very well because they will still catch fish and I would rather reel them in with a fish on them. One evening we were in 100 fow and only had 2 fish in the box when we decided to call it a night. But rather then pull lines and run in I decided to just troll in behind the Ferry so we agreed to pull lines at 60 ft and pointed to the lights picked up a nice King in 70 ft about 7 lbs and did not reset the rod as we were close to 60 ft when we neted it so I figured we had our mercy fish and began to pull lines. Three of our 4 core poles had fish on them nothing big but all legal fish 2 small Steelhead and a 3 lb King. All on small spoons from my daylight setup a few hours ago. We set lines at 7:30 it was now coming up 11 and we had 6 nice fish 2 on flies the rest on small spoons. Big spoons and plugs never took a bump the biggest fish in the box was about 8 lbs and the small Steelhead were between 2 and 3 lbs.

I tend to agree Frank the last couple years I always ran a meat rig in nearly every spread and my fish per trip rate was much better. I talked to a friend who is a charter captain on lake O who was one of the primary field testers for Rhys Davis. He told me he no longer ran the cut bait anymore that it was too costly and no more effective than flasher fly combos. He gave me several pointers on how to improve my fly setup and they worked. I ran the boat Herring impaired all season and did ok had a couple bad days and a few great days and the boat smelled better than last season. I did actually break out some Herring on a few bad trips and it did not seem to change much and did not catch a single fish on meat this year. But will point out I almost never ran it probably under 4 hours of trolling time out of over 200 hours of trolling this summer. Versus having meat running nearly all the time last year and the 200 bucks or so I saved on strips got spent on other things anyhow like the extra cost of gas. I tried several spray scents on my fly program and most of them worked so maybe dropping the Herring is less of a factor than the major change I made due to high fuel cost. Since I live close to the lake it was easier for me to try and only fish peak times so I would make a plan for the morn and go fish it but if it worked or not I generally pulled lines and headed in when I completed the plan. Most of my trips were under 3 hours start to finish and I ended with a less than 5% skunk rate. I know several guys who fished less then me and got skunked more times so that is not all that bad. So other than the Tournaments and a couple other times I stuck with the program all year. On the days I pounded the fish I never ran any scent program even in past years I never ran meat during peak fishing it has always been a go to when the bite slowed and in daylight to try and bring in a few more fish. Since I did not fish this scenario much this summer I am not the best judge however I really think in years past it was a big help to have meat rigs going. If gas prices next year are like they were this year my program will take even more reductions unless I win the lottery.

Verizon works everywhere I fish this year. I think it attracts fish as it never seems to fail one of my buddies will call to see how things are going and a rod will go off. My brother had Nextel for years traveled all over the midwest and south as a salesman. Said it works great as long as you follow a major highway but once you take a exit ramp you are on your own.

Salmon primarily eat Alewives which in various light cond appear in many colors. As such I have long beleived that color selection was fairly low on my list of go to things. My goal has always been to run as many setups as possible and vary my spped and depth within a given temp range. Some days they will seem to pick a color and pattern and only hit that, when I see that I like to put more of them down. Other days they will grab one setup then another and so on so there is no way to pattern them as the seem to be just grabbing whatever is closet to them. Then there are days when they hit the entire spread all at once. On a 8 rod setup mixed with spoons plugs and flies 3 of us landed 7 Kings in 45 min. There was no time to reset anything just try and see who could get theirs in fastest so they could grab one of the other rods that was banging. So for my nearly 40 years out there fishing between Holland and Frankfort I don't have a single must fish this setup. I have dozens of setups that all work and depending on light cond and water temp and depth seem to dominate certain cond. Copper colors to me seem to work best in mid light cond overcast days right after sunup or right at sundown. In dark I like chrome and glow's maximize flash and visability. Bright clear days I go with blues and greens. But if I have 3 or 4 people on the boat I will run any and or all of the combinations.