its an addiction

Yah, stupid wind. Ruined my plans for the long weekend in my 16' boat. I guess it will be the inland lakes this weekend.

I switched from the bulky LJ ones to the DW Ripcords this year, and my dipseys catch has gone up, though I doubt it has a lot to do with the snubber. I like the fact that they are clear.

Thanks guys. I checked out Frank's website too, but his selection of Ace-Hi's wasn't nearly as good as Northwood's. If I want anything remotely related to Salmon fishing I usually have to resort to internet shopping as whatever the stores do have in stock, even Lunker's in Edwardsburg, is very limited to a basic selection. They only carry Luhr Jenson J Plugs and I wanted to get more of the Ace-Hi's.

I guess I will put my order in this afternoon. Seems like they are good people with an honest business. I just wanted to make sure because you never know with ordering off the internet sometimes.

Thanks again for your responses and help.

Fellas,

Northwoods has the best selection of Ace Hi Plugs I've seen online so I was going to order some, just wondering if anyone else has ordered here and if it was quality service. I have never ordered here so any reviews would help satisfy my doubt. Thanks.

Your welcome. I really like the boat too. The exterior sure does look good for an 88. Hope you love it and it gives you many years of good fishing.

I end up doing half my trips by myself and I agree with Killerbe. I also put out one downrigger with a spoon, a dipsey with a flasher fly, and a planer and leadcore out. Leadcore would vary but in the depths you stated I'd go with my full core and adjust from there.

If I catch a fish or two on a downrigger and nothing on my core I tend to pull my leadcore and run two downriggers because realling in a full core with a fish and trying to steer the boat and net at the same time can be a PIA. a downrigger line with 80 to 100feet of line out sure beats reeling in a full core.

I give each bait about 15-20 minutes and start switching out spoons and flasher and flies until I can get something to go.

I also have the HDS5 and have had zero problems with it since spring of last year. This is also my fourth Lowrance sonar with zero issues. Only thing I would change is to get a bigger display than a 5". It works, but bigger would be easier to read.

I have not had the opportunity to see it first hand, but have been trying to follow it closely in the news and on the net. Here is an article from today from the Detroit Free Press. It's the most informative I've read so far. It has video and pictures. The video really shows how fast and high that river is right now. That has got to make it extremely difficult. I really hope they can get it contained like they plan.

http://www.freep.com/article/20100728/NEWS06/7280352/1318/Oil-spill-near-Kalamazoo-River-causes-stench-mess

Thanks guys. It turned out to be such a beautiful day we just couldn't leave.

Cleared the pier heads at New Buffalo at 6am. Waves were 1-2 footers with an occasional bigger one. Ran out to 50ft and set lines on a West troll and went out to 70. Nothing for the first three hours. We heard people in Michigan City were getting some in 40-50 ft. so we headed in on a East troll to check it out. We got one good Coho at about 10:00 am on a braid dipsey on 2 out 70 with 8" DW MD Spindoctor and green fly. Trolled until 11:30 and decided to find some perch.

We drove around for quite a while in our search for perch. We marked a lot of big schools of alewives in 25-30ft of water. At our third stop we thought we finally found the the perch. Then my buddy hooked into a nice steelhead, which was a riot on the perch rod. We had the aqua view and put it down, tons and tons of alewives, so we moved again. We finally found the perch just south of the pier heads around 3:00 after taking a swim break for an hour or so. For the first hour and 3 different spots all we were catching were 5-8 inchers so we kept moving. The next spot was the difference. We proceeded to catch our 2 man limit of perch and finished about 7:00. We caught some real hogs at 13inches. We were getting a bite within 10 seconds of our line in the water every time.

My friend John with a nice perch.

At home with our limit on the fillet table. He wasn't excited to clean all those perch.

After we got our limit of perch we went for a quick swim and decided to troll for a few more steelhead/salmon since the lake was so flat. We started putting stuff down immediately leaving our perch spot. We had 3 lines down and before we even hit 30ft of water we caught a nice coho on the rigger down 20' with a double orange crush. Then we finally got five lines in the water and we caught a nice steelhead on a braid dipsey on 2 out 50' with a 8" DW green double crush glow spindoctor and green fly.

My buddy John and his steelhead.

After landing those two and getting all the lines in the water we were in 35ft of water so decided to head back in and fish right at 30ft. Once we got back to 30ft. on a N troll back towards the harbor the 3 color starts screaming with a superman spoon. Ended up landing a nice King.

Me with the King.

We ended up leaving the lake at 9:30pm with 2 steelhead, 2 coho, 1 king, and 70 perch. It was a long day as we watched the sunrise and the sunset on the lake.

Sounds like a nice boat. That's just what I want when the time is right. Something just doesn't seem right with them refusing a water test. Keep looking and you can probably find the same boat down the road and feel comfortable buying it too.

Congrats Dave. That boat looks like it should do you well.

Don't mean to hijack your thread, but I plan on going out of South Haven for my first time Saturday morning. Gonna troll early am and try for perch in the afternoon.

Where is the closest launch to the lake?

Thanks...

Well, I think I'll try the albright knot out first. Thanks for all your opinion guys. Just wanted to make sure I did things right the first time.

Hey all,

I just ordered an Okuma 55 and 300' of Howie's super copper 45lb. This will be my first copper rig and would like some advice on the knots everyone likes.

What I would like to know is what knots are best for fitting though the Okuma 55L. From my research Okuma had a narrow levelwind guide, but has recently changed to a wider levelwind guide. I ordered it online so I'm not sure if it will come with the newer wider guide.

So, which knots do you all use that have copper on okuma 55's?

Albright, Haywire, Howie's, inline swivel, etc.

I plan to back this reel with 300yds 50lb power pro, with 15ft section mono before the copper for the planer board attachment. Probably 30ft or so of 20lb fluoro leader.

Lastly, what do i need to do if it comes with the narrow guide?

Thanks guys.

Nice work. I do enjoy catching some bulls on a fly rod also.

Yah. I don't think he was trying to single anyone out. He said his concerns were regarding small boat fisherman running on plane. I suppose maybe all he saw that day was small boats doing it, I dont know. It can be frustrating at times being a small boat fisherman on lake michigan. Constantly getting looks like you don't know what you are doing, and getting pushed around by bigger boats all the time.

I didn't intend to cause any hard feelings. Just wanted to clarify that it's not okay for any boat to be running hard in that type of visibility.

So, it was only the small boats that were being irresponsible? I was out there and had some big boats flying by me. I could hear the motor roaring, see a wake, but no boat. I don't believe it was just the small boats out there.

Well, I couldn't find anyone crazy enough to get up at 4:30am to make the trip to St. Joe Saturday morning, so I went solo. I ended up going 7-8 with two shakers released. The rest were 5-7 pounders, mostly coho. It was a new challenge trying to steer a boat, reel in a fish, and net a fish all at the same time. I ended up losing the first one at the net. The rest I fought and played them out longer than usual to get them tired out before I brought them to the net.

All the fish were caught in 80to85 feet of water on a North troll. Two on a full core with a silver streak spoon, purple, not sure of the name. Two on a crush mountain dew spin dr. and siggs rigs apple glow fly. and another on the spoon.

The fog was like nothing I've ever experienced before. Boats were flying out there. I could hear motors roaring, see a wake, but no boat. I kept my air horn handy.

I use about 50' of 20lb cabela's fluorocarbon.

Thanks for the report Todd. I'm planning on heading out there tomorrow.

I had a fishing tripped cancelled last year due to a blown headgasket on my highlander. Its an unforunate occurence, but atleast GM is standing by their product. I also heard GM will be repaying their debt to the government this year, much ahead of the original 5 year plan. They say they have also gained market share in the U.S. Good luck with the repair and I hope they take care of it so it doesn't ruin any future fishin outings.

Congrats Mike. Now go get some Feesh!

Looks nice. Did you catch any fish while you was sitting in the boat dreaming about being on the lake?

That's exactly what I was doing. Dreaming. This bug just won't go away. I hope to get the boat out Saturday. The forecast looks perfect right now. Hopefully it won't change.