Far Beyond Driven

My dad took me, now I take my girls. Great to see kids out there.

Wow. Got Andrea home from her birthday party at 11 and the alarm went off at 3:30. Kid got up before me. She took a nap on the way to the launch and did great getting on board, and the boat fired, which is always a plus when I fish the WMFL. We motored out to 80' in no fog really but it closed in really fast at about 4:58. My non-boating coworker third crew member did a great job driving a straight line so I could set up. Got all the lines in and trolled like drunken sailors as until 6 we had no point of reference. 6:15 rigger fires, coworker grabs it and reels like mad. Just when he says it's gone, the rod slams down and a king goes nuts in the prop wash. After some tense moments we netted a nice 8.5# king. And then we trolled out as far as 160' without another bump. Finally at 8:30 we called BS on this and pulled them to go to plan B. As we were down to one line in the water a fish swam by just under the surface towing a glow spinny. Ran, well in the fog it was more like a jog, to Holland. Just south of Holland the water was gin clear, so we pulled up and ran farther and found some nice green water on the beach. Put out a brown program. Soon caught an alewife. Trolled way too long and had pretty much given up hope when a one color fired and we landed a sweet 5# buck brown. Cool. Kept chugging down the beach and was changing over a line when I heard a splash. Outer board on the other side is headed back to Port Sheldon. 4# brown. About half an hour later at 11:20 we doubled with a white bass and another brown. Brown snagged on the swim platform, I got him in the net, line broke, and in lifting him over the helm the lure pulled out and went flying somewhere, fish fell out of the net and landed on the floor. That was close. Our math said 84 points or so by eye, and we felt good about that, but knew there was some steel around out deep at 15 points and a high likelihood of fin clips could cause an issue. We made a half hearted attempt to sort out the big hooks on the bottom in 30-40' but gave up on that and banged a "goto" for Port Sheldon - 17.7 miles. In the fog. So we pulled them at 11:45 and got her just up on plane and then were so ultra paranoid that I still have a head ache. Only thing we saw that freaked us out was a big log in 25' about 3 miles south of Port Sheldon. The 20 points for browns turned out to be a very good call. Even with 4 weigh fish, the box could not be challenged.

Slow slow slow today. Not many five fish boxes in the WMFL and most of the boats I talked to in the Steelheader's tournament weren't going to have their 12. We only got one out deep before we gave up.

No, quote some time ago. At the VFW when Willis gave a presentation - ~ 5 years or so. I go to a lot of GH meetings and have talked at SH and both are great. Sure Holland would be too if I tried again, but with long hours and little ones running around it's hard enough to get water time not to mention another night away from home.

"the boat did not explode or sink" Any trip I make it to dock under my own power is pretty good. And then the trailer makes it home without smoking is pretty good too. Thanks for the report.

Last Steelheader's meeting I went to in Holland I got there plenty early and then as the table filled up I was told I was in "someone's" seat. I told them to pound sand and they removed me from the seat and took it. It will be a cold day in @#$@# before I do anything with the Holland Steelheaders. Granted 95% + of the guys are probably great people, but no thanks.

I hate having sick kids or a sick boat. Hope it's nothing big....

Where did all these boats come from? Sure weren't out there in March! With my 6 year old daughter in the crew we left late and set up well inside the pack. Dropped the first line at 7:20 and had the first hook up at 7:22 on a wire diver. Fished ran out to 250' and the wire undrecut (I had the drag replaced this year and the spool loosened up) and the reel locked up. 11# kings are fun in cold water with a locked reel. Finally just jammed it back in the holder to wait for it to break or rip off, and kept setting lines. About 10 minutes and a couple rods later it was spinning, so I locked down the drag and reeled it in. After that we never had a full spread in until 9am. Slowed down and we turned back to port, had a few more flurries, and packed her up on plane at 11am to get to work. We ended up 10/16 with 6 kings (11-2#) and two eater coho in the box, two little guys released. Never saw 100' and never had to turn for another boat. Wire diver mountain dew spinny 1/1 Slide diver mexed veggie nailer 3/6 2 color stinger goldilocks nothing 5 color batman J nothing 7 color mod caramel dolphin DW 2/2 Full core DW green dolphin 2/2 Rigger 40' down orange stuff nothing Rigger 50' down DW coyote and blue dolphin 2/3 SWR 70' down NK mag die hard 2/2 If I was really working it harder I would have pulled the wire and put another slide out, and pulled the short cores and put out more long stuff, but we were being lazy. Daughter didn't farm a fish and had a couple good net jobs even though she can't hoist them over the stern yet. Dad lost plenty. So she's good to go for the WMFL next weekend - probably put her on the stick instead of me.

I hope to be out of Holland but will have to fish on my own timeline. Radio will be on until the mindless banter gets too much then I flip it to 16.

We went north. One ugly fall back steelie that was all head and fins in 15' up near Camp Geneva. At least I dodged the skunk. Nice night out there but cold when the sun dipped.

Just e-mailed the crew and ran plan B (walleye) and plan c (sleep!) past them. Just don't need a cooler of lakers enough to take a beating all morning.

I was in my 14' Saturday that tops out at 11mph with a second crew member. In the Four Winns I've made it pier head to pier head in under 9 minutes since someone else was buying gas that day. Even with the long ride out from where I live I can have lines in at Saugy a lot faster than out of Holland.

I'll be there any way. Don't think I'll stay until one but I'll have 68 on. Let's hope the forecast calms down some.

Good luck fishing Saugy. Launch down town is closed and Saturday morning had a front end loader parked across it. Repeated calls and e-mails to the city have gone unanswered trying to figure out how long it'll be until it's open. So, instead of spending money Saturday in Saugy, we slid up to Holland and fished there. Better than the 45 minutes ride out from Schultz Park.

We were right behind you I bet. Would have been out earlier but there was a front end loader across the launch at Saugy and then the no wake buoys were in Lake Mac, so it took a while to get out. Ended up with a nice laker (released) on a DW green dolphin 25' back 75' slide diver on 3 in 40'. Got to be too much for my 14' so we went into Mac and looked for walleyes and it was rougher in there, so we bagged it.

I got three last year. One on the beach looking for browns, one on harbor patrol, and one at the B4K. Certainly a better year class of 2 year old 2-4# this year. Daughter was at the seminar, she's full share crew this year and the little one is straight salary green horn. We're working on "hold still and stop jumping off the engine box"

Shook out the Four Winns and am happy to report it's back to all out beast status. Only issue is I broke a 10 cent roll pin in the trailer jack and had all kinds of fun unhooking her in the barn. Fished south of Holland in 20 or so feet, deeper than I like looking this time of year to bias the bag to coho or kings if any were around. First hit orange/pink stinger scorpion fixed slider 4' down and 4' back. Coho? Nope. 4# buck brown. Second hit 2 color core monkey puke stinger, about a 10' section of grape vine. Nice. I would say it fought like about a 10# laker. Third hit, 1 color gold / brown stinger, 3# brown. Last hit, outer board 125' stretch to a J-9 rainbow trout, 11" king. At my daughter's request all fish were released. Nice night on the water. So nice I didn't even run in WOT but pulled her back at 37 so we could watch the sun sink into the lake.

I don't know what you're talking about. At least a scale does less damage than a fish holder. Still, even if you're hard up for fish porn, it doesn't justify killing a 10 year old or older laker just to have a picture.

Thanks for handling that fish properly. See too many pictures of lakers with fish holders rammed through their gills and then people complain that they won't make it when they let them go.

Greetings: looking for a size 5 Nailer Plug (same size as a size 4 J-plug), yellow back, black labber back, glow belly. Got hot last year, had only one, want to get another so it will never work again......

Did you turn around when the front came through? We did, could not get bit on a N troll. Sped up, slowed down, got one fish. Turned back around and slogged into them and boards started dropping back again - picked up the rest we needed to box out.

Water was 39-40 today. Still cold but better than 33.5

9/11 in NB this morning. 8 coho, one brown, nothing big. Hot rigs were mostly orange, orange flodger with a blue p-nut fly on a 2 color took 4 and lost one. Ran only boards as I wanted to go for browns but that didn't work. Sister boat was 9/15 fishing the same water, all coho, looked a little bigger than ours.

4/4 last Saturday. 1.5# brown middle yellow bird deep jr. 29 t-stick 30' back in the plume. 7# steelie, 1 color core inside bird, silver black edge flutterdevle. 3# steelie, pearl orange saltwater rapala 80' back outside board. Little bugger ran the boat and was jumping all through the spread as we tried to figure out what rod he was on. 2.5# brown, blue back orange belly HJ middle board on the other side of the boat. We tried the river for an hour but there was too much crap to troll plugs, so we went to Saugy instead. Besides the reports about browns from up north, I've now matched my (3) brown count from last year, and only one of those came looking for browns.

Nah, took my birthday off a couple years ago and hit the Muskegon. It was -20 on the Jeep thermometer when we launched. We decided if the motor would turn over we'd head out. Third pull. #@$@ That lasted about half an hour if that. We got a good breakfast, headed to the K-zoo. It was 6. If you lifted a lure out of the water, the hooks froze to it and it would not run right. The river froze while we were on it - it was like trolling through a slurpie. And we went 1/1 with a big steelie. We had to quit when the boat had so much slush frozen to it that it would not handle any more. We netted our fish and laid it on the floor and it promtly froze there, which was kind of hard to work around. Oddly enough, my crew that day doesn't fish with me much any more. Maybe the site of a boat on the trailer, with the tires squashed way down and the axle bending due to the ice all around the hull, net handle sticking out waiting to lance oncoming traffic had something to do with it.