Holland 8/26, 8/27 Report

[Eyefull]

Had a great trip over to Holland this weekend. Buddy Mark Kraak (Just Hookin) invited me over to fish the Gold Coast tourny with him and his father. I brought along good friend Tom Beirlein to fill up the crew. Friday we got out around 5:30pm and set lines in 80fow heading south. We got our whole 9 rod spread set up without incident. Finally about an hour into the troll, things just went nuts. We had singles, doubles, and ended with a triple. We were 11 for 15 or so. There was still at least an hour or so of daylight left, but we couldn't get the cooler shut anymore, and wanted to get a good nights sleep. Blood Run wire divers pulling Mt. Dew flashers/flys, Blood Run Coppers with the same did most of the damage. We did get a few spoon bites on SS Lemon Ice. A couple fish came on plugs also. It seemed like the fish had little or no preferrence, all rods got bit.

Saturday we were signed up to fish the Gold Coast tournament. We got to the channel at around 5:45 and setup for check in as we were the weather and check in boat. Promptly at 6:30 we shot out to our previous evenings stomping grounds. We had two riggers set. I was letting out the Blood Run 400 and the rigger right under my hand went. A nice 15lb king went in the box. Shortly after another fell victim to the plug off the other rigger. We thought we had it going on. Then it just slowed down and quit on us. At around 10:30 after throwing everything in the boat at them, we were sitting on 5 fish. We decided to drag bottom and finish our tourny box of 9 fish with lakers. It paid off and we put two nice lakers in coming off wire divers with trashcan dodgers and green spin n glows. We ended up with 7 fish at noon, having lost at least 5 or 6 kings. The weigh in was very impressive. The first place boat had a 9 fish box weighing 146lbs!!! The second place boat was only a couple pounds off that. As a matter of fact, the top ten boats all had serious boxes. Never saw that many over 20# fish in one spot, it was crazy and says alot about the DNR and their management of the kings and plants. Over and above the great king fishery, we caught 4 cohos, a couple over ten pounds, and a nice fat porky Brown Trout. Awesome mixed bag.

That was our Fridays box, if we had repeated that effort, we would have been right in the thick of things. Things changed and we didn't pick up on it. Thats fishing. Our captain and host was awesome all weekend, Tom and I had a great time. Thanks for inviting us. If things go right, I will be taking the Eyefull over there in two weeks to see if she can get in on some of that action.

[DIRTY DOG]

Great job guys.l

[EdB]

Nice catch!

[Reel Screwd]

Good Job out there:thumb:

[Just Hook'n]

It was awesome having you guys join us for the weekend. GREAT job by the crew. what Tony didn't say - because he is a nice guys - is that ALL the lost fish were either Me or my dad. Tony and Tom didn't loose a fish all weekend I don't think. They did great and I stunk it up big time. BUT, we still had a riot. Oh, and the winning cooler on Sat was 166 pounds with 9 fish. It was CRAZY.

[fishsniffer]

very nice guys:thumb:

[Eyefull]

Luck of the draw on the fish. Laughed myself silly when someone pulled a braveheart:lol::lol:

[Just Hook'n]

Oh yeah, forgot about that.

I LOVE sailboats. hehehhe.