xpndbl3

we caught a king on december 28th out of milwaukee while fishing for browns on a meat rig. Then in late february we catch cohos and kings on meat while using a single head 30" back from a trash can dodger

wouldn't use michigan city area launches at all, bunch of posts on another board of guys getting stuck in bigger boats than 18 foot. Maybe make the run from new buffalo,mi or portage, in.

We run 10 # round and fish out of portage a lot. Especially when the skamania are in.

We run charter specials on all our rigger rods, or spring coho planer rods. Also two color rods are ran on them. Dipsey reels are the diawa saltist line counters with the high ratio retrieve and our 5 color, 7, and 10 colors are all on the saltist reels without line counters. Very happy with the setup now.

He was asking about portage, Indiana and we've been out there several times and to go for 1 fish a trip instead of at least 10 hits is slow. Hoping all this south wind will help clean up the lake some for fishing right above that reef.

water is stupid stupid dirty on the south end, don't expect to get into any fish for 2 weeks probably. Assuming we don't get "another" big north wind storm and it'll dirty it up further.

Excellent perch fishing will be starting up shortly out of indiana waters, if you're venturing this far into "south" lake michigan.

we might run up from chicago for this

Is there a minimum post count or time I need to be on the forum before I can post up a for sale item? I searched around but didn't find anything about it in the FAQ section

link for tunas stuff?

We just picked up a few pair of these, can't wait to try them out in the spring. The city chicken meat rig did really well for us last year, so hopefully this will be another area of improvement. Still haven't limited out yet with a 2 or 3 man limit on the south end of the lake, so we're hopeful this will be the year

we just run the mounts angled and use rod holders that can swivel and lock in whatever direction you want. Simple and no issues with worrying about the welds failing if you cut the mounts apart and rewelded

I love our mako boat and it's cheaper than the sea swirls to boot. Have been in their 21' dual console and enjoyed the ride, make sure to get close to max hp as you can in any of these boats or it'll be a slow ride out.

thanks guys, guess I'll try for some smallies out there. ALLEYES when you say they are trolling right out in front of the river, what are they trolling for? walleyes or for staging salmon?

I'll be headed up to traverse city, MI next week for 5 days and was wondering if there is any fishing to be done in either the west or east Grand Traverse Bays. I'll be leaving the bulk of my salmon gear at home since I'll be mostly staying at long lake a few miles south of the bay for some bass, walleye, and muskie/northern fishing but since I'll have our center console was debating hitting the bay up as well. Last year I inquired through local tackle shops for fishing around november as that's when I was up there and was told nothing but whitefish. Now that it's earlier in the season, anyone local know if there's fish to be caught and a general idea on what bay and where?

thanks in advance.

http://shop.bigweeniebrand.com/category.sc?categoryId=48

here's the site for one of the meat rig companies I use. For just the flasher with single meat head on it with no teasers, I'd say they're 30" back off the dodger. For the larger flashers with 3 fly teasers on there, I've never measured but whatever the company includes, it is rather long, maybe 40-48" ? I know with a 5-6 foot leader and the big flasher/3 teaser fly rig we have to walk towards the bow with our 9'6" dipsey rods to net a fish.

Here's a pic of one of the 3 fly teasers with the large flasher

Found a pic off another site with the city chicken rig, they stated 24" in the early spring and 30" by fall for running them.

I don't run slower than 2.2 usually, max speed is usually 2.8-3.0 depending on waves/currents. This is all off our GPS, don't have speed at the ball, but I can base it off how far back the rigger cables are angled typically.

I run the big flashers 12"+ on my dipsies only with a 6 foot leader. I run the smaller city chicken type setups on riggers usually around 20' back off the rigger. This is the trash can colored dodger with a single meat head no teasers.

Welcome, how's the brown fishing been up that way? Seen the kenosha harbor browns are looking great still shallow. Not much going on at the extreme south end of the lake for us though

Thanks guys, looking to run up to traverse city, MI again sometime in august, hope to do some ludington/manistee fishing if I get a chance as well. From what I've read online the grand traverse bays don't hold any salmon only whitefish that late in the season so it'll be a bit of a drive to get into them.

used to be a store up there on the river called pikes outfitters or something similar, I "believe" they went out of business. Excellent harbor fishing almost year round for browns and other salmon, I don't do much of the fly fishing but I do know guys around there do fish the streams in the fall for a few weeks. best place to ask more about it would be:

chitown-angler.com there are a few guys from the kenosha region who could point you in the right direction

Actually out the 18 miles from the harbor required to get to only 90 foot of water it was calm as could be. On the trip back in, the winds switched and really picked up, took us over an hour to make it the last few miles because there was solid 4-6 footers out there.

Got a nice 16 pound 3 ounce king over memorial weekend, finally got the pics back

Steve, I was working with a dealer up in Two Rivers that had a canvas guy and claimed he could do alot with enclosures. If you want to pursue it let me know and I'll try to find out the guy's name.

Well I have found local places to get something done up, but didn't realize it would be over a thousand without making a complicated enclosure. For now I'm still debating keeping our bimini top or buying the $2k t-top and then tossing another $1k onto that to get some sort of clear enclosure.

Sure adds up quickly.

I run a mako in that size and love it, the early spring wave splashes ARE cold, still haven't figured out an enclosure off a bimini top or t-top to run to stop that, but the rest of the year I love all the space it gives you from a similar sized boat with dual consoles. Very easy to be fighting a fish and head to the bow to get the net in the back. We run the max HP on ours which is a 150 optimax. GREAT on fuel compared to the bigger boats when money is tight.