Satisfaxion_Gauranteed

That is way sweet! I'm going to have a fish cleaning station in my new house for sure!

My wife's parents were in town visiting lake shore comunities this weekend, so I took her dad fishing Sunday morning. Overall, it was slow. We fished for about 4 hours and ended the day 2-4. However, my father in-law did get his very first fish out of Lake Michigan, a 14.5lb king. I was happy for that. The other fish was a 23" laker. The best bait/fish marks came in 80-85fow. All of our fish came on blue pattern 3fly herring rigs behind whitish pro-chip flashers running 75-80' down. We took one rip on a mixed veggies spoon down 45'. According to the thermometer on my cannon ball, but the water temp stayed warm all the way down to about 60'. At about 60', I could find some pockets of cooler water, around 60degrees. Trolling speed was 2.7ish on the gps and all hits came on east trolls. I talked to some guys at the boat ramps and many were coming back with just a fish or two, if not skunked. Several guys were saying the perch fishing was okay, but not as hot as it had been a week ago. The two guys I talked to had a good mess of them. Good fishin!

I also used to have an ati-fouling net and didn't like it. My net now does occaisonally catch the hooks of my lure, but not too bad. I've learned that, once the fish is over the boat, have the guy who was fighting the fish keep some tension on the lure just to keep it out of the net should the fish opt to roll. This has helped me quite a bit. Plus, if the fish spits the in the net, the lure will come right out of the net easily if somebody had the line to in his hand.

That give you more $$$ to buy fishing gear! I think we may be married to the same woman! I'm always being told I'm driving too fast/too slow!

You hit the nail on the head! It'd be a shame to tackle some of the very tough issues that actually put a real strain on the working class(i.e. health care, retirement, civil liberties, education, clean energy(not batteries), wars, science and technology vs morality, etc) Oh well, at least there's still good fish in the lake! At some point and time, the tough issues will have to be addressed. I guess if it were easy, anybody would do it.

On the nitrogen thing, I really struggle with this for several reasons. First, unless the application is a highly performance designed race car with suspension systems tuned to small fractions running on super speedway race tracks, then the 5% difference of compressability at elevated temperatures will not even be noticed by the average driver. It will deffinately not have an effect on fuel economy or perfomance on a passenger vehicle where forces and conditions during one mile of operation vary more than that of a 400mile race. Second, the claim of improved saftey due to less tire degradation from contaminated air doesn't sit well with me. Oxygen, moisture, oil, UV light, etc is all around the perimeter of the tire. The degradation effects of those items doesn't do more damage to the tire than normal wear. Also, tire pressure affects the handling of the vehicle, not what is inside the tire. Third, the leakage claims. Nitrogen is smaller on the molecular level than Oxygen. However, if there's an inperfection of materials of the wheel large enough for O2 to get through, than you can expect N2 to do the same. Also, from my experience of testing gas compressor seals for leakage, there has yet to be a single difference in leakage values from air to helium to nitrogen to argon. It has yet to happen because no standard manufacturing process is perfect enough to make flaws that 1 oxygen molecule would go through without allowing a nitrogen molecule. Fourth, rapid expansion/temperature increases due to contaminants is claimed to be eliminated with N2. I can see this IF the air going into the tire is at saturation for moisture or any other contamination. However, a compressor filter is cheaper than the process used to seperate N2. Clean, dry N2 is going to act very nearly identical to clean, dry air, particularly in automotive aplications. Fifth, nitrogen is claimed safer because it does not support combustion. This is absolutely true. However, the whole tire is surrounded by plenty of oxygenated air to support combustion. Sixth, nitrogen is claimed not to heat up as quickly as air. This is simply not true. The specific heat ratio(from my fluid mechanics book) of Nitrogen is the same as air (1.4 for both). Specific heat is the property of a fluid to give/take heat. On a race track with a custom made car not meant to carry passengers is one thing. In automobiles mass produced for the public is another. For the average driver, the advantages of nitrogen certainly don't matter enough to pay extra money. my 2cents,

Thanks for heads-up!

Good advice Caz! I particularly like how you talked about the safety and the bigger tourneys.

Many cars utilize a sensor in the brake assembly that monitors brake rotor speed. It's pretty simple and doesn't have a drastic effect on cost of the car or replacement parts.

My buddy Jim and I took two of my relatives from Kentucky out Sunday am for their first ever Lake MI fishing trip. We didn't get on the lake until pretty late, ~7:15-7:30 when we started setting lines. We picked up lines at 11:00am, typical spread was 4 riggers, two dipseys, 1 half core, 1 half core with 1.5oz snapweight halfway down, and two high lines. Finished the day 2 for 5; a steely and a coho. Both the newbies got a fish, which was great because my 4th grade cousin lost the first two he tried and was bummed out until the very last fish hit and he boated it! The fish was a nice steely and gave him some good play. He was thrilled and wanted to go right back out! We took 1 hit on a deep rapala x-rap, blue and silver, running 150-175' behind the board. My cuz fought it for a while, but he kept leaving the rod really low and forgot to reel for a minute and it came off. It was jumping in the manner a steely would, but I couldn't commit to the type of fish as it never got close enough to know for sure. We took hits on a stinger NBK off the superbraid diver, set on 2, back 80. My Uncle landed 1 of the 2 he tried for, his first fish ever, a thick grilling size coho, ~4-5lbs. The riggers fired twice, once on a translucent green spin doctor with a blue and silver herring harness down 65'. This was a good one, and it was lost:cray: It did provide some excitment. The steely came off the rigger set ~45down on a fishlander blue/purple hammered pattern spoon, ~25 behind the ball. The best action for us came between 1 and 2 miles north of the pier heads between 110 and 145fow. For being the 2nd week of June, fishing is not bad at all. We managed 5 hits in about 3hrs time with a couple of guys new to the sport, so don't be discouraged about the fishing. I'll post pictures when I get them emailed to me. My cousin had a smile from ear to ear when he finally got his fish! Good fishin,

DNR Sports in Kalamazoo also carries them in most sizes. They also carry extra sticks.

Background info: I'm currently setup with a Lowrance X51 sonar unit(with speed and temp if it makes a difference) that is a 1500watt peak to peak at 200kHz transmission. I love the unit and it performs the function I need adequately. I use it as a second sonar and it is located in a position that anybody onboard could see it, not just the driver. In conjunction with my older gps, it works well for users who aren't driving the boat. Some time ago, I upgraded my gps system to a Garmin 498c. This is a combination gps/sonar unit and I really like it, too. This unit is positioned to be in direct viewing/control of my driver/navigator. The sonar transmitts at 4000watts peak to peak at dual frequencies of 50kHz and 200kHz. Question: Do the two sonars tell me the story accurately? I was told by somebody they would interfere and give me false readings. I talked to guy at a local(Kzoo) area boat dealer and he told the two would NOT cancel information or provide false information and that he has a similiar system on his boat. I called Garmin tech service, and he said that here is about a 50/50 chance they would interfere with one another given the cone angle/geometry of the sonar transmitting into deeper waters. I called Lowrance tech service and they said it would not be an issue. I talked to another boat dealer who told me they would deffinately interfere! I've use the two together, and they seem to work, but how would I know if what I'm seeing on the graph is true?!?!?!? I'm a mechanical engineer, so I have a good understanding how the units work, which makes me think the 200kHz signals will deffinately be read in combination by each sending unit. I.E. the X51 unit will read it's 200kHz and the 200kHz of the 498 and vice versa. But, would that falsify the signal return and what is displayed to me on the graphs? If anybody has experience or expertise with this, please help to educate me:D

Congrats Rich! You have a lot to be proud of!

That's a very nice, clean looking rig. It's always exciting to get a new ride and rig it up the way you want

That sounds like a really fun trip! I was working over that time span......

Two things come to my head; 1) jealous of you being out fishing right now while I'm at work and/or 2) why in the world are you on the web talking about fishing when you're fishing!!??!!?? If you are actually fishing out there, good luck!

I choose to run synthetic simply because the owners manual in my pickup specifies it and the owners manual for my wife's car specifies it. It's easier for me just to run all synthetic because all of my cars use similiar oil viscosities and grades, so I buy it in bulk at a discount for all of the engines. I buy mobile oil just because I use the same vendor our farm does, so, again, a slight bulk discount. I worked for a company out of the Chicago area that did development and research on industrial engines. Believe it or not, synthetic is cheaper to use when operating an engine 6000+hrs/year continous duty. The company did a big motor oil test on many various oils, and, as expected, the synthetics performed best while synthetic blends followed and traditional oils last. I won't bore you with any other details. I'd have zero problem running synthetic blends in my vehicles. That's a very good alternative for automotive type applications, which I'd also lump in most boats. I also wouldn't have a problem with running traditional oils in most automotive applications if the conditions aren't unussually dirty and maintenence is kept up on. If you do switch an engine that has run traditional oil over to a pure synthetic, it is not uncommon for the engine to use a slight bit of oil for the first fill up. It's dependent on the type of sealing/bearing material used in the engine. The consumption will be very small. It will go back to normal after first oil cycle. Just something to be aware of; don't get nervous if the dipstick yields a small(way less than 10% of fill capacity) bit of ussage.

I've had roughly 1/3 of my hits come off green/silver prochip flashers with glow green/white flies and/or white/green spinnys with similiar flies. I've had best luck off the riggers, although I did have some success with a green/yellow 3fly herring hauler behind a white pro-chip flasher with the dipsey taking care of hauling duties. Most of my fishing is done out of South Haven, MI.

Thanks for the report, it sounds like June fishing is here for a little while.

All of my engines, inluding the boat, run synthetic motor oil.

I keep two seperate snells; one for leaders that are shorter in length(~3') and one for sliders that are longer in length(~6').

I will be fishing South Haven tonight(6/1). We should be on the water around 5pm and will fish the evening away. That will be my only trip on the water this weekend. Good luck to everybody!

Now that you mention that, I've noticed that same thing. When I'm successful with the shallower lines(5-7cores and less), I barely get any dipsey action. When my dipseys are firing, the shallower core rods don't fire. My rigger bite has been consistent all the time, which makes me happy because they're the most expensive! My dipseys haven't been doing much this season, but my half cores have been pretty consistent. I guess I don't really care what the fish come on, as long as they're coming!

I've been running colored snubbers, so maybe that's part of my issue. My leaders are the same that I've always run and have had success with in the past. I did just buy new colored snubbers prior to this year though, so I think I'll change that up to some clear snubbers or none at all. Thanks for the heads-up!

I'm curious about using a slider on a dipsey, too. I've heard smatterings about this from guys at boat ramps, but have never tried anything like that. I normally 5-6' lengths on my sliders. On my back two riggers, I'll fix them just to keep the lines running good and tight, generally about 8-12' up from the ball. On my sides, I'll run at least on free slider and just make it a habit to change up the lure or reset every so often. I think that sometimes that action of the slider falling down will help attract the occaisonal hit, particularly if fish are scattered in the water column. If the fish are really active, I abandon the free slider and run fixed. If they are really really active, I'll abandon the sliders altogether. my 2cents,