GLF

Welcome to the site. Thats a beauty you have in your avatar. I'm not talking about the guy holding the fish Is that a recent picture?

Mike

Here is the link for the beach camera in South Haven.

http://webcams.fbv.mhe.viapointe.com/wwmt/southhaven.jpg

I see the February issue of Woods-N-Water News has an article in it about them fishing from around dark till midnight. The title is "Preperation is the a prerequisite for an introduction to Great Lakes fishing.

Detroit Lions

I am still laughing after reading this

I believe I have all of the bugs worked out of the forums. We are ready to grow. I would like to encourage everyone to invite their friends. Alot of you have done this already, and I really appreciate it. I was still in the process of putting the forums together when I opened the forums on January 8th. We are now sitting on 56 members and growing every day. This is a very good number considering we have not done any advertising.

Thanks,

Mike

I just checked the marine forecast from St. Joseph to Grand Haven.

I may have to take a ride to South Haven after work on Sunday to check it out.

GALE WARNING IN EFFECT FROM NOON EST TODAY THROUGH SUNDAY

AFTERNOON

TODAY

NORTH WINDS 15 TO 25 KNOTS INCREASING TO 35 KNOT GALES

LATE THIS AFTERNOON. MOSTLY CLOUDY WITH SCATTERED LIGHT SNOW SHOWERS.

WAVES 1 TO 3 FEET BUILDING TO 3 TO 6 FEET IN THE LATE MORNING AND

AFTERNOON.

TONIGHT

NORTHWEST GALES TO 35 KNOTS. LIGHT SNOW SHOWERS LIKELY.

WAVES 6 TO 10 FEET BUILDING TO 8 TO 12 FEET.

SUNDAY

NORTHWEST GALES TO 45 KNOTS. SNOW SHOWERS LIKELY. WAVES 8

TO 12 FEET.

SUNDAY NIGHT

NORTHWEST WINDS 15 TO 25 KNOTS. LIGHT SNOW SHOWERS

LIKELY. WAVES 6 TO 10 FEET.

For those that were having problems logging in with the Welcome Block on the home page I believe I have fixed the problem. You may have to clear your cookies and then log back in. If anyone is still having problems, drop me a pm or send me an email.

Mike

The Brown Blast is just around the corner and will be upon us before we know it. Any care to share any info, or tips on how to catch browns in the spring? Baits, depth, techniques, what to look for?

Let me add to this question. At what point does a boat become untrailerable? How big is to big to tow?

There are lots of books out on how to fish for salmon and trout on the Great Lakes. Is there one book that is better than the rest for learning how to fish for salmon and trout on the Great Lakes? If you were to purchase one book to learn from, which one would you get?

Is there a chart that tells how fast different baits can be trolled or is this something that is learned from time ont he water?

When fishing 5 or 6 boards off the side, are you stagering the lengths of line out, or do you put the one with the least amount of line on the outside and work towards the boat with rods with more line out?

Is there a time of the year when body baits are better than spoons? Do you fish body baits all season? Do you fish spoons all season?

When does everyone start using dodgers and flashers? They come in all shapes and sizes. How do you know what size to use?

What is the length of your boat and how many people does it fish comfortably? Any preference on inboard or outboard?

I have a few questions for the river fisherman. When fishing/trolling crankbaits in the river off the back of the boat for steelhead or salmon, what type and length of rod do you use? What lb test line are you using?

When floating spawn back behind the boat, are you using the same rods?

Is it more common to get steelies from the leading edge, middle, or end of the hole?

Fisheries will focus on Great Lakes catch

The Canadian fishing industry for the first time will conduct widespread testing for mercury in a variety of fish caught in the Great Lakes and sold in U.S. supermarkets.

Prompted by a recent Tribune investigation that found high mercury levels in Canadian walleye, the Ontario Commercial Fisheries' Association this week said that it will check fish in all major bodies of water in which its members operate.

For American consumers, the testing means tons of popular fish imported from Canada, including whitefish, lake trout, yellow perch and walleye, will get increased scrutiny.

In December, the Tribune reported that testing by the newspaper found that Canadian walleye sold in Chicago-area supermarkets was so tainted with mercury that the fish could be banned from sale in Canada. Some samples even exceeded the less stringent U.S. legal limit.

After the newspaper's report, orders for walleye "just dried up," said Peter Meisenheimer, executive director of the Ontario fishing association.

The industry, Meisenheimer said, could not assure customers that the walleye was safe because it had not done any testing, and monitoring by the Canadian government had been sporadic.

The walleye business has since rebounded, but the industry decided to take action to prevent future financial and public relations problems.

"It's in our best interest to do this and not depend on anyone else," he said.

Meisenheimer said the tests, which could begin this year, will cover Lake Erie, Lake Superior, Lake Ontario, Lake Huron and the St. Lawrence River. Besides mercury, the industry will check fish for PCBs and other pollutants. He said the association will oversee the testing and that experienced labs would do the analysis.

"This will be done to the highest professional standards," he said.

The industry has not yet decided whether it will release the results to the public, but Meisenheimer said the industry knows that if it found high mercury levels in fish "and didn't say anything, we would be in trouble."

U.S. consumer advocates, while welcoming the new testing program, called on the industry to disclose its findings.

"You can't have a testing program of this nature where it addresses a public health need and keep the information secret," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a watchdog group based in Washington.

Mercury is a highly toxic metal that can cause learning disabilities in children and neurological problems in adults.

The leading fishing industry group in the United States, the National Fisheries Institute, said it would not test fish for mercury.

"The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is the government body that regulates seafood and is the appropriate authority to test the commercial fish supply," the institute said in a statement.

The institute said it did not know how many of its members, if any, test their fish for mercury.

The U.S. Tuna Foundation, a lobbying group for canned tuna producers, said the tuna industry regularly tests its products for mercury, but it would not share its results with the Tribune.

For the Canadian industry, a pressing issue is determining which bodies of water are responsible for the high-mercury walleye.

Most of the Canadian walleye tested by the Tribune only said "wild Canada" on the labels. Canadian regulators report that much of the nation's walleye exports come from Lake Erie.

Canadian authorities have tested few Lake Erie walleye in recent years. Five samples were taken in 2000-01 and one last year. All were relatively low in mercury, according to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

Testing of 150 samples of Lake Erie walleye in the late 1980s and 1990s showed average levels between 0.11 and 0.24 parts of mercury per million parts of fish tissue--well below the U.S. limit of 1.0 and the Canadian limit of 0.5. In the Tribune's tests, 18 walleye samples averaged 0.51 parts per million, with the highest sample measuring 1.74.

The Ontario fishing industry is interested in clearing Lake Erie's name because that is where many of its members catch fish. Meisenheimer speculated that the walleye the Tribune tested wasn't actually walleye. He said fishing companies have been known to sell a less expensive imitation of walleye, called zander, to supermarkets, and this fish might be higher in mercury.

Most of the walleye the Tribune tested was bought at Dominick's or Jewel supermarkets. Both grocery chains said that the walleye they sell are indeed walleye and that there have been no complaints to the contrary.

Who is going to win the Super Bowl?

Every spring, the tackle counters of local sport shops are filled with attractive displays of the latest lures in a myriad of colors designed to capture the attention of eagler anglers, to say nothing of eager fish. Most tackle boxes are bulging with lures of every hure, and each fishing trip becomes a study of what color bait will entice the fish today. However, certain principles of vision and the behavior of light as it penetrates the water can make lure selection more scientific.

Most fish can see in color. As in people, the retina of a fish's eye contains two types of cells, rods and cones. Cones are used for day vision and are the cells used to see colors. Rods are used for night vision and cannot distinguish colors, although they can judge light intensity. The eyes of most freshwater fish contain both rods and cones, though day feeders tend to have more cones, and night feeders more rods.

In theory, then, day feeders like bass, trout, and salmon are more sensitive to color than night feeders like walleyes. Studies have shown that rainbow trout and Pacific salmon have color vision similar to that of humans. They can distinguish complementary colors and up to 24 spectral hues. Other studies have shown that brown trout are capable of sharply focusing on near and far objects at the same time and that they can clearly see different colors at different distances.

But light behaves differently in water than it does in air. The various colors of light travel at different wavelengths. The longest wavelengths are the reds, followed by oranges, yellows, greens, blues, indigos, and violets. When light travels through water, some of its energy is absorped, and the longest wavelengths are the ones absorbed first. Thus, the warmer colors fade out and gradually appear black as light penetrates the water column. Red light is almost completely absorbed within the first 15-20 feet. Orange penetrates to 30-40 feet, and yellow to 60-70 feet, while green and blue remain visible for as deep as the light penetrates.

The total amount of light also decreases with depth. At 50 feet, a yellow lure will still appear yellow, but will not appear as bright as it did at 20 feet. While red may be visible down to 15 feet in the clear water of open Lake Michigan, it may disappear within six inches of the surface in the turbid Fox River. At depths where it is nearly dark, a white or silver lure would show up better than a blue or green lure against a blue-green background of water. Products that are designed to reflect any light that strikes them, like Prism-lite, also make lures more visible.

Commercial fishermen have experimented with this principle in reverse, using it to make their nets less visible. Nets for use in very deep water have been dyed blue or green so they would blend into the background color of the water. Perch fishermen in southern Green Bay have experimented with dying their nets red, presumably because red fades out first in these shallow turbid waters.

Total light intensity is also important. On a cloudy day, colors will not penetrate as deep as they will on a sunny day. At dusk, as light intensity falls, reds are the first color to go, followed by orange, yellow, green, and blue. As total light intensity decreases, the fish's eye switches to vision with rods, and the fish is no longer able to distinguish colors. After dark, fishermen should choose between a light lure or dark one. At dawn, as light intensity increases and fish switch back to cone vision, the order is reversed, and blues, greens, yellows, oranges, and reds appear. At early dawn, some anglers are successful with a red J-lug near the surface. To fish striking from below, it shows up as a dark lure against the lightening sky. As the day gets lighter, red no longer works well, and anglers must experiment with more visible colors.

Studies on salmon have shown that their feeding behavior depends on whether they are seeing with rods or cones. During the day, salmon use cones to give them information on the hues and shades of moving prey. When prey are first located, they are stalked and eaten head first. From dusk to dark, rod vision takes over. Schools of prey fish break up and salmon assume a position below their prey to see them in contrast against the water surface, watch them move for a few moments, and then snap them up one by one.

Ultimately, the appeal of the lure to the fish is most important. Fish must strike the lure either to eat it or attack it. While fish may locate the general area of the bait by smell or sound, most of the fish in the Great Lakes make their final attack by sight. Fish scents and noisemakers can draw fish to the area of the lure, but before it can strike, the fish must also be able to see it. This is why lure visibility and color are important to successful fishing.

A large part of vision underwater is being able to distinguish different colors. Seeing colors underwater depends on the amount of light reaching the particular depth at which one is at. Another factor in seeing underwater is the condition of the waters and, more specifically, the conditions of the surface. There are several ways to make the colors easier to see. However, it is most important, to simply understand that colors change underwater and it is sometimes hard to distinguish between them.

One factor in seeing underwater is the fact that as light passes through the water it is absorbed, and much of it is lost in the process. This causes objects to lose their color as they go deeper down or further away. To add to this, the wavelengths that make up our perception of color are absorbed differently. The length the wavelength changes how fast the color is absorbed. Red has the longest wavelength, more than 700 nm. One "nm" stands for one nanometer, which is on millionth of a meter. After red comes orange which is somewhere in-between 700nm and 600nm. After orange comes yellow and so on, all the way down to the blues and purples which are the shortest at around 400 nm.

Depending on the length of the color's wavelengths you can predict how a color will change underwater. For example, in clear water, the longest wavelength is lost first. So if you were in a pool swimming downward, the first color that would be hard to see is red.

Another factor in seeing color underwater, is the condition of the water. Light from the sun is reflected by the surface of the water. This means that the surface of the water can cause significant change in one's perception of color underwater. Different surfaces can be different amounts of bubbles, pollution, decomposing plants or plankton. Even if the change is simply more motion in the water, causing more bubbles and a different angle between the rays and the surface of the water, light would be absorbed faster, and color would be therefore lost faster. However, something such as plankton can significantly change perception of color underwater. This is because plankton absorbs violets and blues. So the presence of plankton would cause blue and violet objects to lose their colors much faster compared to red and yellow objects. Red was the first to lose its color in clear water, and the blues and violets were the last. So the condition of the water can ultimately reverse the situations, before the longer wavelengths were the first to be absorbed and with plankton the shorter wavelengths are the first. Thus, the condition of the water is a huge importance when seeing colors underwater.

Understanding how colors change at different depths and in different conditions is the first step, understanding what they change to and how to work with that is the next. In clear water, if you go down far enough a red object either appears unlighted or black. This makes since as clear water absorbs red light and eventually you can reach a depth where no red light reaches the object. The same thing could happen to a blue object in coastal waters, it could appear black. Even though red is absorbed faster in clear water and blue in coastal waters, all the colors are absorbed in water, just at different rates. So the farther you go down the less color is perceived. Plus, the further down you go different color objects all start to look the same color, the color they all look like tends to be the color that is best perceived in that water condition. For instance, if it was clear water, at a certain depth all the objects would start to look gray. So even before you reach a depth deep enough to make colors look black you can get easily confused between the different colors. One way to distinguish between different colors is their relative brightness or darkness. Several of the most visible colors are light, bright colors that cause a good brightness contrast with the dark water background. If there was a different background, such as white sand, darker colors would be easier to see. Another good way to distinguish different colors is to use two colors that cannot be mixed up in any type of water. A good example would be orange and green.

Just Glf Wondreing Why You Where Fishing In Lake Allegan For Steelies The M- 40 Bridge Is Above The Allegan Dam The M-89 Bridge Is Below

Whoops....typo on my part It was the M-89 bridge.

I edited the original post to reflect the correct bridge. Thanks DIRTY DOG!

Nice catch Josh! What times supper?

To get to the chat room, click on "Fish Chat" in the upper navbar. Its the button on the far right on the upper blue bar(navbar).

Welcome to the site Rick. If you need anything, just give a yell.

I just wanted to make everyone aware. Every member here has a 500kb limit for uploads. This means you can not have more than 500kb of pictures uploaded to the gallery.