BenLubbs

Nice Ben. Where did you get the whole herring?

The Outdoorsman in Jenison. I keep taking them out but not using them

Ok, so it sounds like vacuum packing is the way to go. In that case, what brand/type of vacuum packers do you guys have/like?

Well, I took the boat out for sea trials tonight unknowingly. NOAA was way off with the 1-2 ft predicted waves. Mores like 3-5 with 6's and 7's mixed in. Anyway, headed out at about 6:30 with one of my brothers (Ryan), a coworker and his nephew from Colorado (Kyle and Alex) on board. Ran a 7 rod spread with 2 downriggers (spoon on one, f/f on the other), 2 wire divers (f/f and tincan/sng), 300 cu, 10 color, and 7 color. Headed out planing to run spoons for kings/steel and pounding bottom with f/f and tin to drag up some lakers. Started setting up in 80 FOW heading NNW into the waves. Got set up by 90 FOW. In 95 we took a small king on a Mag Blue Dolphin 58 down on the rigger. My brother grabbed the pole and handed it off to Alex for his first ever big lake fish.

In 115 FOW we hooked into an 11 lb Hog with a white w/ white crush glow tape tin can followed by a glow white tiger sng. The rig was on a wire Walker 124 diver set on 1 240 ft back. It was Kyle's turn so he to have the fun of landing his biggest big lake fish ever.

We made it out to 125 FOW and started turning around. Things blew up then cause we popped one of the divers, then the other started taking line and I ended up fighting it all the way to the boat. Somehow during the commotion, one of the down rigger switches got bumped and the thing let all the way out and then spooled up the wrong way. Soon after that we pulled lines and called it a night as we were all starting to feel a little queezy from all of the roller coaster action.

On the plus side, got to take out some newbies and get them interested in big lake fishing, and there weren't many sea fleas.

Another random thought. I love Blacks releases. On my old boat I struggled for years trying to work with pinch pad releases and always had false releases, especially in waves. Tonight I had the rods cranked down to the water and didn't get a false release ever. But, they still released with that tiny king. Blacks have made my experience so much more fun, i would recommend them to anyone.

Had the same sort of night tonight Jimmy, seems like the fish shut off again for some reason.

See you Friday And Saturday I guess

Man, that is a hog. How long was Don running his leaders on the dipseys? I looked like at least 12 feet:eek:

And listen to Capt. Don on Tangled Mess. He is a top notch Captain. Great guy. He'll steer you in the right direction. I got a picture text with a cooler full of fish on the 3rd from Capt Don.

I defiantly plan on listening to him. It's great when I can come in from fishing on a fairly new boat and talk to an experienced charter captain and he has no problem telling me what was working for him and giving advice on how to catch more fish. Its just one of the reasons I'm glad if found this site before this season.

As far as the rescue, I'd like to say that it hasn't affected me much but it really has, though hopefully for the better. That and a combination of other events lately have made me appreciate life a lot more. Sometimes I get mad that I can't go fishing or whatever but then I think about that kid and how is just takes one little decision or misstep and your whole life can change.

I read a book by Capt. Dan Keating, I can't remember what one it was exactly. In there he talked about trolling dynamic, or how all of the lures/attractors/presentations you are running work together. Every time you change a lure or presentation you are changing the whole trolling dynamic. If you are changing from a mix of spoons and f/f's to all f/f you have drastically changed your spread and the way it attracts fish. Personally I have never run a spread of just f/f's. I guess it's really just about figuring out what the fish want. If the bit turns off once you start changing over to f/f's, go back and put spoons back out.

Good Job out there guys, wish I could have joined you Sunday morning.

Say Tony, does that guy in the second picture happen to be Mark Jasman? He does EDM work for us sometimes and i've spent a lot of time talking to him about salmon fishing. Good Job to both of you by the way.

P.S. if that is mark and it looks like his boat, hows running that 600 copper going

Forgot to mention the wife ok'd autopilot for the boat after having 2 doubles in a row and trying to keep the boat on coarse can be a challenge with my 4yr old at the wheel and my 5yr old sleeping Any recommendations??

Aw, you just have to wait about 12 years My 11 y.o. brother it getting close to driving the boat in a strait line, my 16 y.o. brother is a pro:thumb:

Nice work Dave!!

DNR was keeping the retrieve docks open to retrieve only. Pulled up to an open dock, had the 4th parking spot in, was on the trailer and out of the way in a couple minutes. It took us longer to get across Ottawa Beach Road to get to the cleaning station, some kind lady finally just walked out in the road and made the cars stop for us.

Make me maybe a little less upset about not being able to be out there this morning. Good job out there Kevin.

Good Job, Kevin!

That is some great mid-day fishing right there!!

Nice job out there Terry.

This is the reason my last comment is there http://www.wwmt.com/articles/old-1392930-year-drowns.html

Me and a couple of my friends pulled the 14y.o. from the water earlier in the day when we were at the beach. It is the first time I have ever been that close to an emergency and it was defiantly unexpected as we were walking down the beach. I have new found respect for all emergency personnel and what they do to help save peoples lives.

So some of you may know that I am taking summer classes at college. Well I was looking forward to the 4th because It's a break from school and more importantly a chance to fish all day. Well, one of my project groups decided today was a great day to meet to work on our project at 10 in the morning. Well turns out today was flat calm out on the water, the fish were biting, and we got absolutely nothing accomplished on our project because the ones who thought it was such a good idea to meet, then decided it was a great time to sit and mess around instead. So in summary, I just wasted a great morning inside with a group of people i don't get along with when I wanted to be out fishing. And now, my parents took their boat out with the truck so I can't go fishing at all today. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Good job Ken, hopefully we will see you this weekend.

I forgot to mention, the sea fleas are here, not as bad as I've seen them in the past but they there are enough to make it annoying. How often do you guys pull lines to clean the fleas off. I have to imagine that clumps of fleas on the line spook fish.

Good job out there, it was a great night to be on the water.

Went out with two friends and my little brother tonight. Go on the water about 7, ran out to 100 fow south of the peirs. From the radio hear 100 going North or South was the way to do it so set up going south. Ran spoons and a plug on lead/copper/downriggers and then f/f and tincans/sngs on divers. marked a lot of fish, changed a lot of lures. Finally got a hit on the wire diver bouncing bottom with a white/crush glow tin can pulling a white tiger spin-n-glo. Tried to let my little brother reel it in but the fish was gone. Got close to sunset and started changing spoons over to glows. 5 minutes after putting out a mongolian beef moonshine on the 300' copper, we got a good rip. My friend grabbed the pole and did a Bassmaster hook set . I have no idea why he did it cause he fishes with me regularly and has never done it before but that fish was gone. Trolled until after dark with no more hits. While we were pulling lines we found a small shaker on the 300' with the mongolian beef that was gill caught and dead. We kept it and managed to keep the skunk smell off the boat . Very nice night out on the water. Talked to Don (Tangled Mess) when I got back to the launch for a while. He did good this afternoon it sounds like and I found out I was probably running a bit too fast for the fish (I played with my speed but never got reel slow). Any way it was a very nice night out there and made for an un-eventful end to a very eventful day.

Tight Lines,

Ben

Better than me tonight Kevin. Good Job out there.

They are predicting 4-6fters tomorrow evening, which will make for rough fishing. I don't have any plans so if people want to hang out around a fire or something I'd be in.

I don't have a recipe but more of a question about preparation. Normally after a trip I like to keep at least enough fish for one meal fresh in the fridge. The rest goes in the freezer. My current method of freezing extra is putting the fillets in gallon ziplock bags and then putting enough water in to cover the fish and sticking it in the freezer (I was told by one of my mentors that the water protects the meat from freezer burn). The problem is that the water adds a lot of volume so each bag takes up a lot of space. Also, when I go to cook the fish, they take FOREVER to thaw. I'm curious what other guys do to store fish. I'm considering getting a vacuum packager but I though I would check with you guys before I started looking for one.

Thanks,

Ben