EdB

Nice job Adam!

You know Frank, I always tell the kids I take fishing and hunting that they better take me out when I'm too old to get around very well.

It was nice to finally get out in the woods with a call in my hand after the last few weeks of scouting. I took my friend's son Rigel. We got set up and had 5-6 gobblers in the area sounding off from the tree's as it got light. I waited awhile and then gave a soft tree yelp. They all sounded back from the tree's. I waited some more until we heard one fly down. Gave another soft yelp and come clucks, they gobbled back, some from the ground and some still in the tree's. Then we heard a hen on the ground clucking so I started talking with her. She was yelping, clucking and purring and coming our way. The toms keep gobbling. I shut up and let the hen do all the talking. The gobblers loved it but I could hear they had hens with them too, all on the ground now. The lone hen came into our decoys and she must have liked them as she stayed around for about 20 minutes. We see a strutter coming about 150yrds out. She is still talking and he is answering. Cool, we have a live decoy. She starts to head his way and I cluck 4 or 5 times and she turns around and comes back. The strutter on the ground had hens and he is not coming our way, he is on a parallel path and drops out of sight. Another strutter come into view but follows the same path as the first. Even our live and still very talkative decoy can't bring them to us. She finally heads their way, I can't turn her and she goes out of sight. I waited a bit and gave a few clucks and purrs. Another gobbler answers back, he is close but just behind a knoll and we can't see him. I give a another cluck and a purr and we see the top of his fan and he is coming. He comes into full view just out of range and he gobbles. A couple soft clucks and he is moving our way again. I can see he's a jake but Rigel was going to shoot the first legal bird he could. He stop's and struts about 30yrds out. I tell Rigel he is in range and to get the gun up when his head is blocked by a tree or his fan. The bird stands there for about 5 minutes and the mosquitos's are biting both of us. I've got one on my nose and one by my eye sucking blood and nothing I can do. Rigel takes one in the face too and doesn't move. The bird finally struts in a cricle and Rigel gets the gun up. We get to watch him gobble again, I give out a really hard set of clucks, more like a putts and he drops his fan and sticks his head up and boom, Rigel drops him! Awesome morning! My hunt starts Monday and I just packed the Deepwoods Off in my vest. Here's a pic, the smiles says it all!

Nice job, the hunting conditions were tough with the wet weather. Way to hang in there and put a nice one down! Good job on the Rap call too. Did the poacher kill and take the turkey or did they miss?

Mike, you made a good call, nice box!

Nice catch Salmon Slammer! We had a tough go to start out Saturday at St Joe. We didn't lift a rod trolling south until we go to the Cook plant. I didn't see anyone hitting fish on the troll south. We finally starting getting some fish south of Cook in 50-60 ft of water. We ended the day 7 for 11, one king and the rest coho.

Very nice box! The best thing I got for my boat a few years back is a large clear plastic storage bin big enough to hold a king with 6 inch sidewalls. When we land one, we drop it in there, remove the hooks and in the cooler. It's really nice for cohos and their loose scales. It's holds all the scales and blood and we just rinse it out. No more scales and blood all over the floor.

I will be there. Not sure yet if I'll splash my boat, ride on a friends boat or sit on the beach one more time.

We had a good day yesterday in the surf near St Joe. We had some ideal breakers, not to big and not to small. Most of our fish came on steelie skein fished on a single hook, we did get a couple on spawn bags. I ended up with a brown, 3 coho's and 3 whitefish. To bad I let my brown slip out of my hands and swim away just after I unhooked him. Once I bagged and packed these fish, I got another whitefish just as I pulled lines. I also had a real hog brown on and lost him in the breakers when trying to beach him. My buddy got 2 browns and 2 coho's. We hit a few other fish too. The bite was hot before sun up and then we picked a fish every once in a while all morning. Good luck!

That's a real nice brown!

Nice pics! They usually stop by on our lake for a week or two but they haven't shown up here yet.

I use a 9 ft medium action rod with a spinning reel. Some guys like longer rods off the beach to keep your line above the surf breaking near shore. You can compensate by using long rod holders. Our rod holders are PVC pipe duct taped to a 3/8 inch steel rod. Just push it into the sand on the beach. We use a typical pier rig. You run your main line through a snap swivel, don't tie it on, it should slide up and down, then attach to a barrel swivel. Then tie on a 2-3 foot leader to a #6 single egg hook. Attach a 1oz to 2oz pyramid sinker to the snap swivel. If the surf is up, you might need to go a bit heavier but too much surf makes it tough to fish. The barrel swivel will keep the weight from sliding down to your hook but allows a fish to hit with out feeling the weight. You need to wear waders and walk out to the 2nd sandbar. You will go over the first sandbar and the 2nd trough is usually just about to the top of your waders. Keep going until the 2nd sand bar, it usually comes back up to waist or knee high depth, and cast it out as far as you can. Walk your pole back to shore leaving the bail open so your bait sits where it landed and put it on a rod holder. Reel up the slack, get a lawn chair and wait for bite. Fresh steelhead spawn bags or skein is my favorite bait but you can use salmon spawn, nightcrawlers, shrimp, minnows. We had a night crawler out on one pole but it never took a hit. The best conditions are to have some waves breaking in. Calm days are not the best. Beach fishing is not the most productive way to catch trout but it sure is relaxing on a nice day.

Hit the river on Thursday. There are still some steelies around. Had a good day with my buddy, we got these and let 2 go. Those 3 hens on the right sure reloaded my spawn supply, all set now. Now that I had some fresh gold, we hit the beach on Saturday. I got this nice brown and a small steelie. My buddy had some hits but blew it. One time his pole just about got ripped out of the holder but I think he was sleeping.

Life on the beach was good yesterday!

Congratulations on the new baby! And good luck on the water!

Here is another tip not mentioned yet. You need to be very carefull in deploying copper line. Keep your clicker button on and strip it out or keep your thumb on the spool. It will back lash very easily if you free spool it and try to let it out quickly. More so on the 45 lb copper than the 30lb.

Sportcrafts have a very nice layout for fishing but you should get a marine survey done on the hull before you buy it. Older Sportcrafts have been know to have rot in the stringers. Getting a survey done to make sure the hull is sound is a good idea on any larger boat you plan to buy.

The story on Linwood was on Fox News tonight. I would have like to been near by to watch that slab come crashing in and piling up.

The ice on our lake here is breaking up today. It was a nice ice fishing season this year but I'm so glad to see it go. When I woke up, I noticed a small hole about 20 ft around had opened up near a shallow bar. All morning long it got bigger and then another small seam opened up near our house. The ice really melted away mid day and the holes grew and now more than half the lake is open water. Hopefully a wind shift this evening will take out the shelf ice near me and open everything up by morning. This is the fastest I've ever seen the lake open up. We just had a flock of goldeneyes land in and some seagulls and a bunch of geese showed up too. It didn't take them long to find open water. How is the ice holding up or going out near you?

I like to see it empty this time of year:D It means there are more fish on the side of the dam I'd rather fish.

I'd say the request you got is way over the top. I'd reply with a list of your open dates for charters to learn about fishing in your area.

https://www.mdnr-elicense.com/common/popups/popframe.asp?url=https://secure1.state.mi.us/rssdraw/ Congratulations! You are successful in the 2009 Spring Turkey Drawing. I got my first choice!!

I'm glad you are OK, hope you get well sooner than expected.

I just have a Altel Samsung phone with weather radar. There are other web aps but I rarely use them. The weather radar is great on the boat and for hunting and golfing. I've been able to avoid small storm cells and keep fishing a few times because of it when otherwise we would have ran in. I've been able to see big storms coming and know when to pull and get off the lake before they hit.

Great post and some nice action. I was hoping to see some and hi and lo diver doubles from the title. It was nice to hear the drags screaming! The bassmaster hooksets on the riggers aren't for me.