Far Beyond Driven

Buddy and I split up in the morning, he went to the Todd Farm and got a drake mallard and a green winged teal. I took my old 20 pump and walked a spring fed creek that's been a gold mine if it's cold and again it didn't fail, blowing an opportunity for a triple needing two shots to anchor the first drake and then making sweet long shot to double up.

We teamed up and hunted some "open" water that only required breaking about 300 yards of ice to get out through, then set out a spread of 2 dozen hand carved divers and drove the boat up on the ice. Missed a couple mergs and then I made the 4th true double of my life, taking two drake commons out of a passing flock with one crack. We tagged a sweet drake goldeneye, and then buddy got another.

Ended up with a nice pile of drakes: 3 mallards, a GWT, 2 GE, and two common mergs.

Hope to get back out Tuesday....

2/3 out of Holland 12-8 am, nice laker and a small brown, both released. Missed something big on a rigger.

3/4 out of Port Sheldon 12-15am, 10.5# laker and 5# steelie released, 9# steelie got invited to dinner with the crew. Lost a huge rip on a thin fish.

Gotta stop losing the big hits.....

1 Mag diver and #3 MOP J plug, pulling lines and it just popped 25' out.

Three mag moonshine bloody noses. I don't think I'm supposed to own that one.

One mag mongolian beef when a king hit the full core and ran right over the fish on that rod.

All four planer boards when a speed boat ran me over 300 yards south of the pier. We picked up three and let him keep the one that was wrapped up in his out drive causing him to go dead in the water. We then put down three riggers and two divers and boxed the remaining 14 fish to limit out while trolling circles around him, dipping the net for the last time when he finally got a tow. The marina called me the next day with the last board after they cut it off his prop. Oddly, they would not give me a name.

One thunderstick in the channel. We had a king in the net with a thunderstick in its mouth and it flopped out of the net, took off and broke the line. How the hell did he do that? Usually a thunderstick in a net is a 10 minute removal.

Two J-11 rapalas in one trip, and never saw either rod move.

River time is coming up, so my supply of gold hot and tots will be going down....

It's better to not push a big motor and have the power in reserve than to be pushing a smaller motor hard all the time.

I've got a 215 Four Winns, 1987 (square transom with lot of room in the back and no molded in swim platform crap like the 90's and later hulls) and we test drove this hull with 4.3L, 300, and the 350. I ended up with a 350, as we had her full of people on the test drive and it just popped right up on plane and took off.

The Four Winns is a great family boat, but you won't find one with an outboard. If you want to extend your season, don't go IO. As for having a dog box to work around, well, I have one finger that doesn't work very well, but after a while you just know it's there and work around it and it's not an issue any longer.

I grew up in a tin boat and went straight to fiberglass. However, than tin boat is on motor #4 and still gets out after 41 years of chasing salmon.....

What's back trolling?

Ford mortgaged themselves to within an inch of their life. Chrysler has paid off 8.7 billion of the 9 billion borrowed, with interest.

Would it have been better to allow the industry to crash and only have furrin' cars over here?

Alright, I'm off to hop in my Ford Escort that has a Japanese designed motor in it and was assembled in Mexico, but it says "Ford" on it......

Pretty pile of birds. Our opener: 1 drake woody. 2 dozen decoys and a wood duck call doesn't mean crap if you're 50 yards off the X.....

Glad to see someone's getting out, I've driven close to 5000 miles this month absolutely none of it hunting related and have shot at a total of 5 birds this season getting a wood duck and two geese.

Good news was one goose was from St. James Bay Ontario; I know this due to the little bracelet she was wearing.

Fished for an hour today north of Holland before the wife and I got chased off by rain / lack of rain gear / need to pee (note, if your wife needs to go, don't flaunt the fact that you can pee over the stern) / desire to eat warm food. Pulled one nice steelie in 6' just south of Tunnel Park. Still a little warm in tight for steelies, but wife didn't seem to mind stopping putting on toe nail polish to reel in the fish.

I have fished 6-8' waves in my 14'. No kidding. Big dying rollers that were on about a 12-15 second period, fish were in close and I had a buddy boat next to me. Well, we saw each other about every 5 minutes when we both would crest a wave. Ran in WOT as I could surf right down the waves back into port.

I've quit fishing in 2-3' chop in my 4500# / 260 Hp Four Winns. It was pounding from all directions and getting any kind of a troll was all but impossible.

Recall that sometimes the waves do weird things around the channel and it can be much calmer just outside of the piers than it is between the arms.

Good news is I was there Thursday and there were plenty of coho still in the pens. The crew was not too concerned about getting the eggs needed.

Still, these doosh-bags need to be thrown in the hoppers with the dead coho.....

I would go to where 55-50 degree water hits the bottom and pound that hard for lakers and a couple kings that have not ran yet. If that fails, then I would drop in 120' or so and cut out NW or SW depending on waves and currents and run a mix of spinnies and spoons from the cold water on down looking for lakers and immatures.

In a couple weeks I would just bomb the top 60' at 3.5+ mph with steelie gear way out there, but it's a bit early for that around here.

Was the only one in the channel yesterday afternoon, same guy comes into the channel pulling his same two divers set on 7 or whatever the hell he sets them on that makes them go way to the side.

I looked over at him, stood up and announced "stay the hell away from me".

He did, which was funny as in the 30 mph wind we were both trolling sideways more than forward.....

Put $1000 into mine 3 years ago, $1700 last year. Years in between I piled up the hours without an issue. This year first trip out bilge fills with oil. Front main seal is going, so I had to keep the hours off of her and limp it through the season. And yes, the water leak I spent $1700 chasing down was back after three trips.

However, I hosted people from Wisconsin, Missouri, Kansas, and New York on my limited trips this year, and fished one tournament taking third out of 60 boats. Three newbies caught their first salmon, and as the engine's coming out any way, I bummed my dad's 21" prop for a while and on a flat calm night I ran down and passed two go fast boats that were racing down the coast, with my net up and rods in the holders. Not supposed to run a 26 year old V8 that hard, but she didn't miss a beat, just a little oil.

So really, when she's good, she's oh so good, so I stick with her when she's naughty.....

Fished the channel yesterday afternoon for two hours with my daughter. Only other boat in there was a guy I've tangled with twice before, but he gave me room this time.

Made 3 laps up and down before the wind went from 10 to 30 and pushed heavy 4' in between the arms, making turning around all the more interesting in a 14', considering we had a fish on two of the three times were turned.

Fished two one color lead cores (not copper!) off the stern and a pair of yellow birds, all with plugs - no pattern, all got hit. Ended up 2/5, losing one unseen, one off the stern, one to an awful self net job. The two we landed were both netted by my daughter, who also saw two of the hits before I did.

Kind of crazy in a row boat with a kid, but probably one of the best memories from the season.

Unlike Dave Ash I can effectively target fish in 20-70' of water with my long lines.

Inside joke, Dave was on a copper bender this year and the fish moved up into 60 FOW and he freaked out as his coppers ran deeper than that.....

Talked to my minister this afternoon, we talked yesterday and he took his row boat out in the channel and flatlined two hot and tots. Ended up 2/3, with a 37" king on a spinning rod and 8# test. He's got it in the freezer, I need to see it and weigh it as I haven't broken 18# this year......

268 fish this year, with 9 of them coming on my two copper rigs (225' 45# and 300' 45#)

I've had two trips this year where I've taken over 9 fish on one trip on my cores. If I were to get rid of two of the 23 rods I carry on the boat, they would be the copper rigs.

Uh first come first serve. If that spot's open, I'm taking it. End of story, not open for discussion.

I had a guy make a comment about my daughter holding the boat at the launch and what if anything happened (well, it was her holding it or nothing, and it was tied to the dock and wasn't going any where). She then hopped in the boat, lowered the IO, fired it up, shut off the blower, and backed it off the dock. Kind of shut him up.....

It is what it is, but then, I think I-696 at 7 in the morning is fun too.

I got hit last week when a guy cut behind me, tangled lines, and then pulled up next to me up wind and didn't pay attention to wait for me to untangle his gear. Irony is two days later he cut behind me in my other boat and got my slide diver which was 50# spider wire. So this time I kept his stuff, hoping maybe he'd learn. He didn't, my buddy got his other diver an hour later when he cut behind them.....

Lots of time the harbor fish get easier after the boat traffic thins out a little. Or if you can find any stained plume water to work after the sun comes up.

Took the fam out on the row boat tonight to goof around on the beach as the water was warm. Brought a couple rods and set them about 1/2 mile south of the channel in 25' at dusk. By the time we got to the pier we were 3/3 with 12 and 16# kings and a small sheepie, all on plugs off boards flat lined or 1 color lead.

Fun to watch my wife throw down on kings again, her first this year sadly, but the 16# took her for a ride.

Guy ran 25 mph all the way up to the channel this morning, towing a tube, right past the coast guard and sheriff at their dock not doing their job - all three boats tied up at noon on Labor Day? 100 boats all going 5 mph and you have to weave through them, there's your sign......

Wednesday night 2/4 both coho.

Saturday AM 2/5 coho and a king.

This morning took the row boat as I figured at 2 fish it wasn't worth $60 in gas.

8/10 with 2 coho and 6 kings, lost a king at the stern and broke off something big.

All trips more or less fished south troll in 70', not sure why today was better than the others. Plugs noticeably better than anything else with mag moonshines a distant second.

Best part was had a newbie with today and he loved it, and we burned 2.21 gallons of gas to put 81# of fish in the boat.....

It counts.

We caught a stringer with two bass on it last year in 40'. +2 on the total.....