Satisfaxion_Gauranteed

Well, at least MSU has a great looking basketball program..........and a hockey national title.

WOW! Not only the underdog costumes, but on the MSU horse before the game this weekend??!!??!!?? Those are creative, cool costumes. They would have gotten a little bigger handful of candy from me ;-)

My offseason tasks aren't too bad: "must dos" 1) upgrade to a new vhf radio. The last trip our for the season, mine starting acting weird. On top of that, my gps has the auto distress call feature and my marine radio doesn't. I might as well do it right if I'm going to do it at all. 2) While winterizing and performing other routine tasks on my boat, I noticed my engine would not stay in position after I disconnected my battery. It has never done that before. It very slowly drifted down under weight. I'll be working on that as soon as a free spot in the barn becomes available. 3) sort spoons, replace/sharpen hooks, re-tie any 3fly meat rigs that are damaged, etc. 4) repair my damaged reel, oil the others, and put new line on all of them "want to dos" 1) I'm thinking of going with the Cannon lure speed/temp indicator. I'm still undecided on what brand for sure though. 2) Two more full cores. I also need to upgrade two of my older reels to something newer. I bought my very first two reels used 4 years ago and they've worked well, but it's time to use them as spares. 3) I'd like to get a better radio antenna for catching the Tigers games out on the water. It seems like the fishing is always better when the Tigers are on.... This list could go on forever, but is currently limitted by budget:D Oh, did I mention the time I'll spend just sitting in my boat with a cold beer in hand, parked in the barn in early February, imagining what it'll be like to have that downrigger hum and a reel screaming off the back while I'm choking down a drink and yelling, "fish on!!" at the same time??!!??!!??

I'm totally jealous! Good job getting out there on a gorgeous weekend!

If only spoons, then: Moonshine cyclonite Fishlander Chipmunk Stinger Cory's bait(stingray size) If we expand to flasher/flies: White glow pro-chip flasher/white with green glow fly combo Moonshine Cyclonite Blue and white pro-chip flasher/white and blue 3-fly meat harness

I buy a lot of Moonshine spoons. They just seem to catch fish for me better than the other glows I've tried. My second most-purchased glow spoon would be the Fishlander glows. They have a couple of blue/green patterned colors that work almost as well as the Moonshines for me.

I have Berts holders on my boat and they are one-handed and work great. The ratchetting action is awesome for getting rods out of the holder when a fish hits. To get the rod out of the holder, all you have to to is lift the rod up and the holder automatically ratchets to the vertical position. You don't need to lift the rod out over the water while the holder is still in the horizontal position to get the rod out of the holder.

I'll triple the white flasher, white glow fly sediments. That's been one of my hottest setups this year. Green glow flys and mountain dew colored flashers would get honorable mention.

This year, I'll be winterizing early due to the high number of weddings, etc I have going on this fall. Normally, I'd say yes, but this year I'll have to pass. Have fun!

I have a box full of moonshines and have often commented on how durable the finishes are. I'm not aware of which vintage of them I have purchased, but I have bought several of them this year. I very rarely replace a moonshine lure due to chipping or any other such defect. The only time I end up replacing one is if I loose it. I do normally sharpen the hooks right after I buy them. I've noticed they don't have that razor edge some others do. They by far catch more fish for me than my other 'super glow' finish spoons. my 2cents,

30miles 1 way for me.

I completely agree that a good driver is worth a million bucks when getting a big fish in the box! That's interesting you let the rod sit in the holder for a while. I never thought of doing this mostly because of the excitment of having a screamer going! Do you let is sit just when running the cores to let the line straighten out or do you let any rod sit for a couple moments?

Very good point, Mike. I had caught a fish this year and we got it into the boat, the spoon was bent! I know the drag would not permit that to happen, so it had to be the way the fish had the lure in his mouth.

90% of the time is comes down to fuel and spark. The rest of the time it's timing. I'm assuming the timing is good because the engine runs intermittently. Testing anything in the ignition is easy; just ground your spark plug anywhere on the engine(away from gas) and hit the key quickly to turn it over. If there's spark, then the ignition system is likely functioning well. If you're physically touching the spark plug when you do this, expect a friendly little bite. To double check coil casings, spray some water on the coil and re-test for spark. If no spark, a bad coil/coil casing is likely the culprit. "gas came out everywhere" leads me to ask more questions; is it misting everywhere or streaming everywhere? The gasoline coming into the cylinders should be highly atomized, looking more like steam coming from a cooking pot rather than a leaky faucet. The engine may be running a touch rich. This will be much more apparent under warm weather conditions and humidity than it will under cooler/drier weather. Cold engines need richer mixtures(i.e. what the choke does) and hot engines need leaner mixtures. If the engine dies again after being run for a while, re-test your ignition by pulling the plug and drying them out with a cigarette lighter. Ground your plugs and turn the key to check for spark. If you've got spark, then pull your other two plugs and dry them out with the cigarette lighter and the engine will probably re-start. This will get you into port and points you in the direction of a rich fuel mixture. On a two-stroke engine, too much oil will cause a very similiar issue. If you don't have spark, then your buddy is probably right to say it is the coil as this is not uncommon for coil casings with some minor defect causing issue as the coil heats up. Take a can of wire drier with you and spray your coil. This will work about half of the time if it's a moisture issue on a bad casing within the coil. I have had two cases this summer where I've gotten some bad gasoline, too. My wife's car and my truck got a hold of some gas bad enough to cause both of our check engine lights to come on. This doesn't sound like the case with you, but something to be aware of. I knew all of those I.C. engines and combustion classes I took at MTU would come in handy some day:grin: Good luck!

I 100% agree. If I'm going to err, I'd prefer it be on the on the side of a drag a little too light than too tight. If that means the fish runs a little longer, then whoever is fighting the fish just gets a better workout! Good sharp hooks is deffinately a key to helping solid hook-ups. It's also something I need to do a better job of:rolleyes:

I'm a big believer in the Lyman plugs. Nearlly all of them glow, they are made out of Cedar, so the action the wood has is extremely eractic, and they catch fish. I was hesitant to try them at first due to the price, but I continue to be extremely pleased with the Lyman plugs. They are pricey, but they will survive multiple fish without experiencing significant finish problems. my 2cents,

Your problem sounds VERY similiar to the problems we had last year, particularly with leadcore. Our issue was very simple; we'd occaisonally pause our reeling. It sounds dumb, but we were in a bad habit of pausing reeling to laugh/smile/try to horse the fish to one side of the boat or another/etc. It's particularly important with leadcore since it's a no-stretch, sinking line that can pull the lure from the fish's mouth. This year, we began to stay extremely focused on always turning the crank on the reel. If the drag slips, then great; means we're going to have some fun. We've improved from about a 55-60% landing ratio to over 70% for this year. There's still plenty of room for improvement, but it's mostly hook maintenence on my part(need to pay more attention to sharpening them). We still have a lot of fish that loose the lure once they are in the net, but that's fine with us! I run my drags fairly loose. A 10lb fish will pull some line, but not scream line. A 15-16lb fish will scream line, but not for a really extended period of time. About 4 weeks ago, we boated two 18+lbers in a row. One was off the rigger and it pulled roughly half my spool of 20lb test out of my filled Daiwa 47H reel. This is a good topic! I look forward to hearing what others do to help thier netting ratios.

Congrats to everyone on just making it through that fog carefully and safely! That was a victory in itself! Based on fishing from Saturday evening, we went out and shut down in 120fow. The marks were very similiar to Saturday; lots of fish up top and some fish down deeper. We never got a taker shallower than 40' down. With just two of us in the boat, we ended up 1 for 4. All of our hits came in about 140fow. We gave up 1 fish on a double and then lost another double while netting the first fish. The second fish(still in the rod holder) came across the net handle while we were netting! A splish-splash later and both fish came unbuttoned. Good work to all of the teams. Looking forward to the last one in September! Congrats to all of the teams.

Ya, this season really has gone by fast! It's crazy to think I'll be behind ya in another couple weeks winterizing the boat, bow hunting deer, going to football games/tail gates......... Didn't I JUST get my boat out!!??!!??

In the top little paragraph on the DNR guide on the page that has all the great lakes listed in a table is a listing of all individual species of fish covered under the guide. The guide specifies "no more than 5 in any combination, but only 3 of one species." In the guide, a Coho salmon is listed as a different species from a Chinook salmon. So, as I read it, 2 coho + 2 kings + 1 steely legally fulfills 1 fishing license limit for having 5 fish in combination.

Thanks for the report. After a 4 hiatus, I'll be back fishing my favorite port on Thursday night.

Awesome pics and great report. Thanks

Good topic! I've also wondered the same thing and would like to hear about guys who've done this or still do this and the results. I've been considering trying that for next season.

I've run them with spin doctors and pro-chip flashers(8") with good success. I don't normally run a larger flasher just because I'm going from a fly to a 3fly cut rig harness. my 2 cents,

In my opinion, it's all about troll direction and currents as far as speed is concerned. One direction, the speed may be way too fast. In another direction, it could be the opposite. Capt. Levi, another member of this site, made some great suggestions regarding troll direciton and speed. I don't have the time right this second to find the link, but the thread was labelled something along the lines of 'lure speed and temp indicator.' The advice has helped me this year quite a bit. Hope this helps!