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Eyefull

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Everything posted by Eyefull

  1. I've got a few opinions on wire rods:D
  2. I run Captain Johns stuff along with some Big Weenie Pig Rigs. The fish don't seem to care which one, actually they both use the same heads. I use them just like they package them. Three fly teaser rigs right off the 12" flashers, and two fly rigs off the 10' BTI's. I keep the speeds right around 1.8-2.2 gps. If you run too fast, the bait will spin like a spinnerbait. What your looking for is a looping roll, not a spinner blade like spin. Here is a fish that fell victim to a 10" Monkey Puke BTI pulling a red matching two fly rig.
  3. Yeah, what FBD said:rolleyes: Look the guides over very closely. A crack or chip in the ceramic can cut line like butter. A burr in the levelwind guide is also another suspect in this crime.
  4. Forgot to mention, the kids had a blast, but I think I had more fun than they did! We must have looked like a Haitian refuge boat heading out, kids all over the back. Calm seas, and slow but steady fishing made it a nice trip, I'm sure they are all hooked. My neice wants a pink rigger rod with purple guides-YIKES!
  5. Ed, nice to meet you. I'll be back over there off and on on weekends. I owe a couple of buddies trips, so that is as good of a reason as any to make the trip. I also want to get back over there to get a better look at the Sportcraft that is for sale right across from Pizza Hut. Wife said if I can sell the Eyefull, I can upsize!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I grew up on walleye, but LOVE messing with the silver fish this time of year. After the rain and East wind all day on Saturday, the fish really loaded up on the bank. Sunday and Monday evenings both the graph lit up at dusk and some serious pounding went on in 50-70fow. Up until that point, we checked the bank each night on our way in and saw nothing.
  6. I ran into several guys that said "Hi, I'm so and so from the board". I am hopelessly terrible with names. I did make ready one day next to Priority, I assumed that it was Frank I spoke to?
  7. Here are some photos of the highlights: Big Steelie next to decent king, big laker, and average king, nice mixed box Nephew Sam doing battle Daughter's friend Niece Makayla with game face Son Josh getting serious with diver rod Another tag team fish in the box Son Jacob really becoming quite a fishermen, needs no help Daughter Kaitlyn making it look easy
  8. I just got home from two weeks in Ludington. I managed to get out 9 times, juggling family events, camping, and fishing. For the whole trip we went 58 for 79 bites if my notes are correct. As to not make this a very lengthy post I will generalize our success. The early part of our trip was mainly a deeper bite, due to the temps down at or below 85-100 feet. We had slow but steady bites on our own cut herring on JK's rigs and flashers, along with a mix of Big Weenies mixed in. No preferrence from Mr. King Salmon between the two. We ran them 350-375 back on braid magnum dipsys, and 140-160 feet down on riggers. As we got later in our trip, cooler water began to move in on the bank and we had good success on Silver Streak spoons and Jplugs early and late. The new UV colors on the Streaks were deadly. Streaks at 50-60 feet down on the riggers took plenty of bites. The Jplug bites were much less picky with several of the normal hot colors taking bites with no pattern. Our 400 copper rig with Jplug took 15 bites the last two trips in 130 fow. The best meat rigs were the red color heads/teasers pulled behind the Monkey Puke BTI's. We got several bites on the sparkler meat rig behind the same monkey puke BTI. A couple of fish also came on the Undertaker and Green Frog rigs as well. Saturday and Sunday night, the bottom lifted up and filled the graph with fish in the 55fow flats off the beach for the first time during our stay. What a fast and furious 45 minutes that was on plugs. We literally just long lined a couple of five color rigs with jplugs until they got bit while holding the rods. All in all, pretty steady action for the two weeks. We got to get out my nieces and nephews along with my kids one night and went five for five with all kids playing a part in each fish-great time. I'll put up some photos later if time allows. Lots of work to get caught up on in the rod shop. Speaking of that, I tested a couple of new prototype glass MHX blanks for the manufacturer while in Ludington, great stuff, look for them to become my new line of trolling rods soon. I also bumped into a few board members while there (Priority, to name one:lol:), always great to see board members while out. A couple of observations. First the fish we caught were all very healthy looking, most stuffed with 6-7 inch alewives. The kings seemed to be larger this year, most in the 12-16 pound range with some real 20 plus pounder pigs thrown in for good measure. We caught two 8 pound lakers which seemed much larger than my normal years past lakers. We even caught my largest to date Steelhead 360 feet back on a braid mag dipsy with meat rig. We guestimated it at 15 pounds with agreement on that at the cleaning station peanut gallery. We were actually patting ourselves on the back for boating another very nice king. After it flopped around a while on the floor and I got a chance to turn around and have a look, I asked them to verify that our nice king had a white belly and jaw? Hindsight, probably should have taken more photos and measurments and had it mounted. I did get the unfortunate chance to get a photo of the wrecked plane, minutes after it was secured on the barge. I don't feel it would be tastefull to post it, but thought it worth mentioning.
  9. I'll try to post a photo tonight after work. It is basically a hundred year old table, cut out for the sink. The sink is plumbed so a garden hose will hook up to it. The cutting board is from my rod shop. It has a cedar base and polyehelene cut top. The stainless spike is mostly for salmon, you stick their head on it, and it is like slicing the fillet off with no slip, hands free operation. It also works to skin the fillets, just poke a hole in the tail of the fillet, put over the nail, and run your blade under the meat. I have two left at $40;)
  10. I think that at the spoon speeds (2.7 - 3.4 gps) the inlines will have troubles gaining depth. The divers or tadpoles dive and get you reliably on the fish. I run the walker discs, they have a little better trip system than the dipsys. I do have 8 of the new tadpoles that I am messing around with. I think once I get used to the tadpoles, they may replace the walkers. They seem to dive deeper, but yet pull less resistance. Using braid mainline, I can get the walkers down to 30 feet pretty easy, and vs. mono, get really solid hookups at that length of lead. 200 feet of 12lb mono stretches so much, you can't barely ever see a bite. Use as long of a mono leader as you can, and still bring a fish to net with ease. I run 6'6" light action rods, so 7' leader is about all my kids can deal with. Don't be afraid to run them fast, we were getting bit on the outside lines pulling 3.2 turns.
  11. Such a great fishery, after all these years, it still amazes me.
  12. Had a great trip on the bay today with my favorite crew. My two boys were able to come today which is very rare considering all the ball games and functions. We started out of Quanicassee and checked out the 17 fow area of the slot at round 7:30 am. We set four lines and I finally pulled my head out and realized I could see the bottom like it was three feet deep! Could actually see walters swimming away from the boat. Picked up and ran over to about the midpoint between the plug and 1 & 2 and set up on a north troll outside the main pack in 23 fow. Streak spoons behind Walkers was the program. I set the first on back 100 feet and it started bucking as I put the clip on the planer line. It was like that all day until we pulled our last line. We had several triples and even a quad at one point. Lots of pinks, purples, and UV stuff doing damage, really everything got bit. Most productive was about 120-130 feet of line out. Caught several nice fish on a 65mm walker rigged with a standard size streak spoon right off the corner. Probably would have caught more fish with that rig, but kept forgetting to check it with all the other action. Heres my youngest doing his best to cull the walleye population: It is always a great day on the water when your boys can come along. I suppose in total, we had to have caught at least 55-60 walleye today. It was at least a 3:1 ratio of undersize fish, but that was exactly what the doctor ordered with kids. Several sheeps, a white perch, and would you believe a very nice size sucker came on the big diver setup. Our total keepers was our four man limit of 20. No real hawgs, a couple of 3 or 4 pounders and lots of 16-19 inch types. Off the water at 1:30pm.
  13. With the smaller walleye spoons, use mono as leader material. With the stiffness of floro, it can kill or severely limit the action of some spoons. I use as long of a leader as I can get to net with the rods used (usually 6-8').
  14. Got free from the rod shop for an evening trip on the Bay. Picked up good friend Ray and we were at the dock by 4:30 pm. Soon after launching, Rays phone rang and we had to be back by 7:00! With only two hours to fish and steady 2-3 footers from the NE, I decided to run 7 miles straight up the slot and let the wind push us back down. After a very bumpy run, we turned and let the wind push us at .8 -1.7 . We dropped crawlers with 3/4 oz rubber cores. After a half hour of nothing, I decided to change up to 1/2 oz rubber cores and put them 8 feet in front of the rigs. Didn't even get the second one changed out and the first one went. We ended up 4 for 4 on very nice size fish, nothing needed measuring. A bonus 11" perch was also a nice ending to the short, very short trip. Just getting out made it worth it. Not easy getting photos with the boat pitching and rolling, both the camera man and mug shot are lucky not to have gone swimming:lol:.
  15. Nice job on that king, sorry, Dat king:no:. Irony that I saw your post, my wife is in St. Ignace today-field trip with my youngest.
  16. The 2010 Cats have 3 vs. the older 2 ball bearing system and the Convectors have two as well.
  17. The Convectors and Cats both share the same drag, drive, and spool. The Cats have the billet frame, thats the difference. This year, like posted above, they refined it again trying to get to the Saltist or Tekota level. In my opinion, bad move for the Cat, very pricey and not there quality wise. For my money on fresh water, the Convector is just as good as the Cat. I sell both, but the Convector is a better value in my opinion.
  18. Thanks, can't believe I never stumbled across this board. Great topics and good honest discussion from what I can see so far.
  19. The first double roller guide is called a stripper. Its purpose is to guide the line or wire down from a normally very large frame reel. Without it the line or wire may not even touch the first roller, even under load, allowing the line to wander and even worse, touch the blank. That would be fatal with wire. Not sure why Okuma uses a second one closer to the tip, no need there. So like said above, the line goes under the high roller, then over the lower roller in a double roller or stripper guide.
  20. Thanks to Don Alof for getting me on to this site. One more discussion board to gobble up my spare time:lol:. Many of you know me as Eyefull. I fish May-July on Saginaw Bay out of Bay City or Quanicassee, then Lake Michigan out of Ludington from late July through September. I work at SC Johnson Wax in Bay City, making Ziploc Brand Bags. I fish a 2002 19' Seaswirly Striper Walkaround called "Eyefull". When I'm not fishing, I am building the best rods for those that are fishing. I took up rodbuilding as a hobby a few years ago, and finally made it official in ealy 08, forming Eyefull Custom Rods. I also carry a full line of reels, tackle, and anything else fishing related. So, if you see me on the water, don't hesitate to give me a hollar on 68. I freely give out no BS fishing/catching information to anyone that asks, no secrets here.
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