Line Dancin

i HATE fishing a port for fun when a tourney is going on. We almost got ran over two years ago off holland when they took off. there was no consideration by a couple pro boats for guys that were out there fishing already. i may try and make a couple of the local outings depending on work.

They are doing thier open house and sale saturday march 6th. they have some great deals on equipment at this sale. they also do a free lunch.

thanks Aaron,

I mostly fish out of PS, I work in Hudsonville so alot of times I just bring the boat to work and leave from there.

ok i fish out of ps all the time. just give me a holler when your out there.

Well I think I might just hold out for one more season.

went without one last summer (1st year) about a dozen trips out I was able to haul in 60+ fish and only had one skunk.

we did watch the wire on the riggers and the bend in our divers.

if this works again, I'll stick to the old school. I already have two FF on board so that should help.

I see your from dorr what port do you most fish? holland or port sheldon? is so give me a holler on the radio i would be more than willing to help. i just put a subtroll on last year and love it. dad had a fish hawk that was a pita.

Hey Nailer, Check this link out. This guy is the ultimate "guru" when it comes to Meat Fishing and there is a TON of great info on his site.!

http://www.michigansportsman.com/Tips_n_Trix/Cut_Bait.htm

I use Whole Herring prepared similar to the way described in the link. The side of the herring with the tail left on outproduces the other side 5-1.

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I used the same site to learn more about meat and when i have run it i find the same thing tail on is the best piece to use

Thanks John. But where do you get the Herring from?

Outdoorsman in Jenison has whole herring or strips. they are reasonable on it.

The differences in the two are wire is used for dipsie and copper is not. Copper is used the same way as lead core to target a certain depth. the reason people are going to copper is that the sink rate is about double to lead core. So what this means is that instead of having to use 300 ft of 27 lb lead core to reach 40 ft 150 of copper will do the same thing. Some of the pros also claim it gives off a harmonic vibration like wire or the cable on your downriggers give off that the fish feel. i have switched almost primarily to copper and seem to be producing more fish than with the lead core. I also run two dipsies all the time and if the dipsies are really firing than i may drop in two more for a total of four in the water. if you are looking at something to run dipsies i wouldn't reccommend copper for the job.

Welcome aboard. My dad is with the Detroit area steelheaders. when i was on that side of the state i never missed a meeting with him, and know most of the old guys with the club.

Yes great lakes, inland lakes, quarrys. If there is a puddle i am in it, and if i am not salmon fishing i have a tank on my back.

me underwater :

see more of my pics here:

http://www.greatlakesfisherman.com/forums/showthread.php?p=57400#post57400

sorry it took so long. had a ton of pics to go through to chooses my personal best.

Here are more pics for your enjoyment. i can only upload 100 mg a month to my free account so i have four folders set up to upload. Even here after using the cam for quite a while there are different things that come into play that you dont have with taking pics on land. you have bouyancy to contend with surge tides other divers that kick up the bottom. new fins that float up a little so when trying to be perfectly still you are still moving up by your feet. When you shoot underwater the trick is to time your breathing bouyancy surge and tidal movements all at the same time to get that one pic. sometimes it takes 8 or 9 shots to get it. My cam has 12gig in cards on board so i can junk the mishaps at the end of the dive.

Enjoy:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/scubaaaronh/sets/72157623319982211/show/with/4361624328/

i have retied all my coppers and cores. refilled my reels with new mono put away cleaned and organized the tackle boxes TWICE, made a shopping list of new spoons i need and edited it, and been inside the boat twice in the last two weeks under the canvas. Nope no itch yet. this has been a very long winter.

I have always fished boats with four or more riggers. My dads boat had four mine has four. If i had the width you have i would have five across the back. My dads buddy who ran a 27 cherokee had five plus all the other stuff out the side. You have to be a little more careful bringing in fish but you will still have plenty of room. When the rigger bite is on it is the best way to kill fish having more riggers. than if you want you can only run three if need be. we used to only run three on his boat and remove two for tourneys. If it was my boat five across the back.

ludington tourney two years ago fishing on my friends boat. we followed the pro boats up to manistee 400 foot water. couldn't figure out their secrect so we went deep. all he had was about 100 ft cable on each rigger. we ended up running a 150 copper and a 300 copper and we started to produce fish. he was to cheap to buy new cable for the downriggers so that was the way we put fish in the boat. also adding a couple 1 pound balls to each 450 copper to get them deep enough. that was the only time i have ever had to do something that stupid to catch fish.

Wow those are some great pic.

My wife and I are going to cancun in about a month ,I hope i can talk her in to trying snorkaling just to see something like that.

Thanks for shareing.

There are some inexpensive cameras that do really well for snorkling they are waterproof to like 10 ft. here is som olys that are available:

http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/cpg_digital.asp?section=stylustough

talk her into it it is worth it. sit her donw and run my slide show for her maybe that will help. have fun there and be carful.

Thank you very much. the scorpion fish i actually almost knelt on trying to get a pic of a free swimming moray. when i get a chance i am going to get more uploaded i have been a ltiile busy today. you know it is never to late to come back to diving or snorkling. i have had to take a short break with have our little one but hopefully next winter we will be diving eith nassau bahamas or cozumel mexico so more new pics coming up again and hopefully on a new camera. As far as snorkling on cancun make it a point to go. if you go over to www.scubaboard.com go to the mexico area and do a little reading you can find some really good ops to take you.

sorry for the hijak of this thread by the way.

Ok while sitting here at work, working real hard i remembered i had a yahoo photo account. I had to update it to flikr. Now these pics on my flikr account are for about 6-7 years ago and uploaded 3 years ago and when i was first learning how to use my first underwater digital camera underwater. Now some of the pics arent great but i only had the camera for a couple months before we went and had never used it underwater. I just practiced in all light conditions inside and outside practicing the manual settings. I was using all manual settings, setting the white balance for depth correction (cause as we all know the deeper an object the more color loss) and messing a little with the flash. these pics were taken from 35 ft down to 93 foot down at the sand plateau before the drop to 900 feet. enjoy and i will post some later form our last trip.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/scubaaaronh/sets/72157603011641392/show/with/1921207822/

sure i have to work all day today, but either late tonight or tomorrow i will upload some pics from my last trip to the south carribean island of Bonaire.

I use olypmus camera. I have a c5060 my wife a sp-350. we use them mostly for scuba in housings. What i have learned is if the company designs that camera for underwater use, they typically have a larger ccd processor in the camera, whether it is point and shoot or dslr. The bigger processor makes a huge difference in your pics where there is odd lighting. thats why the cameras for scuba typically have the better processors. I went with my olys because they had the best reputation when i was getting into underwater photography. Now nikon is producing cameras of equal caliber. I say if it has a scuba housing even if it is a 5 meg camera it will take a near dslr quality pics above water. the one problem is dslr is so much faster. no lag time. with the refresh rate on dslr you can practically take pics as quick as you can push the botton, It also depends on the person taking the pic and how much control your camera lets you have over the settings, and how much you know how to set the camera up right for the pic. underwater cameras let you have complete control of all settings light metering speed white balancing etc etc.. so you dont have to buy a dslr to take great magazine quailty shots.

edit:

My next camera when this one floods (its not if it will it when it will) will be a olympus e-520

another thing that i hear alot about copper is that it gives off harmonic vibrations like downrigger cable that attract the fish. That is why they claim copper out produces lead. Dont know if it is true but it does produce more fish.

Lead core the sheathing can rot over time and you lose strength in the line. I saw this after four years on my friends boat. you tried to tie the lead core knot and the nylon broke every time you tried to cinch it down.

I run almost all copper now. the only lead i have on my boat is a two and three color.

i have 8 coppers 4 300' , 2 150' , and 2 75'. i havent looked back since i did switch out. the problem most people have with copper is letting it out. a couple tricks to help adjust the spool tension to the point that it goes out very slowly at first. as more line gets into the water the faster it will pull out but not over run itself. Put the tip of the rod into the water straight out the back of the boat this also helps to pull the copper out at a managable speed. and lastley never , never take your thumb off the spool cause you never know what can happen and can cause an over run.

Practice with lead core and get profficient with it then start replacing some of it with copper. If you set up a convector 45 with lead (full core) to start out. you can very easily fit a 150 copper on it with 300 yds of 50lb power pro backing. A 30 convector will hold a half core and 75 ft of copper(all 45 pnd tst copper). when you are ready to switch out. make sure when you do purchase convectors thay have the new wide mouth line guide. If they don't have them they are about 5 bucks apiece through okuma and fifteen minutes to install.

another nice thing about copper if it does get tangled you can untwist it and use it again did a 300 last year when the driver decided not to pay attention and do a 90 degree turn. lead when it balls up you may as well throw it away. if you want to go out and mess around with it let me know i'd be willing to take you out and show you how to manage it. I should be in benton harbor fishing some time in mid april.

talked to outdoorsman and to gold coast yesterday. Both are doing their sale on march 6th not the weekend before like it usually is. Grand Rapids steelheaders are doing a swap meet on sunday the 7th.

Another thing to look forward to is the saturday before the gr show. the local shops have their open houses. Outdoorsman, Gold Coast and Gander. Ganders is pretty much a waste of time no deals just a couple speakers. Gold coast does a fantastic job. They do some great deals. Moonshine mags last year were like 4.59 each. okuma copper rods for like 24 bucks. i can't name them all. They also roast a pig the weekend before and have pulled bbq pork sandwiches potatoe salad chips etc. Only thing they don't provide is pop. bring your own or they have a machine in front of the store. Outdoorsman has virtually everything big lake on sale. they usually do a lunch also. Both shops offer better deals during their open houses over the show because of have to recoup the rental fees at the show. Goldscoast quit going to the show when they raised the table fees two years ago. outdoorsman still goes but the prices are higher that at the store during the open house. THey did a deal on tekotas last yere the 800s for i think 179 each maybe it was a little less. Usually i save for that saturday and i buy everything i need for the season. I already have my shopping list made. If you can make it to the area pm me i will give you my phone number and we can hit the shops together. i ususally make a good half day to a whole of bumming around betweeb the three.

agree with everything said i only run my lows on 1 to 1.5 and if i am running highs 2 to 2.5 and keep that copper way out like jim said.

typically i only run two divers six coppers and a two or three color with three donwriggers as long as i have enough people with me. With four people and 12 lines you can really cover some water and have more chances of hookups.

Grand rapids fishing show is coming up. Franks had a good deal on the walker mags at novi and will be running the same deal at GR. i think it was like 3 of 4 bucks off the regular price. Also cabelas has a great selection in the store and online of the walkers:

http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/product/standard-item.jsp?_DARGS=/cabelas/en/common/catalog/item-link.jsp_A&_DAV=MainCatcat20166-cat602747&id=0048587122251a&navCount=2&podId=0048587&parentId=cat602747&masterpathid=&navAction=push&catalogCode=UK&rid=&parentType=index&indexId=cat602747&hasJS=true

they are the 124 mm size.

also the dipsy:

http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/templates/product/standard-item.jsp?_DARGS=/cabelas/en/common/catalog/item-link.jsp_A&_DAV=MainCatcat20166-cat602747&id=0011728111778a&navCount=6&podId=0011728&parentId=cat602747&masterpathid=&navAction=push&catalogCode=IA&rid=&parentType=index&indexId=cat602747&hasJS=true

and gl outdoors in ludington:

http://www.gloutdoorstore.com/magnumluhrjensendipsydiverswalkerdeeperdivers.aspx

i have bought quite a bit of stuff from gloutdoors. they are great to deal with.

i also prefer the walkers over the dipsies now.

edit:Cabelas prices are pretty good on their divers