BenLubbs

Welcome. You'll be hard pressed to find a better source of information than this site.

The Outdoorsman in Jenison has strips and whole herring.

Great pics Mark. Looks like everyone was having a great time

I sold the older Rivieras today. Both of the Proo's downriggers are still available.

Went out with a friend from school who I also work with and his wife. Got on the water around 7. Set up in 65 FOW heading South west. Got to 82 FOW and the 3 color lead with a regular Miami Dolphin goes. Josh grabs that one. Less than a minute later the 7 color with a Mod Blue Veggie UV (BLL) gets a rip. I grab the pole and start handing it to Sarah and I feel the fish come off. Josh it still. fighting his fish 15 minutes later when the high diver at 125 (reg dipsey w/ mag ring set on 2.5) with a blue/chrome SD and Yogurt Stripper fly goes. Sarah grabs the pole and lands a 5ish lb laker (was kept because he flopped in the net for 5 minutes before I could get the hook loose). Josh finally got his fish to the boat and we landed a nice 10lb Steelie. Reset the lines and spun around to go back trough the same water. Got too our waypoints and the rigger down 40 with a regular yellow dolphin and a regular mixed veggies free slider goes (fish hit the slider). Josh grabs the pole and starts cranking as a nice chromer starts jumping behind the boat. He got tension on the line but the fiesty sucker threw the hooks back at us. Went through the same spot a couple more times but we go joined by other boats and didn't get anymore hits. Our last fish came well after dark on the 7 color with a Mongolian beef moonshine. The fish ended up being a nice cookie cutter king. SOG was 3.0-3.2 on a south troll, 2.4-2.7 on a north.

I'm going to make it a quick one. Headed out late tonight with two friends. Got on the lake around 7:30 and it was flat calm. The lake turned over in the past day so made a couple passes infront of the the channel looking for cold water and couldn't find it. Started heading out with my eye on the graph watching the temp. Dropped off to about 62 in 60 FOW so I set down and started setting lines on a west-south-west troll. From the radio chatter no one really had any thing going. Ran a mostly spoon spread with a tincan/sng on one diver and a f/f on the other. Drove around most of the night marking fish but not getting any hits.

Once it got towards sunset started changing out to glow spoons. By this time we were headed north east back toward Holland. Got lines set and soon after took a hit on the five color lead. I was setting one of the downriggers so grabbed the pole and as soon as i grabbed it the diver on my side started going. On of my friends grabbed the diver. My friend got his fish to the boat first, a 5ish lb laker on a white/scale tincan with a MI sunset spin-n-glo on the wire diver dragin' bottom. That fish gets itself wrapped up in the net and i'm still fighting my fish. I get my fish to the boat and see that it is a HOGGG Brown. My friend finally frees the laker from the net and gets the Brown in the boat. Came on a Stinger Glow Wonderbread (stingray size). We weighed the fish on my scale at the cleaning station and it was 10lb 8oz. I was ecstatic because its only the second brown I've ever caught and the first on the big lake. It was a great fight and that thing was a football We took another laker a little while later on the other wire diver pulling a 10" Mtn. Dew SD and at Big Weenie Cornbread fly. The first two fish came in about 70 FOW and the last came in 65. SOG was 2.7-2.9 MPH. I'll get pics up tomorrow.

Ben' date=' that is a coooool knot. Thanks for the link.

I typically just tie the standard loop in a loop (if that makes sense).

Short version - I tie them so you can switch flies easily and quickly.[/quote']

Yea, I learned it about 7 years ago from Glenn Black (owns Great Lakes Fly Fishing in Rockford). He used it to make a loop for quickly changing leaders on the end of my line. I've used if ever since then and have never had one come loose on me.

thanks for Friday night - going to try and run the boat Thursday night. you going to be out?

my Avatar pic is staying upside down until I have a good running boat back on the water.

I was wondering if that was what it was about. I might be heading out tomorrow night too. If you need a hand try giving Ben'den Rods a call.

The easiest way it to tie a leader at about 6 ft long with a ball-bearing swivel and snap on one end. On the other end tie a barrel swivel with no snap. Then, stinger or a couple of other companies sell snaps with one end dipped in rubber. There is a cut in the rubber for your line to catch in. Attach the non rubber side of the snap to the barrel swivel. When you want to put the slider on your line, attach your spoon to the ball-bearing swivel, let your line down with the ball how ever far you want. Then take the snap on the otherside of the leader and clip it around your line. Get the line into the slit in the rubber and then throw the spoon on the slider so that it lands strait out behind the main line. Proceed to set your line at the final depth. Maybe someone has a picture of their slider setups so you can see what I am talking about.

Sorry to hear that Jimmy, you are welcome on my boat any time.

I use this knot on all of my flies http://www.netknots.com/html/perfection_loop.html

You can either make it big enough so that you poke it through the ring on the swivel and then put the swivel back through the loop. Otherwise Dream Weaver makes swivels that have a special end on them where there is a wire that makes a loop and then wraps back around itself. You put the loop on the end and then go around until it is in the loop on the wire (hard to describe, see picture below). It makes it really easy to change out flies with different colors/leader lengths and to take them off for storage (I never wrap the fly around the flasher because I don't like the leader to get all kinked)

I always write my name and phone # with perm. marker on the boards. I did get a phone call. Good luck

Yep, that's what I do too. I've been fortunate enough to never loose one but if I do, i hope someone has the courtesy to return it if they find it.

Great Job Terry!

Sounds like you had a great weekend Jimmy, good job.

Here's one of the fish we got Friday morning. It was small but wasn't going to make it so we kept it. I got hungry on the way home so fired up the grill and boy, it turned out better than I would have thought for my first time ever grilling.

Ok, here are the pictures from the day

This is my brother Daniel with the first fish of the day (Lemon Ice Mag free slider 68ft down)

Missed a picture of the second fish

This is my brother's friend Corbin with the third fish of the day on Blue Bubble Protroll/BW Goat Pecker Fly

This is the fourth fish of the day, and the biggest at 11.2 lb (Blue Chilly Willy)

This is Ryan with the last fish of the day, STEEL!!!! (BLL Mod Mixed Veggie UV)

Here's the team picture with the day's catch

As I said before, it was a beautiful day out on the water. I managed to get this picture as the sun was rising right after we got the first fish

Spot on with the report captain. Thanks for the update.

Great Job Brandon, I guess we should have set up a little deeper. It was defiantly a great day to be on the water.

Happy Birthday Terry

Larry, thank you for providing the spoons. We got our nice chrome on the UV spoon. I definitely will be getting a few more

Good job Ken. Thanks for setting things up.

Thanks for the trips Dave. It was definatly a rough morning Friday, but we made up for it Friday night

P.S. If anyone ever needs copper untangled, me and Nate are your guys

We went 5 for 6 this morning out of Holland

200-238 fOW

Lemon Ice Mag

Mongolian Beef Moonshine

Blue Bubble Protroll/Goat Pecker Big Weenie fly (green/gold)

Blue Chilly Willy

Big Lake Lures Mod Blue Veggie (UV)

Like dave said, sounds like there were some bigger fish in shallower, but they shut off pretty early from what I understand.

Good Luck out there,

Ben

Ben'den Rods

Fished the WMFL this morning with my dad, two brothers, and a friend on board. Based on fishing friday morning I ran out to 200 ft and waited for 6:00. Started setting lines right at 6 in like 203 fow. Got one rigger set with a BLL glow spoon (happy meal?) and a Lemon Ice Mag free slider. Went to the other side of the boat to set the other rigger and the rod I just set starts bouncing. Jump over to grab the rod and pop it (fish was on the slider). Get the fish in the boat and it's about a 1lb king. After a little debate, and the fish getting droped on the floor of the boat while trying to measure it, I put it in the cooler. It would turn out the be the filler of the box, an extera 11 points Got the rest of the rods set without a another hit. Made it out to 238 FOW without a hit and turned north to look for some fish. Next hit came on the 300 copper with a Mongolian Beef on the end of it. The fish hit and took off. My brother took the pole and started fighting. Every time we would gain a little, away it would go again. Ended up fighting it for abouot 20 minutes before we got it to the boat. Nice king around 8 lb. Shortly after that fish we got a hit on the wire diver (Walker 124 set on 1) 120 ft back. Trailing was a blue bubble protroll with a Big Weenie Goat Pecker fly. My brothers friend fought that fish and got it to the boat, a 6ish lb King. Went through that spot a few more times with now luck. Started searching again. Ended up in about 215 ft of water. Took a hit on the rigger with a free slider, can't remember what was on at the time. I started reeling with the pole in the holder, got tension and felt the fish. Pulled the pole out to hand it to my little brother and by the time he had it in his hands it was gone. Should have kept it for a second longer and made sure it was hooked good. Kept going around that spot. Took another hit on the 300 copper, but had changed out to a Blue Chilly Willy. My brothers friend fought the fish and landed an 11lb king. Our last fish came from the same spot on the 5 color with the BLL Mod Blue Veggie UV. That fish was an 8ish lb Steel After that, couldn't buy a bite. Changed speed, lures, even songs We did get a couple releases on a meat rig 100 ft down but I'm not sure if it was a slapper fish or just sea fleas pilling up on the line. Sounds like there were some bigger fish in shallow but also sounds like they turned off earlier. Anyway it was an awesome morning on the water. We finished 6th, which I'm more than happy with for my first tournoment. Thanks to all who helped orginize the tourny and to Big Weenie and Big Lake Lures for the lures all of them were awsome.

I'll add pics after I get them off the camera

This is the first year in a while that I have seen some dead alwives on the beach. Hopefully that means there is more bait to keep the salmon/trout population healthy.