Ace HI

I have fished with 1Mainiac for the last 7 years and since the BC2 crap he only fish's the Muskegon Shootout which he is skipping this year due to them going to a weigh 5 in the AM which we fish. I can understand in a league style event keeping the fish count down to improve competition like the MSCST or the WMFL that way no one gets knocked out completely for a bad day. But those are just have fun and fish events and way cheaper to enter. The big Pro Ams are supposed to be tough to win and if fishing is tough you need to bear down and get it down or tip your hat to the guys who could. What is going to happen is more guys like Jim will just do the 333 only events and take a shot at getting his 3 best fish in for the money.

Out with 1mainiac and Will on Jim's boat tonight set up in 85ft headed north lost one Steelhead turned west and started picking away at them. Steady action ended 14 for 16 Big Weenie Poofster behind a Pro Troll UV flasher took 7 fish. SilverStreak Panty Ho took 2 fish on a 200 BRT 45lb copper 300 BRT 45 copper took a nice king on a Orange Killer spoon. 125 copper with DBl Orange chrush took 2 fish. Big Weenie Mirage pattern fly behind a Pro Troll glow frog flasher took a nice King on a wire diver. Silver Streak Yellow Tail took a Steelhead on a free slider Lost track of the other 2 in the battle. Pretty much ran east and west thru the same water from around 90ft to 130ft.

For me my boards are setup to release with a OR 16 at the back to hold it but I run Off Shore boards. The Church boards I have played with never worked for me when mine release they flip all the way over and try to float up so your not fighting the board at all.

Try bouncing anything off the bottom in 150 to 200ft of water while trolling it is not as easy as it seems. My 300 copper will hit bottom in 75ft at 2.5 in a straight line at 3.0 I can run it in 60ft and we get Steelhead on it at 4.5 mph.

Nothing wrong with the Cannon clips other than are pricy most guys use the Klincher setup sine it works better with a probe like the Dpth Raider or Sub Troll.

One big reason this sport does not really take off is the rules vary from event to event. Most bass tourney's have the same or at least similar rules. So you can enter nearly any of them and fish the same rules. I can understand having some varaition based on port and other things however a Pro Salmon tournament should all have the same basic fishing rules. The same applies to AM class. as it is now except for charter captains a team can fish Pro one week and AM the next. Charter boats can put together teams minus the actual captain to fish AM. A group of guys can change names for every event and no one even seems to care. Pre fishing should be cut out if for no other reason than to reduce the number of fish taken pre fishing. If we could get a group of events to say this is the fishing rules and make it stick than maybe the sport could grow. As it is every event is a stand alone event so really after all these years we still don't have a organized sport fishing event on the big lake. That does not mean that the events are unorganized or badly managed it just means what it means there is no real sport fishing tour here. We have had glimmers of hope with the 333 and GL2S but yet no one has really made it happen.

The new CV 55L comes with the carbon fiber drags try some Hot sauce on them a small bottle will do all your reels I know a lot of guys run their drags dry but I have always lubed mine and they are smooth as glass.

Might as well put in our report fished the MSCST with 1 Mainiac in my 17 just the 2 of us so handicapped on lines. Fished 15's to 19's 100 to 160 fow went 8 for 8 with a couple of knock off's that never had a fish on so not counted. Stinger Green Cow on a free slider took 3 fish and took our first fish while we were still setting lines nice 8lb king second fish was a 10lb Steelie on a 115 copper with a Silver Streak Sprint Car this setup took 2 more fish a 7 lb Steelhead and a Coho about 2 lbs which we thought was another Steelhead till we got to weigh in but it came in when we had a double going so did not look at it much when we caught it since it was jumping all over just figured it was a steelie. Silver Streak Panty Ho took a small king on a free slider rigger down 120 and we got a 8lb Laker on a Silver Streak UV Uof M Dolphin I think is the name on a 200 copper. Could not get a fish on the flies and paddles we tried. Water was dead flat most of the morning was very nice to be able to run wide open on the big lake in a 17 without getting beat up.

Thanks Don was a nice day

my best Browns have always been on mistakes LOL. but it is a consistant mistake. So it would work if you did it on purpose. Go around the pier heads early go slow make lots of turns and let the plugs lay on the bottom on turns. First when the plug hits if there is a brown close by he will come look at it when he looks at it and the boat straightens out it will jump off the bottom and likely will get hit. In late Aug I have taken big Browns in 70 to 85 fow on a 300 copper with a J Plug and always the same thing when I make a turn to come back thru a section I will leave the 300 out knowing it will lay on the bottom very often it will catch a nice brown. If it don't get a Brown right away it will lift up and take a laker.

If you keep both the goals and the payout high people will want to fish it any 2 drunks in a boat can get lucky and catch 5 nice fish. Getting 10 a day is another level. All the big events should get Go Pro to sponsor them and put cameras on every boat then observers would not be needed. A quick file check would show if the camera was on and any questions could be verified by checking the video anyone with edits is DQ'd. With the new GPS cameras a time and location for each fish is on the chip. turn in your memory chip with your cooler have a couple of people verify the top 5 or so in each class. No more cheating easier for us little guys to move to Pro class because we would not need a spare crewman for a observer or a place to put one on our boat. On top of that you would have video of every fish caught and could sell both a best of and a bloopers video for the event.

Not that many years ago we were begging for that shaker to add the 10 points per fish now we have a couple of decent years of fishing and we want to dumb down the sport. Yea it sucks to come to weigh in and find yourself a hundred points out of first place but you know what, it is what you caught so work on getting better next time don't force the rest to fish at your level. The only way you get better is to keep high goals and keep trying anyone can get lucky and get 5 nice fish but those who can go get 10 or more 2 days in a row deserve to win. Maybe skip the fishing completely and just give everyone a trophy.

Catch 12 weigh 12 no cull or if your just gonna weigh 5 drop the entry to 30 bucks. Why bother having a big event if it is no better than most of the league style events you can enter for 10% of the entry fee?

Part of the reason behind no cull is back in the day you would have 80 to 100 or more boats in a few of the events with many of them prefishing a couple days before. Now picture 60 or more boats hitting your port for a week and pounding the fish and very few of them were nice about their releases it was at times a pure slaughter of a fishing port. So as complaint mounted they made a no cull rule which created cheaters well there were cheaters before but that is another point. The real point is if you don't like the rules don't fish and if you can't win without cheating than lose. Anyone who can't understand a simple no cull rule should not enter but instead we have a couple of teams who lawyer up and threaten to sue so they keep on fishing and winning. Some serious role models there don't you think? The issue of survival rate has nothing to do with it any team that can't figure out how to net a shaker but never miss's a nice king is cheating.

No cull you caught you keep it if it is a legal fish this is not bass fishing. Ban cheaters for life and trhey will stop cheating better yet put them in jail and ban them. Cheating to win money is fraud cheating to win thousands of dollars is felony fraud enforce it a few times and see what happens. Anyone who has ever fished the big lake knows full well you seldom catch 15 fish and 12 or more are big fish. Some of the BS that goes on is why I don't fish them anymore.