Far Beyond Driven

I'm in. Will be in the row boat, posing all kinds of logistical headaches. Still haven't found some one to man the weigh in for me as I need to get Goof to the parade and I don't trust Dave not to upgrade out of my cooler..... I've only got a hand held on the 14', so I may not be able to chime in all the time.

14' / 15 horse two stroke about 0.3 gallons per hour. 215 Four Winns 350 Chevy 4bbl Rochester burns about 12 gallons a trip. Trolling is a big gallon per hour, running is about 3 mpg. I don't care about that, I grew up in an 18' Holiday and had to stop to a crawl when we crossed a boat wake. Dad about crapped himself the first time I cut through one at 40 without backing off the happy go fast lever.

Put up a note with your number, maybe some honest person grabbed it. Lots of repeat customers there, hopefully that person will be back.

Difference a week makes. 11 boats at the channel mouth this weekend unlike being the only one in there last week. Last Saturday fished the pier heads alone and went 13/17, releasing anything under 6# as it was obvious we were going to box out. 10 fish we took home were 106#. Should have kept that one quiet - we were sticking rods in the diver holders and sitting down as the big boats motored off to the horizon. Nothing to see here..... Planned to go out of Holland Monday night but a look at the pier cam showed a couple boats in there, grabbed dinner and went to Saugy instead, started at 7 and fished until dark going 7/10 with 6 nice kings and a nice brown. This morning fished Holland again, grabbed a few nice kings early and then it slowed way down, saw some seagulls working up north in close and went up there and found a school no one else was working. Smaller fish this time, ended up with a shaker, 3 ~8# kings, a couple low double digit kings, 2 browns and 2 coho and let a couple shakers go. All three trips 75% of the fish came on slide divers. Riggers and short cores at the same depths have been all but ignored, even with the same lures. At one point today we had 6 blue dolphins down and the only one getting hit was a Fuzzy Bear on the diver..... Haven't taken the Four Winns out of the barn yet and I've got over 600# of fish this year. What a spring.

Wished we could have made it but I had to stay close to home. We ended up in Holland from 7-11 and fished the same program we would have down there, ended up 13/18 releasing 3 shakers, boxing out with 2 small coho, two nice browns (4 and 6#) and 6 kings - one shaker that was hooked deep, 3 at 8# and a couple in the low double digits. Would have had about 110 points if I did my math correctly.....

You didn't use to fish Lake Huron, did you? Fish Lake Michigan in the bkd era where 2 kings was a good day?

Anyone caught making a fake mayday call should be towed 40 miles out in a row boat and have the tow rope cut.

Maybe, the 215 isn't running yet but I've got the 14'. Just have to see how the forecast pans out.

Holland 0/1, St. Joe 3/4, and Milwaukee 9/12. Already only 2 browns behind my count for last year. Heard a solid report out of Ludington too.

If the wind blows south and pushes the plume north, do you look there? I've always gone south as every one else seems to, but I know last year at the Brown Blast there was a school about 4 miles north on Friday that was about 7 miles north on Saturday.

Understand that the WI guys are fishing deeper water than we usually are, and the fish are a little bigger when they get that far north. That's why you'll see more deep presentations in their methods. Around here some days you can't get too shallow. In the brown blast last year we had 9 coho in the first 15 minutes, and since you were only supposed to keep a three man limit and quit once you had 15 fish, we went up north of the channel and fished right up against the beach, leaving room in the cooler, within the rules, in case we got something bigger. We were still taking (and releasing, to stay within tournament rules - even though the coho we were letting go were bigger than some in our cooler) coho on the beach-most board which was in about 2' of water. We were able to pull one nice king in there, which made us glad about releasing coho to leave room in our box for a bigger fish. Would have hate to had 15 coho and then caught that king, as it would have been against the rules to keep it being our 16th fish.

Tried posting pics, fail

New Buffalo is never busy. St. Joe - launch at the St. Joe launch and not the Benton Harbor DNR launch - it gets 10% of the traffic. South Haven was never busy last year too. As for So Ha, it's rare that the coho are up that far north that early, but who knows this year. I've gotten out three times on the big pond already this year.

Last spring I had the last week in March off and went to South Haven every day it was calm enough to fish my 14'. We took 84 coho, 2 browns, and a steelie. I ran two mono flat lines right next to the boat, and 2 yellow birds per side. Mostly crank baits and stick baits, mostly orange and gold. If they are there and the water isn't muddy, you can catch them like crazy. Coho don't get to be 9# in 18 months by acting like walleyes. PM me when your trip gets closer if you want info.

Why don't the people throwing insults post a couple reports?

No need to slow down, no need to load up. Put one on your deepest rigger, maybe a chrome one on a wire diver, and see what happens. Don't drink the kool-aid of those that live and die by meat. There's some people that only run it, and I would hate to be a one trick pony. That said, it does work. Then again, I'm still trying to figure out why I need to slow down when pulling dodgers. We had days last year where the high riggers and core were taking kings and steel, and we were popping lakers on the bottom with dodgers, running 2.7 on the GPS with no current to speak of.

I'm not desperate, or avid. I just don't let obstacles get in my way - you get better stories that way. My eight year old has to write journals at school every week, and at conferences the teacher complimented her imagination. I asked to read the stories, and laughed, telling the teacher it was all true and she even left out some of the better details. That said, as for the fishing, we launched at River Front (?) and set up in the river. Didn't mark any thing in there. After a few laps we went into the harbor and fished south of the river, marked some fish (way points) and went to the car ferry dock, did a few laps in there and lost two fish. Finally guessing the waves may be pushing the bait (never marked any - fish all empty) against the walls, we trolled across to the south gap and then up the break wall to the main gap. Marked a few in there and took a couple near the main gap, but it was evil with 2' chop from both sides with it bouncing off the wall. Went back to where we marked the fish, about 1/4 mile out NW from the river mouth, and just pounded the bottom 3' of water in there. Anything higher than that would not get a sniff, even though we were marking fish high on occasion. At the end we had two doubles, but then my wife and kids showed up, which was fine, as a hot tub and dinner were sounding good.

Cleaned several 2-3# browns with 6" gobies in them. They looked like snakes that just ate a rat, but were obviously still looking for more.

Lots of clowns on that website. I will say in doing my research, for the few people that helped me, I got many more messages telling me to stay home. I buy over a million in tooling out of Milwaukee a year and get told to pound sand - that's funny.

Still looking for this? I bought a triple for the rod holders and still have the base left over.

Wisconsin hates me. Last time we came here (2005) it was snowing like an SOB until we got to Chicago, and then it plummeted to 12 degrees with a 30 mph north wind. Hmm. This morning it was snowing like a SOB, took 2.5 hours to drive out of it, and then the wind whipped up from the NW to 25 mph. At least our research showed us where to fish in the harbor. Of course, the bait was not there and we didn't mark crap, but we did have one good hook up and drag scream before we lost that fish. That hurt - wanted to see it. Ended up in the main gap getting the snot beat out of us with chop from both sides, but the bait and fish were in there. Picked away at a few until that was too much, then went back to where we marked some fish earlier but it was much nicer. Well not nicer, but less not fun. They were still there, just took a while to crack it, but before the wife showed up from the children's museum with the kids and honked the horn at us, we went 5/6 in the last hour, losing another big one that ripped the wire out of the plug. The key was slow grind at 1.8 or so (took all but one fish rolling into the chop) with the baits literally pounding the bottom. This isn't sand bar trolling..... Tally was 9/13 with 7 in the cooler and two let go as not to be greedy. Cross the one off the bucket list. I think Glen Arbor is next.

Willy's Worm on a rigger in the prop wash. My WW's were at home, and the coho didn't want anything to do with a Wiggle Wart down the chute and two divers parked right off the sides.

Heard a horror story of one that leaked through the shaft seals, turns out the engine mounts were all messed up where they were bolted into the stringers allowing the drives to shift. Other than that, all the ones I've been on have been really great boats. I was not too happy about the lack of freeboard and had to watch my kids all the time. My Four Winns has 35" and with a rigger board you'd have to be special to fall out of that boat.

14' Sea Nymph, keel guard so I just run it up on the slab. Forgot that ramps get icy when rigs pull out - that first step wasn't cool.....

Had a rare day off from church, actually my first in over three years. Went to the blue water chapel at St. Joe except the water wasn't blue and it was cold. Sister boat ended up 6/6 with 5 coho and a small king. All we could manage was one 11" coho had we not been looking at the board when it hit - probably would have missed it as it was barely hooked. Skipped past the launch and trolled a flat I know, ended up making one short pass and got an 8# hen steelie, a 9# hen laker, and lost a smaller steelie. So after four hours on the lake in the cold we get in the shelter of the river and hook up three fish in 20 minutes. Weird. Fun day to be on the lake. Not every winter you can get out "twice" in February - I've had Augusts where I haven't been able to get out twice.