Anyone doing the Gander Mtn. in Ludington?

[SalmonSeeker]

How many out there are planning on doing the Gander Mountain Tourney in Ludington, July 22-23:confused: The GM tourney is a pro-am tournament with a pro division, an amatuer division and a big fish division. I have been entering the amatuer division but have never placed above 20th place (out of 230 boats last year). This year I'm planning on entering only the Big Fish, its pretty tough to compete with the "Amatuer" boats that fish 10-20 big tournaments per year, and prefish for a week before the tournament. How do they get the time:cool:

SalmonSeeker - Ludington

[GLF]

There are two types of tournament fisherman.

Those that show up to fish, and those that show up to collect a pay check.

I always liked collecting pay checks, so I put my time in on the water.

To do well in a tourney you must put in your time. When I was Bass fishing, I was prefishing 2-3 days prior to every tournament.

Next year I will get into some of these major tournaments.

[spoonfed]

we are moving the boat to ludington 2 weeks before the tourny to start our fishing. We also fish the Muskegon tournament a week prior to the Ludington one.

[GLF]

Maybe a few of our members would like to help each other out for the tournament. I am not saying to post it on the site, but maybe get in contact with other members and exchange phone numbers or pm's to share information.

If I was fishing in the tourney, I would be willing to "share" prefishing information on what is working with "friends".

[ratcityhooker]

we are moving the boat to ludington 2 weeks before the tourny to start our fishing. We also fish the Muskegon tournament a week prior to the Ludington one.

Like I told you at Erie last week if you run short on a crew for Ludville let me know.

Larry

[spoonfed]

sounds good larry. Also we have a few charter captains that we talk with prior to the tournament. Any information is good info. I dont mind helping somebody, to try and beat the big boys!!

[fishin'magician']

:Polecat: Team Heckler will be there to donate as always:eek: . The Gander draws an amazing feild of fishermen. Ludington is my home port and I have only been able to cash 1 check there do to the field of amazing anglers that show up for this event. See you there if you are fishing the tourney let me know I will always try to help out others.

[woody]

results to todays fishing in ludington

[GLF]

Anyone know who won the tourney on the Pro and Am sides?

[J J Mac]

This year the tournament featured 75 Pro division boats and 172 Amateur boats for a grand total of 247 boats. We (JJ MAC) finished a respectable 25th in the Pro category. My two sons (John who fishes out of Charlevoix & Captain Jim - aka fin-addict who fishes Green Bay out of Cedar River, Mi) fished with me. This is the 5th year we have fished the Ludington tournament but always before we fished the amateur division.

In the pro divsion you can weigh-in 12 fish per day but no more than 9 salmon. It is strictly "no cull" which means once a fish is boated it goes in the cooler and there is an observer on every boat. The only fish released are undersized or if you are over the limit on that particular species. Scoring is 10 pts per fish and 1 pt per pound.

Day one we boated 8 kings and one laker in the first 1.5 hours. The only problem was our kings were running an average of about 7-8 pounds (good for eating but not a tourny). We would up with 9 kings, 2 steelies, and one laker. The moonshine lures were really hot in the following colors: Happy Meal, Cyclonite, Blue Jackel, and Mongolian Beef. We could barely keep them in the water. After day one we were in 29th place.

Day two we decided to go for broke and run to a new place we didn't even prefish. Started out decent by catching some kings and a couple steelies right away. Our fish were running bigger on day two and things were looking pretty good for us. Then we lost about 6 or 7 fish in a row - lost 9 total. It was frustrating. We got on some more fish between 8:30 and 11 and they were running bigger. Unfortunately the bite died and we never got our last fish....which kills you when they are worth 10 pts plus the weight. We weighed in 8 kings and 3 steelies to wind up in 25th place for the two day event. On day two, the best lures were fish catcher/fly and spin doctor/fly combos.

We are looking forward to next year. It is a blast!

You can see the final results at http://www.ludingtontournament.com/.