BenLubbs

Nothing better than bringing kids fishing

Nice work guys

Nice talking to you this weekend Jon, Glad the new impeller it working for you.

Ben'din Rods will be there

Well it was a good week aboard the Ben'din rods filled with great memories and lots of great stories of the ones that almost got away (or did in the case of the fish that was pulling someones 11" frog paddle around that we chased with the net for 5 minutes on our way in today )

Started Wednesday afternoon by taking one of my good fishing buddies that moved to Colorado over the weekend out with his girl friend. Set line in 120 fow and trolled west until 190 fow picking up one 18lb laker in 180. Hit a couple more fish in 180 on our way back through so started working that water hard and ended up with 10 fish at the end of the night, finishing up with a triple after dark where we managed to land all 3 fish. Final count was 1 coho, 1 laker, 2 steelhead, and 6 kings. Ended up being a very nice night on the lake with almost less than a ripple when we headed in.

Thursday night fished the 3+1 event. Based on a couple of reports set down in 120fow again and headed west. Started hitting fish in 140 and had pretty consistent action for the first 1.5 hours then it shut off. But we ended up with 7 fish, 1 laker and 6 kings, two over 17lbs and a 15lber which was good enough for 1st place in the tournament (57 lb box of 4 fish).

18lb Laker

Wednesday Night's Box

Thursday Box

Wednesday Sunset

Friday morning did the same thing as Thursday and started in 120. The wind was blowing hard out of the east and before we knew it we were in 160. The rest of the morning we spent on east west trolls between 115 and 160. Again ended up with 7 fish with 1 laker and 6 kings with the big fish being around 20lbs.

Saturday morning woke upto fish the Holland Steelheaders tournament to a pretty stiff breeze and thought "oh no, here we go again". However, once we got out on the lake the wind died down quickly the lake eneded up very flat. Went the first 45minutes without a hit starting in the same water as the last two days. When we finally did get hits we missed the first two fish, however, the flurry had just begun. We spent the next 1.5 hours hooking 1 fish after another and when it was all said and done we had 7 in the box. Then she shut of and we started searching. Ended up landing 3 more, all of which were upgrades. All of the fish came in 150 to 165 with a south troll being the best. 1 laker and 9 kings. Big fish was just over 21lbs, followed by a 19 and an 18, a 13 and a 12. This was just enough to get us to 2nd place in the tournament, less than 1lb from 3rd and 9 lbs behind 1st.

I want to thank the tournament boards and sponsors for organizing the events they were both great and I can't wait for the next ones.

Here's a list of things that worked for us this week:

7 color with Big Lake Lures Bottom Dweller was hot.

11" white paddles with white crush glow/fish scale pulling poofster flies from Big Lake Lures and Big Weenie on Riggers 80-90 down in the dark and 100-bottom down in the sunlight or on wire divers 120 back in the dark and 200 back in the light

10 color with Big Lake Lures Miami Dolphin

5 color with Big Lake Lures Mod Blue Veggie

200 45lb Blood Run Copper with Mag U of M frog by Silver Streak

300 Copper with Mongolian beef and Raspberry Carbon by Moonshine

Raspberry Carbon on a wire diver 160 to 180 back

Mixed veggies as a slider on a rigger at 70

Easter egg on a rigger at 70

White UV 8" spin doctor and Mas Tequilla Big Weenie Fly on wire diver 120 back

and just a tip, make sure you are checking your fly leaders, I retied mine about 40 times this week it seems like and that is what won the 3+1 tournament. Our big fish dove came on one of the deep riggers and when he got to the back of the boat dove down and around the other rigger cable. But the 40lb Blood Run floro leader was good enough to hold until we could get the net behind him and scoop him up. Also had a lot of tournament rigged flied have the rear treble get ripped off.

Nice job both of you guys, that looks like a really healthy king there Bob, with a Big Lakes Lure in its mouth I might add.

Same here Jon, although I remember a morning last year with Big Rog where the bouy said they were 3ftrs and they were way over that (one of the big 36 tiaras with an arch was out there too and we couldn't see them in the trough). The info in invaluable especially for guys with no down temp sensors.

If the wires are blue and brown, typically the brown will be considered positive and the blue will be negative. I would assume if they are red and black that red is positive and black is negative.

Well the first trip of the year is in the bag and I was able to keep up my streak of not being skunked in the big boat yet. We headed out about 7:00, everything ran good out to the lake so decided to go out to 50 FOW and head west. Sometime between there and 250 a nice laker decided that old trusty (11" white crush/fish scale paddle and poofster fly) looked like a good meal. He also thought it was a good idea to catch a ride I guess since he didn't move until we tried to pull lines and couldn't pop the wire dipsey that was out 85 ft. We moved in to 50 FOW and trolled south till about 1:00 with no more luck so called it a day. Sure was a nice day on the boat anyway.

The station was open today.

Talked to Jim at Fish On this morning and he said the triples won't be ready for production till the end of June or July. Price will be $145.

So I called Fish on Today and they told me that there has been so many requests for the triples since they stopped making them that they are going to start production again soon. They are going to call me tomorrow with more information. I also found out that something I didn't notice before but they do offer a double rod holder on a pedestal right now, not just the quad shown in the picture. All that to say, I'm responding to some of your guy's PMs now.

To clarify, I'm not looking for trees, I already have a set. I'm looking strictly for storage, so vertical fixed holders would be fine. I already have Bert's track mounted so I would prefer something that worked with that.

So I was looking on Fish on Sports website the other night and it would seem they stopped making their triple rod holder pedestal setups, I still need to call them to verify. None the less, I have made up my mind that I want to add a double or triple holder pedestal to each side of the boat for extra rod storage. If anyone has some that they are looking to sell let me know.

Thanks,

Ben

Nice looking catch Capt. Rich

I got an HDS 7 based on Line Dancin's advise and the screen size. The biggest thing that sold me on the HDS unit was that it had the NEMA connection for an autopilot, which I plan on putting on my boat at some point, the Elite 7 does not have the NEMA connection. Also, Lowrance dealers (or at least the Outdoorsman in Jenison) have a $100 rebate this month.

200 ft is roughly 7-8 miles off shore in Holland.

I have a bunch of LEDs mounted under the gunnels that light the interior of the boat good. I have separate spreader lights mounted right below the downriggers on the back but try to use them only for netting.

I was wading in the middle of Kalamazoo lake last weekend when we were steelhead fishing. Couldn't make it through with the 14 aluminum let alone the Slickcraft.

Cool but expensive. I'm not sure it really would help that much past a Fish Hawk or other down speed and temp sensor along with a Fish Hawk TD to check where lines are running.

Want to make a side bet on that one

I'll try calling Wolf's tomorrow and see if they can help with specific part numbers. Otherwise coralee gave me the name of a guy in Douglas that supposedly knows a lot about Slickcrafts.

The reason I was thinking put a dowel in there was to give the filler body and I was concerned about thermal shrinking if I used just epoxy or another "caulk" type filler. I'm going to call Bowkers tomorrow and see what price I would be looking at from them, otherwise I picked up some 3m 5200 today that I can use.

Thanks Larry!

So I really dug into getting the new graph put in tonight and in the process of replacing the old transducer decided I would move the new one to the other side and remove the 3 other units mounted to the back of the boat that are not being used. Now I'm left with 2 unused holes in the transom, one about 3/8" diameter, one about 3/4". These are both above the water line and show no rot around the holes. There are also a bunch of unused mounting screw holes below the water line.

My plan is for the bigger holes, get some wooden dowel approximately the size of the hole, epoxy it over, put it in the hole and epoxy it in place then repair the spot with a gel coat repair kit. For the smaller holes I'm thinking clean them out good with a drill, pack them full of epoxy, and then repair the point with the gel coat repair kit.

Does this sound like the right approach or should I be doing something different?