Steelhead#1

What happened?

Use your rip tide downwind. Turn on your main to go the other direction. No fumes in the boat. I bet that rip tide is pretty sweet. The idea of running silent on all electric is awesome. I'd look for a lightly used 20" shaft 9.9 hp 4 stroke outboard. You'll find a deal on one if you look long enough. Fumes won't be a problem. Don't buy anything less than an 8 hp. Under 8 hp they got a single cylinders and will shake you to death.

Thanks for the report. I was hoping to get out there but never made it.

Nice, what spoon/flasher did you have on the 300?

Thanks for all the replies in the thread from yesterday. Fished for under 2 hours today. Got chased off by a storm. Got 1 king, missed another. Copper 250 with a carmel dophin spoon. ~100 fow. Going about 3.3 mph(We've never successfully trolled that fast). We lost another fish on a 2 color with the double orange crush spoon.(we were going 2.6 on that one) We ran a limited spread due to getting out there and noticing that a storm was in chicago. We started in 140 fow ended in 90 something. That blue spoon i couldn't remember the name of yesterday was a silver streak, Michelle Pfeiffer. We had fun.

Actually, no not at all. The spindles are bad so eventually the bearings get crushed. The tire starts to wobble and if you don't take care of it. The big nut on the end gets grinded down. Then the tire flies off. While we were on the water yesterday, the axle bolts finally showed up. We're going to fully replace the axle, hubs, tires. This was also a new battery & new flare purchase year too. I want to eventually get this. https://siriussignal.com/ Kinda need more people to know about it first. I think we've got 25 flares in the boat now.

First trip of the year. 1 turn of the key motor started. 1 pull of the cord the kicker started. Just a great first trip. 3 Coho 1 King 2 Misses 0 lakers The king was caught on a rigger 33 down 25 back in 95 fow (lemon head spoon) The 3 coho were caught on a 150 copper(carmel/orange dolphin), 200 copper(blueish spoon don't remember exactly(sorry)), & 150 copper (carmel/orange dolphin) We had a miss on a double orange crush 2 color core. Need to redo the drags on this reel. We had another miss on the 150 copper (carmel/orange dolphin) . You know the story. Ripped line out like we hooked a boat headed in the opposite direction. Jumped in the air to show us how big he was and then spit the hook. We ran out to 80 headed in a North West direction. Dropped lines. Picked up one coho at 97. Trolled until we hit 140. Turned left at 140 trolled towards the nuclear plant and started picking up a fish here and there. Best speed was 2.8

Starting last year I have recorded every trip with my fish finder. The problem is that you could interpret the data any way you like. You could say there is a ton of bait out there. You could also say there isn't that much bait out there. Both statements would be true. I have no real historic data to compare it against. I don't see how anyone else would. Unless they've been recording the fish finder for several years. A simple picture of your fish finder isn't going to tell you anything.

Are you associated with the project at all?

Could maybe be Diporeia? http://www.purdue.edu/uns/x/2008a/080528SepulvedaVanishing.html

post this on iboats forum

I have never fished slide divers w/o the mag ring & weight. The 2 to 1 ratio is pretty accurate. You can fish the bottom in some deep water. The only thing I don't like about the slide divers is the inability to take them off the rod during travel.

St Joe just put in a fish cleaning station at their boat launch. The season pass is $35 @ City Hall. Its 25 more miles down the highway but gas is cheap this year and you'll catch more fish. They also have the Benton Harbor DNR launch across the street from tackle haven which only costs $11 for the year but, st joe has a safer lot. http://sjcity.com/play-here/197-city-boat-launch

$100. You'll probably have to go to city hall to purchase it since the gate is hardly manned anymore. The city outsourced the management. They are saving money by basically not paying people to be there ever. There was also issues with the fish cleaning station smelling due to not getting properly cleaned. The docks are not getting the goose dropping cleaned off often enough. Then there was also issues with a commercial operator that backs up into the ramp and waits for his rental customers to return an hour or so later. If you ask him not to do that you get threatened to get your ass kicked. If you read the habor commission meeeting minutes of how they came up with the $100 for the launch fee its a giant joke. Did they look at what Benton Harbor / St Joe / Holland / port sheldon / muskegon / grand haven / saugatuck launch charges? NOPE. We complained and they decided to drop the price i think $75-80 if you're over 65. THANKS maybe in 30+ years when I turn 65 everyone else will charge $100 a year and it will make a little bit of sense. Perch fishing has been better the last couple of years in St Joe. Salmon fishing is better in Holland. If I lived elsewhere. I would never come here. Some day you need to ask me how I really feel.

I always wondered what happened with this. Any update?

I'm sick of working on broken vehicles. I'd keep the frontier.

I would buy a horrible looking boat that has been left outside way too long. Under $1k. Look over the entire hull and make sure its good. Spend a couple weekends and rip out the wood & replace it. Spend less than $500 to redo it all. Then you're set for 20+ years. Whatever money you got left. Buy a decent motor. If you want to go this route. Read the iboats forums. There are tons of completed restorations.

I have seen 225 lengths with the convector 45 reels. I would go with 32# copper and some high visibility braid. The 32# dive curve is very close to the 45# dive curve. I really don't know of any benefits of the 45# copper. You can fit more backing on reel if you use 32#. Everyone uses 45# because they believed it was deeper. The dive charts and the information we got shows that its really not true unless its a really long segment of copper. Also, early in the season a copper 150 with a double orange crush spoon has done very well.

You guys will like the helix 5. Took this pic while perch fishing last year.