Reel World Fishing Team

Not sure if your still looking, but I've had good luck and better prices with a place called ultimate passage out of Ohio. Looked like the x-5 was 1181.00 there. I used the old style sport pilot and is did ok. If the new ones better you will probably be satisfied.

I'm not going to endorse any one company. No body is giving me anything or endorsing me so I am free to carry and use what works and I carry many brands. My three favorites however and the main companys I use are Yeck, Warrior and Dreamweaver. Each company seems to have it flavor of the week and if you have the same color from several different brands one may work better than the other. My greatest concern when I pick a spoon and really like it is if I will be able to get that spoon again in the future. Being we fish out of Ludington and Captain Chucks stocks the three main companys I use I usually have no problem. As far as picking a favorite-I'll fish a Yeck Fireball and Mag DW Tournament tip until they pry it from my dead hands. Half the time who cares as long as the hook is sharp, the temp and speed are right and your in the area the fish are. The guy I fish with have fished a long time and they are as good as I am at picking lures.

I had a 1986 23' Searay (230 Cuddy) and it was a great combination of a fishing boat and weekend sleeper. Great boat in any water, great balance and just overall put a smile on your face everytime you used it. If I could have justifed keeping it, I would have in a minute. They made this model from 1985 to 1989 and it had 23' and 25' lengths available. I have known several people who have owned these and usually they end up with a 270 Amberjack afterwords. I would look closely for one of these again.

In one of our to many tangle sessions this summer. I was running 5 boards per side in the dark. (Not again) Anyway I came out of it with an empty 47SH that perviously had a 5 color on it and a 60' piece of 45# copper after I had captain chucks re-spool my 200 and 300 coppers. I put the 60' on the 47 and it was one of my better rods last weekend for offshore steelhead. One issue I see is that the level wind guide on the 47's make it hard to get the copper knot through. I would think you could get 75' of copper on one of these reel's and have plenty of small diameter braid behind it.

Boltman. The idiot your likely talking about out of Ludington is called Slip Knot. It is an older blue and white 27 sportcraft and just about everyone on the lake has had trouble with him. Two weeks ago we were well outside the pack and had three fish on and one 740' back on the wire. He had followed me for some time and wouldn't get off our a$$. We were able to pull in the two coopertive fish and pull in the coppers he was coming up on, but unfortunatly he ended up running over our fish and we fought him for a while. It was good practice for me because I backed down to him just like you would any 27' 8000 pound fish. I tried to get as close as I could to get what line I could get back, but in the end we had to replace all the line, walker diver, spindoctor, snubber and fly thanks to this no good A hole. I could go on and on about this true retard on all the different stories I have heard about him since, but at the end of the day, if you see him on the water just go the other way.

I have read some good reports about JRC stuff in the past, but have never used any. I currently use a Raymarine A65 and love the unit's fishfinder but find the plotter not as good as the old Garmin 2006 plotter I have. One thing that is nice about the Ray stuff is that they read each other very well and are easy to interface several different units together.

We busted off the same rod at the reel two weeks ago that I purchased new this spring. I lost everything on that breakoff and it sounded like a gun being shot when it busted. I have run Okuma rods almost exclusively for many seasons. I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one and I plan be in touch with them about this soon. I replaced the rod with another BD Okuma and the new one even has a slightly different color thread on it. I'm glad Okuma is taking care of you on this and I hope they take care of me as well.

If it's not too bad to access/remove the sending unit, I would go that route first and see if the gauge is working properly. If your moving the sending unit up and down and the gauge is not moving up and down then something is likely wrong with the sending unit. I had to change out both on one of my boats in the past but the sending unit was the main culprit. It seems very common to have gas gauge problems on boats for some reason. My current boat has two tanks and the port tank will read just above half and the starboard tank will read below a half and they will both take the same amount of gas to fill up. It’s not a problem now that I have become used to it, but I was really concerned for a while that one motor was hogging gas more than the other when they were really closer than the gauge was telling me. One other thing, it may be a good idea to get a gasket making kit from the hardware store and cut some gaskets yourself while diagnosing the problem. I liked the ones I cut myself better than the “one†that came with the new sending unit last time I replaced one.

I again didn't get much of a chance to mess with this last weekend, but to explain my issue a little clearer. I can reset mine each time I drop it and bring it back up and something is causing the smaller wheel connected to the counter to move off center each time I send it down and bring it back up. Actually I think it is moving while it is coming up. I had it set right over the other wheel and it worked several times in a row and then it pushed the smaller off center after again. I can easily pin the counter in place and try that as well.

I just installed 1 cannon hi-speed on my boat last week and line counter seems to be about 20 feet off every time I put it down and bring it back up. I didn't have much time to look into this since we were very busy all last week. I just wondered if anyone has run across this problem and has a cure. If needed I'll send it back over the winter. This rigger is amazing compared to the old Mag-10's and I will upgrade the other 2 in the off season as well. One note if anyone is considering these riggers is that they really love lots of power. I first installed this rigger to a fuse panel that I used for riggers before and it quickley started blowing fuses. I then re-wired it straight to the battery with 8 gauge wire and a hi-capacity in line fuse. The shorter wire and bigger wire made all the differance in the the world and it sizzles. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

We're having a terrible year for loosing boards. I know I lost one early in the year and then two in one day and at least one or two more on top of that. They are all marked and could find there way home again. I lost one two years ago on a small king and another guy in our marina snagged it two weeks later in the same area. I even got the spoon back. I have gotten a couple other ones back over the years as well. One note on this. Ink will fade off boards and can easily be taken off with acetone. I etch my boards with an electric etcher and then darken in the markings with a marker.

That’s right a 28.2 pound king was brought in a weighed on certified scales at Captain Chucks on Sunday. I didn't hear what it was caught on; only that it was caught in 100 FOW off the bathhouse. Craig from Captain Chucks who's boat the Spoonfeeder personally weighed the fish and told me the news Sunday evening after the store closed. It was 41" long also. A summary of Ludington fishing the last week is that it has been tough. I was there from the 27th of June until last night and fished every day except last Monday and yesterday. Our best trip was Tuesday night when we boated 9 but most trips were 3 to 6 mostly small fish all week (we're averaging over 10 per trip this year until last week). The good north winds early in the week didn't have the expected effect of bringing in large numbers of big fish but some are showing up. There were areas that boats brought in better boxes of fish throughout the week but these boats would have been better off leaving from Pentwater or Manistee to get where they were fishing. I expect to see fishing get better in the coming weeks; I'll be back up in Ludville from the 10th through the 20th so I hope it does.

You guys did a great job. It seemed to be feast or famine in Ludington the last couple weekends. As you said, the boats that went north had the better boxes and bigger fish. I have been fishing south the last two weekends and even though we have been taking double digit fish each trip, the size is getting smaller and the fishing is getting tougher. Last weekend I threw back a dozen shakers and 5 lake trout and we didn’t have king over 8 pounds.

Take a close look at the Traxstech trees. (Yes I'm Biased) but the main advantage that have is the functionality of the holders on the tree. The holders are adjustable and so is the tree so you can us all the holders for boards or us the lower holder for a dipsy and the rest for boards and you can tilt the holders up and turn in the tree for rod storage at the dock or while running. They are great. Also you can mount a 48" track down the side and add more holders and move the tree where it is most functional.

I recall reading that the true night owls don't like the first several hours or darkness because they say the fish need a few hours to adjust to the darkness and don't bite as well until later. They report they leave between midnight and 2 or 3 in the morning to do their night trolling. I have noticed this too, that the fish do seem to shut down when it is truly dark, and it seems no mater how early we start they are on the go if there going to go that morning. We used to start fishing between 4:00 and 4:30 am everyday. Now I set my alarm around 5:15 and leave when the coffee is flowing thru the system. I'm now not a big fan of the evening troll unless the weather has kept me off the water in the morning or the forecast is crappy for the next day, then we will go out. It also depends on the crew I have.