Far Beyond Driven

Kevin E.

36

Holland, give or take 100 miles

Caught my first salmon in 1979, was taking out dad's Holiday as soon as I got my license (learner's permit in my family meant you learned how to back the boat in at noon on Saturday) and bought my first boat with a student loan in 1995.

Boats:

14' Sea Nymph

215 Four Winns Sundowner

14' Rouge River canoe

13' 1956 Chris Craft Baracuda.

All above have been used to catch salmon.

I'm pretty much the first boat out of Holland (3-13 last year) and the last boat to leave (12-4). I can fish about any program anywhere but really love throwing down in the harbor or fishing the skinny water. Also troll the rivers as all winter weather permitting, and sometimes not.

Wife sometimes fishes with me, 7 year old daughter is a tear, 4 year old loves to ice fish but will only fish on the boat with the cabin. Amazing how many of life's lessons have been learned by the kids while on the water.

Andrea was asking about it. Her stuffed cat is still wearing his admission band from last year.

Thanks for trying.

I would start farther south. More coho in the mix and they'll be there as soon as the ice is out.

We went 4/4 on 3-13 last year, 9/11 on 3-27, and 20/28 on the first weekend in April. All coho but two browns and two steelies.

Not enough to stop a Grand Cherokee. It's amazing what you can drive through with low range and apathy.

400 employees at this plant, I was # 26 to show up. Every one's working Saturday now, not me.

My home river gets about 14k steelies a year, which is nothing compared the the bigger and better known streams.

But oddly, the little feeder creeks that flow into it are always full of rainbows, and they don't get planted, so even down here there's a pile of natural fish.

I've only have one buggered up dorsal fin on steelies this year, and no clippers.

Fish move all over the place. We caught three clipped browns this spring; all 2-3# fish, and MI didn't clip any of last year's brown plant.

It's been a while since MI clipped steelies. Best way to tell a hatchery fish is to see if the dorsal fin is pristine or buggered up.

I know someone that runs 30# on every thing and catches more fish than he needs to.

Harbor fishing sucked this year. My only two skunks were in between the piers, and that's over 34 trips from 3-13 to 12-4.....

I won a 225 copper reel this year at the B4K that had 125 yards of backing. So I ran it down the chute in the way of everything as I didn't want to eat up some of that backing putting it out on a board.

I had three fish on it this year, two assumed kings and one steelie. Every last one spooled me. Lost each fish as I ended up with the drags buried playing tug of war with two wraps of line left on the spool.

20# Big Game for spoons, 30# for flashers. I would like to see someone try to stop a mature king in a harbor where you can spit in the boat next to you on 12#.

It's not that I don't baby fish, I run 8# leaders for browns and steelies in the rivers.

Thought about heading out, didn't think the 14' could break the ice on Lake Mac seeing as there were guys walking on it......

State Farm put a rear clip on my wife's Expedition last fall to the tune of $7k, this fall I put a doe through the front end of the Jeep the weekend before heading on vacation and had the thing back better than it was the following Thursday. Love State Farm and Car Star.....

I've got a 14' (granted it's .100 thick, 74" beam, 20" transom and rated for 40 horses) with a 15 horse. A 25 was only $300 more when I bought it, this is one of my few regrets in life.

Going 12 with 2 adults in calm water sucks. Going 9 in water I can cover in my Four Winns at 40 gets old.....

I'm looking for a couple Dreamweaver little devils in the "Alphonse" color.

Dull brass cup, orange front with a silver slash across it. Ugly little buggers.

Thanks.

You can add two lakers, a steelie, and a king to those numbers. Wild at Heart was kind enough to join me this morning out of Holland, and after nothing on the beach his idea to work out a little deeper paid off. One color core with a silver / black flutter spoon was kind to us, firing three times in half an hour.

I'd blame the guests.

Although we had a 10 for 17 this year with an old time fishing buddy who is really good on the stick. Lots of small kings on core, lots of triples with just the two of us in the boat.

Never lost a fish in a tournament this year; missed two. But then, we had some pretty small tournament boxes.

The last year we had great brown fishing, the spring thereafter was brutal. That said, I'm stocking up on 1 color rigs.

Finally crunched my totals, although I bet I'll still get a few more trips in this year.

Started 3/13/10 Saugatuck, last trip 11/20/10 Saugatuck.

9 steel

5 lakers

49 kings (18.2)

38 browns (10.34)

30 coho (all but 4 in St. Joe or New Buffalo)

2 white bass

1 sheepie

1 walleye

7 alewife

33 trips, 3 skunks. All in September oddly enough, one in round 5 of the WMFL trying to fish in 6's with an occasional 8 on a SE wind in 275' of water, two in the channel at Holland hoping the fish were running.

79% hit to landing ratio. Both boats ran great all year long, due to the WMFL I got to remember how bad of weather a Four Winns can absolutely not care a bit about. I remember my friend telling me when I got her that "don't buy her to fish in that, buy her to bring your @$$ home when it turns into that". First year the 215 took more fish than the 14', but by the end of river fishing that will even out and the 14' will be back in the lead.

Best year for browns to date. Hope that fishery holds up next year.

Not even worried about the river yet. Once the lake freezes, then I can fish the rivers.

4/4 out of Saugy. Fished in 15-20' as the waves were breaking in about 12' on the third sand bar.

Rogue off a board, 12# laker

Craig's Christmas Stinger on a rigger, 7# laker

Thin fish off a board, 5# laker

Flutter devle on a one color, little insanely fat coho. Thought he was a white bass.

Threw them all back.

We kept pushing the happy go fast stick forward and still kept hitting lakers. I caught two all year and then three in two hours?

I like the idea of being able to throw an event or two. We fished water I was not really thrilled about in the WMFL as I felt we had to fish.

Late season is when it takes more than 30 minutes of shoveling and salt to break open a launch.

Launched at 1:30, put her on the trailer at 4:30, went 2/4 south of Holland in ~ 15'. Lost two nice steelies, got a 14" coho and a 3# brown. Orange spoons, orange sticks, trolling fast.

Started out calm but was pushing 3-4's when we quit, 38 degrees, 20 mph winds, and occasional snow. Lots of snow over the lake. And it can stay out there.

There was nothing special about the water out there. 65 on top and 65 50' down. But all our fish were within 200 yards of each other on a NW troll; just took a while to sort that out.

115' ?

Pounded the @#$%@#$ out of the bottom in 115' last night, could not raise a laker. Lots of bait in the temp break still 80' down, some hooks. Took a nice eater king on a mixed veggies little devil 300' 45# copper down the chute.

Thought my laker program was solid but I'm beginning to wonder.....

Get a spray cover if you go bow rider. Can't recall how many times we had to jump on the seats in my buddy's bow rider when she'd scoop a wave and we'd find 4" of water rolling across the floor.

He had two monster bilge pumps in that boat.

It caught fish though.

Took my 7 year old out in the channel again. Only seem to be able to hook up in there this year if she's along.

First pass she got her first small mouth. So we had to do the fishy hand shake to celebrate that.

Next pass we hooked the bottom. It fought hard but in the end it got loose.

Next pass I got pushed up into the rocks by the only other boat in there, and hung up a planer board. Nope, not hung up at all, pissed off 14# hen king that at the last minute went under the boat and got both divers. Nice show for the people on the piers. Ended up not wanting to clean one fish so we gave it to some guys on the south pier to add to the one they had strung up.

Grabbed ice cream on the way home and had a nice talk about good days and bad days. Yesterday was a good day.