ekbelt

1. Never attach it to the leadcore sheathing, its pretty brittle and doesnt hold up to abraision well--always attach to the backing. 2. Yes

Nice work guys! We ended up 4 for 12 and fish were 10-17lbs Lost 3 hogs at the back of the boat... Fished 80-100 and did a south troll all night every rod got hits, we never went 15 min without something happening Riggers at 60 and 75 Wire divers at 125 and 165 Fire divers at 180 300 copper and 350 copper Ran paddles and 8" spin doctors on everything. Hot setup was probably a white spin doctor with green fly or mtn dew spin doctor with green fly. Get out there... the fishing is awesome!

Just started using the same one Adam posted this year... way better than crimps. I will never use crimps again.

Efishency - we should be out there around 6:30pm.

I've been listening to the online radio all week and fishing has been red hot from Port Sheldon down to Saugatuck. http://www.bigredclassic.com/radio.htm Earlier in the week 80-90 was the ticket--the last day or so the water warmed up and is sounds like they moved out to 120-130 (but I wouldnt overlook the 80-90 yet). I'll be out tonight, hopefully we get into them!

Not a huge twitter fan... but I would say a nice upgrade might be to install the Vbulletin mobile module so you can access it via an Android App or Iphone App.

I'm a triplefish fan too... been using it the last 5 years. Best bang for your buck with fluorocarbon if you ask me.

The storms knocked out the power periodically this morning and the live radio was down for around 6 hrs... we're back up to full speed now!

Anyone know if they canceled day 1 for the Saugatuck tournament too?

100yds is not enough in my opinion, you're asking for issues if you get a hog on. Albright knot... I just respooled my wires with 1000' of 19 strand torpedo. I had two reels so I put the wire on one, then filled it with 30lb mono. Took note of how much backing it needed. Then pulled it all on the other reel. Then when I set the last reel up I knew exactly how much 30lb backer to put on. This was on Okuma Convector 45D's.

I've been running a depth raider for 5 years now and its a great tool. I found out quickly though that comparing 'down speeds' with other guys never seemed to work so hot. The different brands show different speeds, and Fishhawks you can actually calibrate to make it read how you want it to--so those guys may have a way different speed. I actually like the fact that a depth raider is not able to calibrate. If you compare notes with another guy who has a depth raider you'll be speaking the same language everytime. Everyone I've talked to with a depth raider says 1.8-2.2 at the ball is the target speed. Lately 2.1 has been best for us. I also use 14lb balls.

We are in need of some Observers for the Big Red Classic this year. If you are interested send an email to [email protected] and I will send you a document which outlines what your responsibilities will be. It's a great opportunity to get on a great fishing boat for the weekend and see how the Pro's do things. Thanks! -Erik

The Big Red Classic 2011 is only one week away! Early signup's are looking good! If you haven't signed up yet, check out the website for all the new things for 2011 including the Catch 10 Weigh 5 format. You won't go hungry as we have a chicken dinner Friday night, Pig Roast Saturday afternoon and Quincy Street Brats on Sunday afternoon. Online Signup will stay open until Wednesday night at midnight, and late fee's will be waived if you signup online! The late fees will apply if you signup in person at the captain's meeting. Feel free to email with any questions you might have! [email protected] http://www.bigredclassic.com Hope to see everyone on next Friday night!

Fished 90-100 north of PS (pretty much radio tower to Grand Haven) and northerly troll (NE, N NW) seemed to work best Ended up 4 for 7 wire diver out 110 - silver streak mini uv blue dolphin - miss high diver out 140 - white spin doctor green fly - 12 lb king wire diver out 130 - green paddle green fly - 13 lb king 250 copper - white spin doctor green fly - 9lb steel down rigger 50 down - white paddle green fly - miss 200 copper - white pro troll echip - bloody nose fly - miss 250 copper - white spin doctor green fly - 14lb king beautiful night on the water... I love it when the dipsys are hitting! marked a ton of fish and a ton of bait, but they were definatly not jumping in the boat.

Hello Fishermen, This year’s event is planned for the weekend of August 5-7 and we would love to have you put a team together and participate again this year. We are planning many new things for the 2011 tournament. 1. The weekend will start with a Women’s Tournament on Friday morning which raises money for Breast Cancer and the day concludes with a chicken dinner and the Pro/Am Captains Meeting. 2. On Saturday and Sunday, the Big Red Classic Pro/Am salmon tournament will take place. 3. To increase participation, the fish count being weighed in has been changed to catch 10 fish and weigh in your biggest 5 for each day. 4. If you qualify as an amateur (see rules at www.bigredclassic.com), and were to fish and win in the Pro Division a $1,000 bonus will be paid to that amateur team. 5. Pro Entry Fee’s have been reduced to $450.00 6. Prize money has been increased in the amateur division. 7. Free Pig Roast will be served on Saturday afternoon during the weigh-in. 8. Cash Prizes will be awarded for largest Salmon, Lake Trout, Steelhead and Brown Trout caught each day. The Big Red Classic supports the Boy’s and Girl’s Club of Greater Holland and your participation in this event increases the amount of money that is donated. If you want to have a great time with a very good chance of winning cash and prizes, while supporting great community causes, we invite you to participate at one of the best run tournament events on the lake. Check out the website for more details. The website again is www.bigredclassic.com. We hope to see all of you there. The Big Red Foundation Committee

Incredible steelhead! Nice job!!!

Nice work!

Little bit of a late report... we fished out of Metropark last weekend, Fri-Sun. Ended up fishing a mile north of the bell bouy or so in 20-23 fow all weekend. Friday we had 7, Saturday we had 16 and Sunday we had 13. All really nice fish too, I'd say 20-24 average. Kept the speed at around 1.3 and best baits were 2.5oz bottom bouncers right next to the boat with gold or chartruse #5 blades and green or chartruse beads. Did get 2 fish on spoons off the planer boards(probably would have had more but we were maybe a bit slow for the spoons). We would find a school and keep running back through them until we had nothing and then would just keep searching for another school. LOTS of mayfly husks and weeds out there. Sunday we ran out 35mph to our spot and it was dead flat. First pass we had 6 fish in 1 hour and in that same hour the lake kicked up to 3-5's (yuck!). Erie is the worst lake ever when its rough... just a terrible ride. Limped in at under 10mph for a long ride back. We dinked around in closer and picked up 7 more fish! ended up pretty good for the day for not being able to go where we wanted to.

Nice work! I love fishing over there... we are headed back June 17,18 and 19. Hoping for nice weather... last year we hammered them in June.

I tested it on an Iphone and Ipad2 last week and was having some issues. The Iphones and Ipads can't do flash so the website won't work unless you hack your phone with Frash or something similar. The stream is hosted on Ustream which does have an Iphone/Ipad app. I tried that last week and the current app is having a few issues but I think they should get it worked out soon. I think you might need to be on Wifi rather than 3g in order for it to work. You'll need to download the Ustream app and locate my stream with the username ekbelt or just search for 'Holland marine radio' on Ustream and it should come right up. I can pull it up on my original Droid just fine... its great! Early in the week seems to be pretty quiet. I heard a guy this morning who has 6 for 6 around 9am in 150fow. Tonight it sounded like a few guys were out there but it was pretty rough. Last week Thursday, Friday, and Saturday had chatter almost all day.

Nope, only channel 68.

I had the idea a few years ago to stream marine radio live on the Internet and I’ve finally got it up and running this year. I am fortunate to know the owner of Parkway Inn and he allowed me to install a radio and antenna on the roof as well as using his Internet connection to upload the live stream to the streaming server. The last week of testing has been great. It’s picking up all radio chatter on channel 68 from Grand Haven down to Saugatuck. Hopefully this will be a great fishing tool for all this year! Check it out: http://www.bigredclassic.com/radio.htm

I had the idea a few years ago to stream marine radio live on the Internet and I’ve finally got it up and running this year. I am fortunate to know the owner of Parkway Inn, on the south side of Lake Mac, and he allowed me to install a radio and antenna on the roof as well as using his Internet connection to upload the live stream to the streaming server. The last week of testing has been great. It’s picking up all radio chatter on channel 68 from Grand Haven down to Saugatuck. Hopefully this will be a great fishing tool for all this year! Check it out: http://www.bigredclassic.com/radio.htm

Nice work, thanks for the report!

I've had different thoughts on fluorocarbon leader lately. My perspective is fluorocarbon has 2 qualities: abrasion resistance and the refractive index is much closer to actual water than mono (IE its invisible). The leader material is MUCH more abrasion resistant than regular line. This works great in certain applications. It works great for fly leaders where the line might be in the fish's mouth and also I like to use it on crawler harnesses where the line is hitting rock bottom quite a bit. It will hold up MUCH better than regular mono. For copper/leadcore leaders, I personally don't think the leader material is necessary. If you are running a leader to the swivel and fishing in Lake Michigan (where you are never hitting structure) the abrasion resistance really isn't necessary. If you plan on running into the rigger wire on every fish you might have a benefit... but that doesn't happen too often. One disadvantage to the leader material is that is doesn't stretch much. And with copper and leadcore being quite stiff, the only give you have in the whole setup is the rod. I think the regular fluorocarbon, not leader material, is a better application for leadcore/copper leaders. It has a little stretch in it and is way cheaper. I've been using Triplefish flourocarbon in the filler spools. I think 200yds of 30lb is 20 bucks and 200yds of 20lb is a bit less. I still use the leader material (Triplefish leader material) for certain applications like fly leaders and dipsy leaders.