Far Beyond Driven

What I'm saying is my parents are comfortably retired. An afternoon on the river especially with a grand daughter or two means a hell of a lot more then a gift card.

Things come and go but experiences and memories last a lifetime. Thus once a month we go on a family adventure and for Christmas they get tickets to concerts, Craig's cruisers, laser tag....

Nice job. Probably going to get some ice at the launch this week.

Kept thinking maybe he had a kid curled up on the floor but when he quit trolling and jigged we were able to get close enough to see he was solo.

I got called in one time for too many rods with my girl on the floor hiding from the wind, so I try to give the benefit of the doubt. But poachers are just poachers, no other way around it.

Fishingd ps from 2-5 this afternoon. Set lines in the channel and took an 8# pike in there. Then we rattled off three quick small Brown's before hooking five steelies out by the bubbles. Broke one off and lost another in a tangle, but let a small one go and kept two nice ones.

Thin fish were better than rapalas which were better than mini streaks, but all got hit. Trolling fast was key.

Note to the others out there at dark: nav lights are a good idea. And to the maroon Lund with bird trees, why four rods? If you're going to cheat, why only one too many? Run six or eight or better yet follow the law.

After much decoy carrying and little sleep on previous hunts, I walked a spring fed creek this afternoon. Stink with mallards. Shot at four drakes and came home with four drakes, although one took many hits and three flushes to anchor. The other three were all cleanly folded with the little 20 pump.

Won a beer off a coworker who hails from Wisconsin. Funny how her trash talking texts ran out in the second half.

Took my niece's husband, from Minnesota, out this afternoon. Of course he didn't bring cold weather gear. Never mind he's never caught anything bigger than a 20" pike and not familiar with trolling and reading rods.

First rod set clipping on the board and it got hit on free spool. That was a mess. Got that one, set up the spread and fired a double. Lost a fish, broke off on a snag, and then rattled off three more. Sun went away and he was getting cold, so we made one more pass.

Lure we lost popped up and floated to us, and we hooked our biggest steel of the day, losing it at the boat while taking pictures.

Not being greedy we kept one for the smoker and let the rest go, most just on the boga long enough for a picture. Ten pound steelies without a net are fun.

Kalamazoo, grand, black, Joe, pentwater, and a couple so tiny that I won't even park near them. Fished the 'zoo for a big hour Saturday afternoon before my youngest, well my formerly youngest daughter timed out and hooked three.

Been hitting the Todd farm steady for the last two weeks, some draw hunts, some walk in hunts at night. Nothing hot and heavy, but steady shooting at working birds if you let them work and your neighbors don't skybust. One day a group down from me rattled off all 60 shells with three dead geese and one glider to show for it, with no shots under 50 yards.

I've pulled up on eight and walked out with six of them, all but two taken with a twenty pump and 2 steel.

8-20'. Expect to catch anything, direction not important. Make sure some spoons are orange.

If you want to be alone during harbor patrol just troll the shoreline in 10-20' with lots of long leads. Not as effective, but not as nerve racking.

Meijers had spinnies on clearance, think they had some chrome. Still bites....

I do the same but take the big hose from the water pump to the thermostat loose and pour coolant into thatt until it comes out the hub. This may be what you did. Takes a little more than a gallon to work through.

-2 for lake Michigan. Killed a pair of those bastards in the last month and saw more fresh wounds this year than in a long time.

Wife and I hiked sleeping bear last October and loved it. I'll be taking the kids whether it's shut down or not in a few weeks. I'm still paying my taxes....

Skipped my first northern opener in 21 years. At the last minute the crew came over and we threw the gear in the boat. They got the pleasure of sitting through a hell of a storm at hours, which rehydrated the dried Salmon slime on the carpet. Ended up with a couple mallards and a couple misses. No local geese on the deck willing to play just migrants.

Nice job getting it done with the old dog.

Good question. However, grandpa caught 100% of his fish on riggers and dad about 100% as it was all riggers back then. Lures 5' off the ball, the water was green, and the first light bite not as big of a deal.

I do know that locos, Sonics, and chargers work much the same as dreamweavers and stingers. A white cupped yellow blade green tape magnum nailer off cowbells is still laker candy...

East wind chop is nasty tight stuff as well. I washed my bow lights trolling into 3' east chop whereas usually the four winns laughs at threes.

Once a year I take grandpa's tackle box out and run the gear from the 70's. Still works.

My comment was tongue in cheek. Tim nailed it, kings just eat. I laughed when I heard a biologist say they had a really good year class of four year old walleye that were now legal as they were 15-17". That is why walleye fishing sucks.

I was at the Platte hatchery last fall and they were only taking the mature coho. The two year old jacks (one summer in the lake, coho get planted at eighteen months) were dispatched and tossed in a bin. Not sure they follow the same policy with kings.

I think we're missing out as in the fish that make it to the weirs are the ones that did not hit lures. Are they making salmon less likely to bite by breeding these fish?

Good info. Any one else notice the runs are earlier and earlier? A couple years ago we caught a nice cooler of matures in the channel on August 26. When I was a wee lad we fished kings in the harbor in late September and it was snowing when the coho ran.

And a pile of one year olds that run too. We had a six pound one year old hen once. Imagine if she had a couple more years of good bait to feed on.

Last stats I saw on the grand river were low single digits on four year old and one year old spawners, and the balance split evenly on twos and threes.

One buried an accurate 25# scale, two around 21#, and a pile of 19.x pounders I could not round up.

Granted I caught more kings in May than the rest of the summer did not help. An 18# we took in April was our biggest fish until late August.

Thought about making the run, lake was calm, but did not have the right gear for it. Besides, how early it gets dark I would have to dial it in quickly....