cliftp

A friend is out now, or at least was at around 12:30 PM. He went out in the 2's looking with his Speed/temp at the ball. I think he said he needed to go down in the 120's to get 65 degree water. At any rate, really deep. Oh, and this guy is pretty good at catching fish. As of 12:30 PM, one release. Fish only stayed on a short time. I'm thinking the buoy is probably correct.

If you go, good luck!

Paul C.

I have the Gander version and have been very happy with them. Got mine at an end of year sale a few years back. At the time much less expensive than the cabelas version.

Like a few others have said, buy big so you can layer for cold weather. I actually use mine for snow skiing as well. My wife hates that, but she figures it is better than me making good on my threat to wear the blaze orange camo. I am too cheap to buy a ski jacket when there are many more lures to buy.....

Made me smile this morning. Thanks!

Paul C.

Here is a link to a video done by Lance Valentine with his fish bleeding technique. Its the one I use and it works great on salmon too.

Paul C.

Mattawan, MI

I currently have Guidewear from Cabela's and am happy with it. Lance Valentine just posted a message today saying he had a new line of rain gear he is selling in his store that sounds pretty good. Might be worth checking out. Lance is a great guy too! His web site is: www.walleye101.com Here is the link to a video on what Lance is selling in his store.

Happy Shopping!

Paul C.

Had a chance to get out late morning today, getting on the water at around 10:30 AM. Had one boat coming in when we launched and he said he went out to the 160's and never marked any fish. Encouraging.

We went west to the 160's and took some temperature readings using one of the Vexilar thermometers. Water was still 61 at 100 feet down. Looked all around and found lots of marks in the 140's. Went as far out as 190. Completely baron of any fish out there. We finally started working the 140's trying to find a good direction and finally picked up a 10.2 pound King on a east troll. She came 100 down on a sliver/red J-plug. Have no idea why we could not get anything going tried lots of different spoon combos, flasher/flies some different plugs, dipsy's, copper, the works. Clueless. The one King we got was a female full of alewives.

The lake was gorgeous! The fisherman, not very good.

Paul C.

Mattawan, MI

Got to make two trips to St. Joe on Thursday and Friday. Friday was really uncomfortable fishing with my boat in NOAA's one footers. Had to be some 3's out in the 130's. Anyway. Ended up 3 for 4, two coho's and one steelhead. Everything on spoons. All three on the downrigger. Dipsey, copper and the rest all nothing. Did flasher flies, and tried some plugs. Best water was in the 100's.

Friday, the lake was beautiful but we were only two for two. One Coho and one Steelhead. I was in Rick's boat and a standing joke is catching something on a squid looking fly. Put it on the downrigger with some cowbells in front. It worked, nice steelhead. Coho came on a spoon. Forgot the color. Getting old. Can't wait for the fish to wander back into the St. Joe area!

Beautiful sunrise picture.

Rick's nice steelhead.

Paul C.

Mattawan, MI

I will use this a lot. Thank you!

Paul C.

I have fished with Ron Levitan a couple times. He is great. His web site is:

http://www.passintime.com/

Not sure on the alcohol on the boat though. However, GREAT FISHERMAN if you could forgo the beverages. Maybe not a problem though. He will find you fish and does do the trolling bite. I think that time of year he may be at Huron, OH, but may still be at Toledo Beach. (I think).

Great boat too!

Paul C.

Really appreciate your reports. Lets me know I still have "learnin" to do.

Thanks.

Paul C.

My wife and I went back to St. Joe today looking for perch. Went north by the clay banks and hunted for awhile with no success. Took a ride out to 60 feet, still north of the piers and caught one measuring 9 inches. Went into the pack, still north and didn't get touched. Didn't see anyone else either, so went in front of the water treatment plant and got 6 more that looked like keepers, but got pretty small when cleaning them. Hope the big ones come back.

Paul C.

Very nice video. Great job on the editing. Thank you for sharing.

Paul C.

PS....we've had the chaos on my boat this year. Wouldn't have a clue how to video like you guys are doing.

Juls from the Walleye Central web site tried this stuff and said it worked great.

http://www.smartpakequine.com/ultrashield-green-fly-repellent-8445p.aspx?cm_vc=Search

I bought some at the local Tractor Supply Store and my fishing partner was getting bitten on Friday, he tried it and they quit bothering him. We have not had bad flies yet since I found this stuff, but, If Juls says it works I bet its good.

Paul C.

Went to St. Joe today to try and get some perch. Stopped at Tackle Haven for minnows and he said it had been great earlier in front of the Chalets. Lake was so nice we took the run down there, lots of boats, nice selection of gobies and some really small perch.

Worked our way back trying all kinds of different places, even went out to 60 feet of water looking with no success. Finally got in with the pack of boats in front of the water treatment plant and commenced to catching lots of 4 and 5 inchers. Only kept three, which we released.

I've read humility is good for the soul.

Good luck.

Paul C.

Sure is going to be nice when your done. Just wondering if one of the "coolers" could be something built with a tank and then a livewell type system from these guys: http://www.keepfishalive.com/index.php

Sure is fun helping others spend their money. Oh, and I have not seen a cooler, other then maybe the Yeti styles that would make good seats. I'm sure they are out there though. Great idea for the seating.

Paul C.

Mattawan, MI

I talked to a lady at Big Jon also, forgot her name. She told me the 12 pounders are OK for mine. I've used them quite a bit and they seem fine. Now if I could just figure out how to put on the auto stops!

Paul C.

Mattawan, MI

Saturday was a perfect example of a day to bring a non-believer out to see the crazy currents. Flat as can be on the lake so no wind/waves to contend with. to keep 1.8 mph on my depth raider, my GPS was running 3.1 knots to the north and 1.6 knots to the south.

I can see how it would be difficult to really understand but if you can take him out on a day like that, he could physically see how it makes a difference.

Thank you Captain Josh. More stuff to send him. The apples and oranges comparison between in the water and on the ground makes so much sense now thanks to all of the replies. If the boat is going 2.5 MPH the ball would be too, if not stuck in the water. (above water, apples; below water, oranges). At least that is how I'm thinking of it now. Thanks everyone.

Paul C.

Mattawan, MI

Got to go yesterday out of St. Joe. Tried north and couldn't find much so went south in front of the Bluffs apartments. Kept watching the storm coming and while watching finally started getting some perch.

Don't want you all to think boys are dumb, but they were biting pretty good just before we left, we may have waited a bit long though. This was the picture of the trip in.

And finally here is a picture of my two biggest perch ever. Thirteen inches and change.

I think we should have left earlier. Tried some new perch rigs again with beads vs fly type stuff. Really seemed to work well once the fish were found.

Happy fishing.

Paul C.

PS...note to self, leave earlier next time!

Thanks Nailer

Enjoyed it, nice job. Thought I was watching the Linder's with the underwater shot......

Paul C.

Ok, have to learn how to do that. It has not been a problem in the past though.

Thanks Mike.

Paul C.

Hi Mike

Tried to upload some pictures but get this message. Not sure if its me, or the site. Same way I've done pictures before though. Have a great weekend.

Paul C.

http://www.greatlakesfisherman.com/gallery/upload.php?&c= 50.36.86.60 /gallery/upload.php 500 Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/536.5 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/19.0.1084.56 Safari/536.5 www.greatlakesfisherman.com

Hi Salmonslammer

We were north with you for awhile yesterday and really hunted with limited success. We even went out pretty deep. (60 ish). Caught my first St. Joe Gobies. I really disliked South Haven because of so many of them. Guess they are moving south.

Anyway, we did go south as far as the Bluffs Apartments and finally found some nice fish. I caught two, measured 13 inchers just before the storm sent us to port. We ended up only keeping 18 for 3 of us.

Pretty fast moving storm when it finally got to us.

Paul C.

Thanks for all the good info. Sending it off to him now!

Paul C.

Thank you all. Twill, that was a lot of work, makes perfect sense to me. I'm going to wait until tomorrow and then send him the whole thread.

Perching was terrible today out of St. Joe. Wind, wind, and more wind. Finally got the anchor to hold, but no fish where we ended up. Tried to move, the anchor was absolutely buried into something, rocks, boulders, a tree, don't know, tried pulling the opposite direction and everything, (had approx 120 feet out in 30 feet of water). Finally ended up cutting approx 30 feet of rope and the anchor off. Nice digger style anchor if anyone finds it, a little south of the piers.

Thanks again for all of your help on the question everyone.

Paul C.

Ok, for all of you Lake Michigan guru's out there.........question of the day. A friend who does a lot of Saginaw Bay and Lake Erie Walleye fishing and I had a discussion yesterday about the Lake Michigan currents. Went something like this....I told him my next big purchase was going to be a Fishhawk, and he asked why. Told him about the crazy currents and while fishing with Rick in his boat who has an old Cannon Speed/Temp, sometimes there is sometimes .4 or .5 tenths difference in speed at the ball. So, my friend brings out this point, If you go on a mile long troll for example, and your speed is 2.5 MPH, isn't your downrigger ball going to be at the same place as when you started, didn't the ball have to go 2.5 MPH too?

Talked about river currents and the difference in speed bottom to top, in the Detroit River for example and he said the same thing. Told him about Dan Keatings book, where he talks about the lake currents, same thing, his mind is made up, but does anyone have a logical explanation for a guy who fishes the shallower water.

Headed out perching this morning. Life is good.

Paul C.