Yoda

We dropped to 3 riggers a few years back, will never go back to 4, the waters way to clear. Over all your catch rate will go up on the riggers with only 3 in the water. Most of the time we are only running a 5 rod spread over fish, if we are searching 7 to 9 rods, but never more than 3 riggers, work on your Dipsy and board program, their going to take most of your fish..

Interisting site .. Not for the weak of heart..http://www.saveelk.com/wolf_002.htm

Hoping for the best. Starting to get a few call and emails.

We've been looking at autopilots also Mike, our boats steering system hydrolic, We are leaning towards one of these 2, the Raymarine X-10 corepk and the ST70 control head or the Garmin GHP 10. If we where building from scratch the Garmin would get the nod hands down, We like their system. The reason we are looking at the X-10 Core pk is because we can us the Type 1 pump we have installed on the boat already, that alone is a $700 plus savings. If the GHP 10 will work with your sterring system I'd give it a real close look .. John

What did Raymaring have to say Rob ? is the US branch going to be around for awhile

Thanks Rob I've been looking at the X-10 core pack with a ST70 control head I think I can get those 2 things for about $1500 righ now, best part is I can use the pump I have in the boat. My only issue is it sounds like Raymarine might be going under. One last thing Rob Are you running I/O's or I/B's ? Reason I'm asking is With the X-10 core pack, do you still need the rudder referance control ? I'd like to do away with mine if at all possible..

That would help GLF,,. Thanks 25 foot Sportcraft 252 Hardtop, 350 Bluewater, I/B. Thanks Josh for the link

We use #50 Berkly Big Game for all our flies and meat riggs, haven't seen any differance in the hook up rate between that and the floracarbons. the heavier stiffer line imparts a little better action to the fly. the biggest advantage is the number of fish you can catch per fly or meat rigg before having to retie hooks.

We need to replace our Raypilot 65 system Autopilot(Computer went bad) and Ramarine says it unfixable. We have been looking at the Garmin GHP 10, Simrad 12's and 14's and Raymarine X-5 and X10 Core packs with the st6002 control head. Our biggest question is, We already have The pump to run the piston to stear the boat, and Raymarine says that the "X" core pks above will run the pump, Will the Garmin or Simrad core pks run the same pump also ? What Autopilots are you guys running and how do you like them ? I read somewhere that maybe Raymarine and Simrad might be in a little trouble, anybody else head this ? We use the autopilot for mainly strait line trolling 1.2 to 3.5 SOG. and strait line running, jump the boat up on plain, point it in the direction we want to go and hit the button.. any help would be great... John

Here's the link for Chamberlain Releases :http://www.downriggerrelease.com/index.html

11" flashers will work on dipseys, but it's one HELL of a lot of drag, stick with the 8" or 10" for that. leader length for us is approx. 23 inches no matter what size flasher, but then again we only have 2 rotaters over 10 inches on the boat, just don't see the need for the bigger ones.

Jason We are catching fish north east of those 3 big cans, 70 to 100 FOW. 1/2 and Full core been doing the damage, Kings and Lakers, Mag. Met. Yellowtail and a Mag Raider Serial Killer spoons have been taking most of our fish, we've been having a hard time getting a rigger bite going, but the core and Dipeys have been fireing pretty good, both wire and braid, 125 to 150 back low dipeys on 1.5 high on 2.5-3. the fish we have hit on flies have been the wire rods, with a Aqua Blue fly.. Hope this helps.. John We have been pulling salmon in the 12 to 15 pound range, and had one heck of a nice Steelhead on mon morning on a 1/2 core that came off at the boat.

Finely had a desent night to fish out of St.Ignace NO Wind, ended up 5 for 9, 3 Kings 2 Lakers, Mixed bag on what their hitting, Full core with a Met. Yellowtail, Raider Blue Green Bubble, Raider Chicken Pox, and a dodger and Green fly off the riggers, Dipseys hits where Trash can dodger with a blue fly, and green dodger with a green fly, with anyluck things are starting to set up and summer has arrived..

Hessel is the best bet for you to launch a boat that size, You can look at the cedarville launch but I don't know.. the water is coming up, but I don't think far enough

It was a pretty tough fish for us friday evening, we where doing a little scouting for a saturday morning charter. We splashed the boat about 3:30 friday afternoon ran to frying pan Island and set lines trolled past the green can past the lighthouse along the reef over to the humps, back to reef fiddled around a bit out there still nothing, Heard very little radio traffic about people catching fish, It didn' sound like anyone was tearing them up Friday evening one here one there thats it Kings mostly if I as hearing them right, we trolled back into the green can, followed the NET markers out accross the shipping channel circled back around to the reef, stayed in 140 of water this time and started our troll to the dock, just before we line up with the green can a Atlantic came out of the water with our Green Dolphin in it's mouth then the rod went off, by the time my partner got to the rod the fish was gone.. Bummer , reset got almost to the end of frying pan island and the center rigger went, this time a 8 pound king wacked it and was hooked well, into the box it went, that was it for friday evening. Launched the boat at 7am set up our same troll , this time with 9 rods running instead of 6, 4 boards, 2 dipies, 3 riggers, had our first release at about 8:45, missed, south of the lighthouse we picked up our first laker, off a rigger 30 down with a yellowTail, that was about 9:30, 12 to 16 boats out fishing, not much catching going on, we headed out and fiddled around on the flate just off the light house, nothing, I'm getting a bit desperate no, back to the humps, this time I have a rod set up with a peanut and flasher and buncing the ball off the bottom, not a real smart move in that area, my nerves could only handle about 1/2 hour of that, nothing set that rig at 45 feet and sat back to try to figure things out, that rigger fired about the time I get the net around the 8 pound laker, the port rigger and a starboard board go off then the starboard rigger fires ended up with 3 of those , all lakers. its getting to be about noon now, all the boats are gone we need to end the charter. we point the boat at the light house and start our troll in, almost to the light house and a dipise fires, 4 pound atlantic even with the light house a board go's off, a just legal Laker 22 1/2 inches, then just past the green can the other dipsy fires, 6 pound King all and all we went 7 for 9 with 4 lakers to 8 pounds, 2 kings to 9 pounds, and a 3 or 4 pound atlantic.. there was no rime or reason to what they hit, or what depth they hit at, no spoon or stick bait shined, we had 9 line running and each line had 1 hit. we ran shallow diving bombers, deep diving storm jrs, for plugs, spoons where yellowtail, Black & rasbarry with a white back, Monkey puke, and green dolphin.. thats the best I can do for information right now guys, I thing the hurracain winds 2 days pryor had them all messed up, plus I'm sure the nets that were place begaining of the week didn't help much//..

It's my opinion snubbers are a wast of time, until we start hitting 25+ pound fish (and more than one or 2 a season) you don't need them. Sharpen your hooks and learn how to set your drags. We run only braid & wire for dipies, our riggs are 9 foot firewolf rods with Okuma magda 30's with 50lb spiderwire stealth and 7 foot Talora roller rods with Okuma CV30d's for wire (30#). we started using snubbers the first year and were very disapointed with the hook up to boat ratio, took the snubbers off, made sure the hooks where sharp, played with the drags a bit, and we have never looked back and more than likely never will. take the money your going to spend on the snubbers and buy a couple good hook files. and learn how to use them.

Got ahold of Brenda monday, Guess the stat in their wisdom desided not to make us pay the extra fee for using their launches

I would have to think that most if not all of us received a letter from a concession/Lease Manager, Mine came out of the Cheboygan office. We us one state launch in the spring so I was more that a little upset when she told me that It was going to cost me $200 a year to use state launches. One of the other charter operators us here just received a letter and his check returned.. I guess the State must have gotten a bit of heat over this one.. Anybody else hear of this program being stopped ?

I like the VMC Hooks for the trebles, short shank 4650, we run these on our fly riggs and meat riggs, If we are going to run a second hook on the rig it is a Owner or Gamakatsu 4/0 or 5/0 octopus, I don't much like the "Beak" style hooks in the treble's because they are a pain to sharpen. All our trebles are sharpened before they go over the side, the Owner and Gamakatsu's are plenty sharp for the way we use them out of the package..

I'll second that Vitalidle, took a drive yesterday: Detour, you'd end up like the titanic, Iceberg in the side, the only thing open in the St.Mary's happens to be from the locks south to the rock cut, (The shipping channel is open) people are still ice fishing in Raber .. That sucks

Tell us what you have for poles,reels,rod holders,ect. might be a bit easier for everyone to point you in a useable direction ..

For the money I don't think you can beat the convectors. We have 2 of the CV30D's filled with 1000 feet of wire and they worked flawlesly last season. Nice big handles, nice drags, they are just a very affordable, comfortable reel for catching Salmon..

You really don't need to spend the extra money for the catalina, the Convector is the same reel, just not set up for the Saltwater world. We are big Okuma fans, we have 1/2 doz of the cheaper DX's work Ok, we've been running those for our Braid dipeys, no complaints yet , and they been running strong for 2 years, the Convectors in my opinion, are hands down better than any of the Daiwas

Snelling about the best wat to go, you will have to bend the eye a bit like mentioned above, and like MAINIAC Said, have a few pre tied on the boat

Been using Purple taco beads for the last few years, very pleased with them, they are a "Extended Glow" Right now Curt only has 10mm glow beads BUT will be adding 6mm and 8mm extended glow early this spring. www.purpletacoflysupply.net great stuff