Satisfaxion_Gauranteed

We fished South Haven Saturday(6/21) in the am. Typical setup was 9 lines; 3 riggers/2 3-color cores/2 half cores/ 2 copper rigs. We never got anything good going as the fish were hitting very lightly and finished 2-8 on lakers with a throw back. We shut down in 90fow and played around in 80-100fow for a while with two releases and no fish to show. We then headed west to about 180fow before we got some more consistent hits, but still not much. We ran mostly spoons with DW blue and green dolphins being most successful. We also took one release on a white pro-chip flasher with a green siggs fly. When I read the slow reports from Saugatuck last week, The June slow down was not far from getting to South Haven and now it is here. Hopefully things pick up next week like they did in Saugatuck this week! For the Perch fishing, two people at the cleaning station both said 20-30fow about 1 mile south of the piers was very good. One guy even said, "the perch so far this year are, on average, the largest I've seen in years." I guess we should have gone perchin! tight lines and screamin' drags, --Jason

Good work on the fish and helping a fellow angler out! Good work Frank!

My 18' Lund Fisherman has four Cannon riggers; 2 at the far back running off the stern and the other two on swivel bases about 12" up from the back riggers. This works well for me, particularly with the side riggers having the long booms. Good fishin,

Lure: Fishlander Chipmunk(reg. size) Fav. Port: South Haven for SOOOO many reasons(and only half deal with the fishing:D) Fav person to fish with: too many rushed to mind to list and they're all fun

Thanks for the tip on the seat pedestals. Some of the things like that are easy to miss when maintaining the rest of the boat. Despite the issues, that sounds like a great couple days to me! I'd spend a few days like that any time.

That's a nice catch. There's certainly no lack of fish to fry at your place! Good work and thanks for the report.

That's some fast action! Thanks for the report.

Thanks for the report. It sounds like the fish/lake/bait just haven't made up thier minds yet.

There are WAY too many deer by me. It is having a drastic impact on the farm comunities, so I can appreciate the effort of trying to lower the population. However, I am NOT at all in favor of an early season. If the early doe season becomes a mainstream and my bow season suffers, I may just opt to give up hunting here altogether. The small number of gun hunters that shoot at anything that moves, trespass, and are overall rude and inconsiderate is a big negative in my book. The select few rude hunters are very good at hindering my enjoyment of hunting. I can't imagine an early firearm season would help that. I also don't think the end result will be very effective. If you deter bow hunters and hurt the youth hunt, then the total deer taken may not change very much at all. If youths struggle during thier hunt, the population of future hunters will also decrease, which in turn will decrease the number of deer taken. Overall, the September hunt sounds poor to me and I think better alternatives should be explored.

That's a nice batch of walleyes! good job!

Way cool rig! I love them Lunds, got one myself.

I also run copper in the 45lb variety. It works great. If running down the chute, you won't have any issue keeping it in the guides as long as you use normal good pratice with checking for knicks/cuts/etc. I'm not sure how it would work in a planer board release as I typically let all of the line out or run it down the chute. Copper does also work well with dive bombs and snapweights. I use divebombs and snapweights on both my leadcore and copper rigs with good success. As previously mentioned, you can get a smaller core or copper rig down much deeper using snapweights and/or dive bombs. Also, if you opt to run copper, I highly recomend going BIG on your reels. I run 45lb copper on Penn 309s and have zero issue filling up those big reels, even while using thinner superbraid as a backing. I agree with the previous sediments that copper can be a very productive presentation. It takes a bit of getting used to as far as handling and rigging, but it's well worth the effort.

Amen! Those were some serious seas that second day of the tournament!

Those 3-4lb cohos make great grillers. Thanks for the report.

That looks like a fun trip and fun crew! nice box of fish; thanks for the report.

My cousin is getting deployed to "an undisclosed location in the middle east" in a couple weeks, so we went fishin with his dad and bro. Here's the report: Typical setup was 12 lines; 2 3color cores, 2 half cores, 2 150' 45lb coppers, 2 dipseys, and 4 riggers. Early season, I like to use big spreads if the opportunity presents itself. 2.5mph at the ball; fished from ~7am to about 1:30pm. We headed straight out to about 170fow and shut down. Took our first hit in 190fow and stayed between there and 210fow for the rest of the day. The final tally was 11 for 15; 4 steelys, 4 cohos, and 3 kings. Most of the fish were smallish(4-7lbs), but a 10lb king and a 11lb steely made things interesting for a while and were the biggest of the morning. South trolls are where we took hits, but we didn't really do much troll direction changing. Hits were consistent, but certainly not fast and furious. The leadcores dominated the steely and coho catch while the riggers down 85-120 took the all the kings. Chipmunk off a half core, stingray NBK on the copper, and DW green/blue dolphins all fired. We took one fish on a blue 3 fly teaser meat rig behind a white pro-chip flasher. Dipseys were the only thing that did not fire. Good fishin' to anyone heading out! Remember , many folks out there getting boats out this weekend for the first time, so a little extra time, patients, and maybe a frosty brew may come in handy

I'll even add a second. One weekend, we drove out to lake with the boat, got all the way out on the lake to start setting lines and realized I forgot all of my lures. I took them out of the boat to take with me on another guy's boat. I had some hooks and herring, so I ended up running exclusively meat rigs. ooops....

I ran a dispsey diver rod with no lure behind the dipsey for about an hour. I thought I was pulling it for a lure change. Oopsy-daisy.....

After fishing the Steelheader last weekend, I'll REALLY be looking forward to some nice lake conditions this weekend. I'll be fishing S. Haven Saturday am at the minimum. I like the Deadliest Catch, too!

This isn't really the same, but I'll toss it out there. I had an old snowmobile that did that exact same thing. After doing all of the things you mentioned, my buddy told me to change the coil because if the casing around it has a small crack or imperfection, it'll expand with increased temperature and loose spark. After replacing the coil, it started running like a engine with rebuilt carbs, new fuel filters, premium gas, new plugs, and finally a new coil ;-)

Thanks for the report.

Thanks! A lot of teams had a hard time getting the message that the event had been called. We actually heard most clearly from the team running relay beteween tournament control and boats 30+miles offshore. 14th place means you out fished us by quite a margin. Hats off to ya; in smaller boats, those conditions put fishermen to the test.

I was in the under 24' division(18'Lund) and the lake was plenty rough(6-8s), but mostly rollers coming in a predictable manner. I know there were some boats in the U 24' division that called it quits early. If it were not a tournament, then we probably would have gone to get breakfast and talk about fishing as opposed to fishing ourselves into the butt whoopin' we got. At the end of the day, it is up to the captain to ensure the saftey of his crew and vessel. I personally did not feel it was as bad as the Sunday of 2007, where we actually pulled up and called it quits early.

We fished the South Haven Steelheader(U 24' division) this weekend, and here's the fishing report. Thurs 5/15 evening: Choppy lake conditions with just two of us onboard, so we worked some marked bait clusters in 80-100fow about 2 miles north of the piers. We did not have much success(3 for 4), but did manage a smallish coho, a released laker, and a steely. Fishlander Chipmunk on a half core took two hits, a Stinger blue dolphin off the rigger took one hit and a 3color with a DW lemon ice took the other. Typical spread was two half cores, two 3-colors, and two riggers. West troll produced all hits. Friday 5/16 morning: What a GREAT day! The lake was calm and nice with great weather. We were pre-fishing for the steelheader and opted to head out about 3 miles north of the pier heads and shut down in 150fow. We took our first hit off 150ft 45lb copper and a Stinger lemon ice(stingray size), which was a released laker(28"). We continued west and our most productive area was 200-230 fow, where we found some nice temp breaks. The final count was 8-11; 1 coho, 2 kings, 4 steelys, and the released laker. Our only misses came in 210fow when we took a triple. Only one made it in the box. Typical spread was 9 lines; 3 riggers, 1 dipsey(dead), 1 copper, 2 half cores, and 2 three color cores. The best presentation was a DW blue dolphin off riggers, Fishlander Chipmunk off the half core, and a Stinger Corey's bait off the 3 color. Saturday 5/17 morning: Tournament was blown out and delayed until Sunday. We opted not to fish, though maybe we should have...... Sunday 5/18 morning: After a stiff south blow on Saturday, Sunday brought a stiff north blow. We opted to fish our Friday waypoints starting in 160 fow since we did not have any better ideas. We finished the day(and tournament) just 1 for 3. We took two hits off the riggers; two on a Stinger green dolphin(stingray size) and one DW lemon ice off the copper. It was not overly productive for us. We were putting a variety of spreads into the lake to try to get something going. We took all our hits in 190-210fow. Congrats to everyone who fished it and good work with all the boats coming back into harbor safely. Also, congrats to Hitman for having a pretty nice payday

Very good job Coast Guard. If the lake conditions in Ludington were anything like down here(S. Haven), then it was no small task finding the vessel/people in the lake.