St Joe 7-8

[tgafish]

Fished the St.Joe tourney with Smoke73 and my second cousin on Sat. Ran out to where we had caught fish on Friday night. Oh yeah, went out Friday night from 6:30 to 9:30 and went 3-10. I was farming big time!!!

ANyway Sat ran out to 80 fow 2 miles south of the piers and set down lines. First fish wasn't until around 7:30 being our big king for the day on a 5 color glow frog. trolled around a bit and then came by that point in 101 fow and picked up another. So we worked that point for the rest of the morning picking away at them. Saw a few boats pass through there and catch fish but none worked it as hard as we did. 2.4-2.5 at the ball was ourt speed. thermocline was between 30-40 down.

13lb king 5 color glow frog

7lb steelie full core ghost J plug

6 lb king on NBK 45 down

5lb king on white spinny green squid 90 out on three fire dipsey

3 kings right in a row on standard Jamican sunrise down 91

1 19inch laker was attached to the sunrise also as we were pulling lines

Had 2 break offs One on a dipsey spinny and fly and one on the core. The core was a nice steelie on a j plug. Throw those J's out for the steel. Worked for us

Thanks to smoke for being a good crew man. Even when things were slow he was on the job when one of the rods would pop! quick son of a gun My other crewman did his best but was feeling under the weather for a good part of the morning. Never wanted to go in though.

Also want to put out thanks to Connie, shekris, and Steve for hospitality and yummy food. You all are awesome people!!!!

[Midway97]

Nice Job Tom,

We also made an attempt to fish the 8th. We set down in 70 fow straight out from the piers and trolled south. Had a nice rip on a mono highline with a orange/chartreuse body bait, lost that one when the board dove on us, and had a hammer on the wire dipsey with cut, 125 back on 2 over all we went 0-2 on chrome... thanks god for the perch, at least they saved the skunk.

Thanks to Steve and Nick for sticking it out and not making me walk the plank My luck/skills just haven't worked for me this season... hopefully things will turn around soon.

Also wish to thank Connie and She Kris for putting on a great spread and Steve for some great deep fried perch and salmon. HOSPITALITY, AS ALWAYS WAS ABOVE AND BEYOND.

[GLF]

Nice job Tom! Who has the tourney results??? Are they in the camper with the Lake Erie results

[Steve Arend]

Nice job Tom! Who has the tourney results??? Are they in the camper with the Lake Erie results

Funny, Funny!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But the results, this time were tossed in the fire before I could douple check them and I know there must have been some errors because Tommy end up with more points then me.

I have not had time to post it up yet but the order went:

First - SalmonSlayer/DonP/2 friends weighing 5 fish + perch

Second - Creek-Chub/Live2fish/Creek-Chub's Dad weighing 5 fish + perch

Third - tgafish/Smoke73/Cousin weighing 4 fish + No perch

fourth - Steve Arend/Horseshoe weighing 3 fish + perch

Fifth - Midway/Huntingfool/Pualywood weighing 0 fish + perch.

Big fish was a 19lb 6oz king caught off my boat on full core with a Magnum Monkey Puke Red Glow

For us we took 2 hits on the riggers and lost both and 5 hits on full core. End up 3 for 7 with our hot rig been full core with a Moonshine Magnum Flounder Pounder.

[tgafish]

Yeah I heard your discussion with He Chris. Somehow you figured adding 10 points to both of our scores would somehow bring yours above mine, again proving why you should never handle the addition at these events:D

[tgafish]

Yeah Wayne I had one of those days last year at Manistee, just couldn't find em no matter what. Ended up they were 4 miles South of where I was. I was real happy we found that mark cause we couldn't pick up anything outside of it. Trolled from 70-112fow and hooked 7 out of 8 of our fish in exactly 101 fow within 1/2 mile of that spot. It was a small elbow in the bottom that was about 3 feet deeper than the area around it North and South. Found something similar in the spring around the A frames. It was a good sized hump and caught all our fish around it. Seems the fish congregate on those more than they do in other ports I've fished. I know GH has some wacky bottom south of the heads but I've never done better by that than any other area.

[Steve Arend]

Yeah I heard your discussion with He Chris. Somehow you figured adding 10 points to both of our scores would somehow bring yours above mine, again proving why you should never handle the addition at these events:D

The additional 10 points plus the 20lbs of perch that I caught.

[huntingfool43]

Another great day on the water. Nice meeting ya Nick and any time you need a ride just let me know. I think tossing Wayne over the side came up when we found out he read the GPS wrong but hay I got a nice nap and we finally did catch some perch. Still would like to know who the morons were on the jet skis and the big boat that stirred things up and sent waves right into the back of our boat, hadden't planed on a bath. Good thin the bilge pump works. LOL

[Live2fishdjs]

As usual a great time was had by all and a wonderful spread (as usual) put on by the gals (Connie and SheKris). Too bad turnout wasn't a bit better, but summertime is busy for everyone. Thanks for opening up the lodge Steve and Connie for all of us to enjoy.

Now onto the fishing part...I like to think of this tourney as two seperate divisions-with and without "Stupid Perch". I vote for the St. Joe events to be silver only from now on...take it from me and the boat I was on-losing by 3#'s sucks when that 3#'s consits of PERCH:mad: Anyone can go out and catch bait-right Don and Ben.

We had good luck on the "Homewrecker" south all the way to the Cook Plant in 60-80' and our best action by far was the early bite. Core and riggers took the bulk of our fish-only had one rip on a dipsy. Moonshines early did damage then went to the usual suspects after sun-up.

We ended up w/ 4 kings, 2 steelhead, and a coho along with about 20 perch that would have made great tip-up bait, but fryed up just fine thank-you:D

It was a real nice day on the water and first place in the non-perch division is very satisfying.

One final note...STUPID PERCH!!!

[GLF]

It was a small elbow in the bottom that was about 3 feet deeper than the area around it North and South. Found something similar in the spring around the A frames. It was a good sized hump and caught all our fish around it. Seems the fish congregate on those more than they do in other ports I've fished.

Was there bait fish relating to the structure? Why did this "spot" hold all of the fish? Would it be safe to say that kings relate to structure?

[Paulywood]

Don't worry about it Wayne, I accomplished almost everything I wanted to on saturday. I had never fished St. Joe before but now I know where the launch is and how to get out to the lake. Now I'm confident that when I see reports of fish being hammered in St. Joe I can hop in the truck, head down and not catch fish on my own. I don't need help for that. One thing that I learned is I will keep setting my planer boards to release. Then I'll have to think of new, more creative ways to let fish off. Thanks for letting me tag along. How did you do the rest of the weekend? Thanks for the ride Steve, I'm glad to have made it home awake.

I'd like to add that I was glad for the perch addition, at least we got to catch some fish.

[Midway97]

Don't worry about it Wayne, I accomplished almost everything I wanted to on saturday. I had never fished St. Joe before but now I know where the launch is and how to get out to the lake. Now I'm confident that when I see reports of fish being hammered in St. Joe I can hop in the truck, head down and not catch fish on my own. I don't need help for that. One thing that I learned is I will keep setting my planer boards to release. Then I'll have to think of new, more creative ways to let fish off. Thanks for letting me tag along. How did you do the rest of the weekend? Thanks for the ride Steve, I'm glad to have made it home awake.

I'd like to add that I was glad for the perch addition, at least we got to catch some fish.

Nick,

Steve and I tried to get out Sunday am but we turned it around at the pier heads with all of 4 footers coming at us, so we went and had breakfast instead.

Only problem with boards that release, your having to adjust them with different water conditions and speeds, After you have to reel in fullcores repeatedly cause of premature releases, you may rethink the releases. I'm kinda against that reel em in just to put them back out, I learning to keep the rod tip down when bringing in the boards, helps keep them from diving.

[Paulywood]

Yeah, we had one day of reeling and resettting, then we started tying them off with rubber bands so if they release they don't slide down the line. Then you only have to reel in to the board, reset, and let them back out. It's a lot better than reeling in a full core.

[too deep]

GLF- If you have ever fished the bank in Ludington you would think that they like structure.

[GLF]

GLF- If you have ever fished the bank in Ludington you would think that they like structure.

I have fished the bank before

[SalmonSlayer]

Now onto the fishing part...I like to think of this tourney as two seperate divisions-with and without "Stupid Perch". I vote for the St. Joe events to be silver only from now on...take it from me and the boat I was on-losing by 3#'s sucks when that 3#'s consits of PERCH:mad: Anyone can go out and catch bait-right Don and Ben.

Sure! if you call 13" perch that weigh 13 oz "bait"!!!

I had the pleasure of having DonP and 2 newbies (Mike from my work and his Grandson Michael) fishing with me this week. We broke the pierheads and headed south for a couple miles. Don drove while I set lines. Got 1 in...got 2 in....FISH ON!!!! Michael landed a dandy steelhead that was definately going to make our weighin cut. I attempted to get the rest of the lines set and had just 2 cores to get in when another rod starts jumping off a rigger. This fish never stopped running and we never gained line on him. About 200 yds of line out and he just let go. BUMMER Reset the rigger and finished setting all the rods. We trolled for an hour or so without as much as a tap. Don's phone kept us busy though, and one of them callers was our good buddy Live2FishDjs...Darrin informed us of some action further south. SO after another 1/2 hour of the big NOTHING! we pulled lines and ran south. Never say them down that way but we set up lines and within 5 mins of getting all the lines in the water had one on. Within 1/2 hour we boated 2 more. Worked this area until about 11 o clock or so. I lost a HUGE steelie right at the net that would have pushed my personal steelhead record...but it lives to grow bigger! We quit big fish fishing with 7 fish - 3 coho, 3 kings and 1 steelhead...I think. ( My memory is a bit fuzzy about the day with all the house construction going on at home. But hey! my roof is shingled and safe from the weather! ) So then we headed straight toward shore to find a small group of 5 boats perch fishin...since we fished so late for big fish, we decided to not make the run back to the HUGE perch pack near the pierheads. Great move, eh Don?! We boxed 68 perch in a matter of a little over 1 hour. Our biggest was near 13" and weighed 12 or 13 ounces. We had a nice mess of perch and our 35 perch limit weight in at over 8 lbs...which combined with our 5 fish limit of big fish pushed us by Darrin and crew into a 1st place finish!

GOTTA LOVE THESE COMBO FISH EVENTS!!!!! Right Darrin! I think DonP got another new nickname out of the event too from Darrin...see Don's signature!

[Live2fishdjs]

GRRR...perch fags.