Satisfaxion_Gauranteed

I set up a route on the gps between two waypoints that are in the vicinity I want to start fishing and going in the direction I want to go. My new driver really likes this because he can zoom the gps in and see the arrow going down the highlighted line that is the route I created. The off route and speed alarms also help to bring his attention to these details. With that and the compass, he did a really good job for me during some very not so great trolling situations in rough seas. His very first driving job was our first west michigan league tournament. I showed him how the alarms worked and what they meant and he corrected as necessary.

I barrow the label maker at work that prints in big red letters "5 color" or "super braid" and place it just above the reel.

I've had very slow action on my dipseys. I've only take two fish on them all year, both lakers off of meat rigs. I've tried a whole variety of depths, presentations, and lures. I've had good luck with the riggers and lead, but the dipseys have been really quiet.

I'll be out of South Haven Sunday morning and possibly Monday morning, depending on other plans. I plan to go see Pirates Saturday night, so I'll be the mood to pillage and plunder me some fishes............arrrrr............

Thanks for the report!

Good work! I was looking at the lake webcams yesterday and wishing I was out there instead of at work!

That happens to me more often than I'd like, too. In particular, if the water is little choppy where the core is rising and falling in the water, than I only normally land about half the fish on my core rods. Smoother seas don't show the problem nearly as bad. Anybody else experience this issue? Thanks for the report!

Some of this will be abreviated, but feel free to ask any questions! Thursday 4/17-- We went on a scouting mission in choppy seas and got some marks and two releases about 2 miles north of the pier heads in about 165fow. Shortly after dropping lines, one of my riggers went out. We opted to end the night very early to fix the rigger and went 0-2. Blue and white spinny with a green and silver fly took one hit while a nbk stinger on half core took the other. Friday 4/18-- This was an awesome day to be on the lake. We fished from about 7:30 until about noon. We were roughly 4 miles south of the pier head in 165fow early and then 210fow after mid-morning. I had a newbie with me on Friday who went 0-4 fighting the fish Overall, we ended up 7 for 14, all kings except for 1 steely and 2 coho. All but 1 of the fish were less than 10lbs, and the one was barely over ten lbs. Half of them were less than 6lbs. Hot producers were riggers down 65 and 75 with green/white/blue flashers/spinnys and green pattern flies. A mixed veggies stingray and green/silver(don't know the name) spoons on free sliders took some hits, too. East/West trolls seemed to be the ticket. Saturday 5--19 This was another pretty good day on the lake. We ended 5 for 8 fishing the steelheader. All of the fish were smallish, less than 6lbs. Unfortunately, my lack of attention being paid to our trolling route got our team off our waypoints by 3 or 4 miles, so that burned us a bit. The most action came onhalf cores with orange and silver black speckled NK spoon(don't know the name) and stingray tournament winner. We also took a fish off of green and silver flasher down 60 with a white and green fly. We were in 165fow at various locations between the power plant and piers. Sunday 5--20 I love hill climbs, but didn't picture myself doing that in a my boat until Sunday. We finished 2 for 5, with one miss coming from me bumping in a wave and hitting the fish in the head with the net instead of netting it! Orange moonshine on freeslider with the ball down 70 took hits and a stinger NBK on a half core took hits. The tournament was called at 9:45am, so we only had lines in the water for a couple hours. Overall, I had a BLAST fishing my first steelheader and can't wait until next year. BTW, congrats to Hitman who took 3rd in the pro division! Click me for the steelheader results link

It was a little bumpy on Sunday. We were out testing the boat on some hill climbs The South Haven tourney got called at 9:45 Sunday morning. fyi,

I feel your pain. I have an easy to tow boat and live about 30miles away from the lake. Towing the boat, the truck gets around 13mpg. My lightweight boat with a 4 stroke outboard doesn't use much gas, either. Even with that, $3.50(and sure to rise) per gallon means I spend roughly $35 just in gas to fish. That's just to fish 1 day per weekend. My wife and I carpool to and from work. Our car averages 28mpg and it takes $40-$45 just to put 12 gallons in that tank. I can remember in highschool(I'm 27 now) it would take a twenty dollar bill to fill up any of our cars and we'd have money leftover to go to a movie! That was just 8-9 years ago. Now I do feel old........ I won't mention the 27+ gallon tanks we all have on our tow vehicles.........

Down here along Portage Rd in Kalamazoo, gas is around $3.49. In little old Decatur, it was $3.35 this morning. Both, my truck and boat need gas........... "As you know, the government takes 40 percent of what you make. The other 60 percent, of course, taken by the gas stations." -- Jay Leno

I thought that's the way it worked. Thanks for confirming that for me! It does seem like fun and I'm looking forward to doing it. To me, it kinda makes the 333 event similiar to a poker hand. You have to choose which you're going to toss away and which to keep based on what flop you might get. The 'promise' of bigger fish tomorrow vs the 'reality' of the fish today. Good luck!

As I understand it, you can fish any individual 333 on the tournament trail(if you're also fishing the event). You just are not eligble for north/south division crowns if you fish less than three 333 events. Is that correct or am I messed up? The reason I ask is because this year will my first 333 event. I've fished with another team in the past that did not elect to do the 333. I think it'd be fun, so would like to try it, but I'm not 100% sure I'll be fishing a total of 3.

I have Lowrance X17 and never loose bottom contact up to my top speed of 45mph. It won't mark fish that fast, but always stays with the bottom. My transducer is located just to the inside of my inner most power strake and flush with the bottom of the boat.

Thanks for the report and good luck next weekend!

Another big factor is line diameter. A few thousandths of an inch may not seem like much, but the diamter of the fishing line has a drastic effect on the amount of drag and lift you get from the line. In short, you can run dipseys with less drag down deeper with less line out with smaller diameter lines. The added weight effect of wire lines also helps pull dipseys by helping to cancel out the effect of line drag through the water. Terry--I don't use wire, but I do have my dipseys set up with 30# superbraid(Spider Wire) and like it very much. However, my fishing buddy does uses wire on his two wire divers and has not had any issue the last two seasons using it. I don't remember the name of it off the top of my head, but it was one of the cheaper spools because I was there when he bought it.

I pulled the boat from Decatur, MI to Port Sheldon and back, so that's 150miles round trip at about 13mpg pulling the boat, so I'll call that ~$36. The boat didn't use much gas(stayed in Port Sheldon to fish), so I'll say $6 there. I won't add the $100 emergency trailer bearing repair 'discovery' on Saturday afternoon. My fishing buddy lives in Holland, so we went up to fish Saturday and I just stayed at his house all weekend. That helped the gas money alot! If the lake was a litte nicer, I would have opted to spend the extra 4 gallons to run to Grand Haven for better fishing. Caz, I hear what you're saying about the gas prices influencing how often you fish. My wife and I have nearly zero monthly payments(only 1 car and my student loans), but we're trying to save money to build a home in the future. Every dollar I spend on fishing takes away from money we need to save for the home. Gas prices will certainly influence my decision to fish this summer. Oh, and my wife is great about me fishing. She always tells me, "you work really hard all the time, so go and spend the money to fish!" I love that girl!

Thanks for the info! It sounds things aren't real active anywhere.

On 5/5: After discovering my wheel bearings on the trailer were about to take a crap(Thanks to Adjusted3(Mark) for letting me know!), we opted to go ahead and fish since I had just driven 80+miles to get there. We started out on a searching for graph marks mission and coverd a lot of water, areas between 160fow and 20fow. This yielded hit and miss baitfish/big fish marks in some areas, so we opted to work the S shaped depth contours between 40 and 60fow. 2 for 2; both lakers and both on a green/silver Brad's superbait with herring Gulp down 35 on the rigger 30-40 behind the ball. East/West trolls produced both hits. On 5/6: Very windy conditions with ripping currents. I'm not sure if you would call it 3 for 3 or 2.5 for 3 or?? Either way, we got a 8" or 9" wiggler steely(released), a 7-8lb steely and smallish 2 or 3lb brown. No real pattern was established, but all 3 fish came on NE/SW trolls in the S shaped bottom contour area between 45 and 60fow on half cores. Green and hammered silver stinger spoons took all of the fish. One was a NBK and another that looked similiar to an NBK, but I don't know the name of it. All of our hits came mid to late morning after the wind transitioned to come more out of the SE as opposed to the east. Overall, fishing was tough for us and pretty slow. Trolling speed was some where between 2 and 3 mph, depending what side of the wave we were on:grin: The two fish from Sunday had empty stomachs. It was a great time fishing with the West Michigan Fishing League for our first event! Good work to all of the teams who made it out face the less than ideal conditions.

I think I may stop by the pet store and buy some goldfish; might need them at weigh-in!

Thanks for the report!

My team will probably take our chances out of Port Sheldon. The weather is supposed to be mild and good this week, so who really knows when those fish will turn on? I fish South Haven quite a bit, and from my experience, the Port Sheldon fish are always deeper than the South Haven fish. I'll probably try that approach and see what happens. However, if the lake is willing and you don't mind burning a little gas on a nice boat ride, you could get up to Grand Haven in a half hour easy cruising and still have lines in the water prior to sun-up.

I have a guy here at work who's going to look at it today for me. He's done repairs like this around here at work as well as the ocaisonal government project I've recieved a couple responses from memebers of this site who've graciously offered to help me out. I'm very appreciative! The service rep I spoke to said they can't just sell the part. If we can't fix it, then I'll enlist some help. Wish me luck!

You're fishing the big jon pro-am in South Haven? We'll be fishing it this year for the first time. I'm in the same situation; only 2 trips in for the year and I have some equipment issues to work out. Last year, I already had several trips. Anyone know any electronics repair shops in the greater Kalamazoo area? I have a really simple circuit board issue I'd like to have fixed.

We ran down to Palisades plant and began zig zagging north toward the South Haven piers. It's been my experience that trolling outside the Black river or near the power plant can be really hit or miss. When it's a miss, I normally head toward deeper water until I find baitfish or fish. This weekend, I marked some shallow fish in both locations, but could not get them to go. The deeper fish weren't hot by any means, but at least we were getting some on and off action. The boat traffic was not heavy anytime out of South Haven. I only saw/heard 6 or 7 boats at time on the lake. Apparently everybody took the drive south this weekend.