Sea-Mac

I've been wanting to put this story on paper for awhile. Everyone I tell it to seems to get a pretty big kick out of it. We've all had our good and bad times on the water, heres one of mine that deals with both.

Was fishing w/ a good friend and his daughter on a Fall day catching some LM/SM bass and his daughter was catching gills/perch. It was getting late and they had to get back to their cabin, so I take them back to shore and get them on their way. My friend asks if I need any help getting my boat back on the trailer. I say nah! I can handle it, Im gonna hang around a bit longer and try for some walleyes. So I head back out and managed 2 nice eyes.

Heading back to the launch im thanking the good lord for such a beautifull day of fishing and the scenery of the Fall leaves and sunset. Life cant get any better.

Drive my boat back up to shore and get my Jeep and trailer backed up to retrieve my boat. The Jeep was a stick shift, so id often leave it run and out of gear with the emergency brake on as I loaded up.

I begin to try to work it on the trailer an a few yards from getting it on the trailer I hear my Jeep make a "POP!" sound. Was that just my emergency brake giving out?? Sure enough I see my Jeep start rolling backwards into the lake.

Frantically I jumped out of the boat into the water to try and stop it. By the time I made it to the drivers side door I was allready up to my neck in water.

Then I hear "SMASH!". Was that just my boat running into the back window??

Sure enough.. water starts to pour in through the back window and sucks it right down.

I swim back to shore for relief of the cold water and try to analyize what all had just happened.

My boat is still in gear running by the way... I notice it's about to hit a dock next to the launch "BOOM!" hits the dock and a pontoon tied up to that.

Im getting ready to run off the dock and try and capture my boat that is starting to head out towards the middle of the lake.

I dont know how many of you remember the Tom and Jerry cartoons, but there was a lady on their that they never showed her face that would always chase Tom around with a frying pan or broom... She happened to be the lady whos dock and pontoon I hit. She starts chasing me down yelling and swearing at me a mile minute "Get off our lake!" ,"Get off our lake you drunk!". I calm her down and explained the situation and assured her I was not drunk, but that my parking brake had popped out.

After jumping off a few other docks to corral my boat that was being drivin by the Devil, I finally get that taken care of.

Now a crowd has started to form from this lady's screaming echoing across the lake, and my headlights being on and it lighting up the WHOLE lake. You could see fish swimming by like business as usual. That made me

The NOW nice old lady took me into her home to let me use the phone to call a tow. She gave me some cloths to put on as I was freezing cold and she made me THE BEST pork chop I have ever had in my life to this day. I ended up giving her my walleye and smallmouth for being so kind.

The tow truck arrives and the driver agreed to swim out with the chain to hook up to my Jeep. He says "I've had to do this before and its my job". He gets about halfway and he cant swim while carrying a big heavy chain and keeps bobbing up and down. Were yelling from shore when his head pops up "Just drop the chain!, your gonna drown yourself!". He does and comes back exhausted and realizes he's been defeated.

Now all of the people are hyping me up to go do it. "I seen Mike at work he can do it!", "Go out there and do it Mike your the man!". So I take off my nice new warm clothes an have to get wet and cold again. I swim along bottom with the chain and drag it a foot or two at a time till it gets to where I can hook it up. Resting by standing on the roof of my Jeep with just the tip of my nose out of the water so I can breath.

We get it pulled from the lake and I have it towed to our cottage. This nightmare is finally over.

Next day my brother in law was gonna come up to do some fishing. I cant let him down. We use his truck to fish the next day as mine was still damp. We found items from my Jeep floating around in other sections of the lake. Shoes,sandals,clothes and hats those kind of things. Some of the people that witnessed what happened the night before were yelling at me from their paddle boats and shore "Your a brave soul for coming back out here!", "Cant believe your back out here fishing!".

"Fishing is to much fun" was my reply.

So no matter how bad a day you might think you had fishing. Im sure it coulda been alot worse.

This is still my favorite inland lake, and I make it a point to see that nice old lady and her husband everytime I go there and give them all my fish.

Nice Job Terry, Bob and crew.

Im past ready for another perch/salmon outing with you guys.

I left a couple just for you Don.

Thanks for the great day out there Phil.

Was great to see and fish with Ole Big Frank again too, Also a pleasure meeting his buddy Chuck.

Thanks for the report on the fishin up there Joe. I'll be up that way for the opening day tradition of bass fishing with my family. Give Jake a high 5 from all of us here!

Nice Job Mark.

I was having trouble figuring out how to get my pictures up on here too.

I think Mike changed a few things around over winter. The BB image code is what i found worked, but the pictures look small until you click on them.

Now im usin a Photobucket account.

Great Job! You guys are on fire.

I fish 10 rods out of my 17-1/2 footer. When I can.

Like Tom said.

2 riggers

4 dipsey's

and 2 planers per side

or...

2 riggers

2 dipsey's

and 3 planers per side.

Nice Job Mike.

Great Job guys! But only im allowed to use Flounder Pounders out there. :D. Ill keep an ear open for ya Mark.

Very Nice Job! on your first time putting kings in your boat even with all the hassels. Are you related to Kirk or Debbie?

Nice Job Terry.

Nice Job Phil.

Went out with my Uncle Budly today to do a little trollin and perchin. Fog was THICK when we got out there at 1pm so we decided to troll to G.H.. Started in 80 fow and kinda worked n/nw from 80-100fow. We were 3-4 by the time we made it to the perch grounds at around 4pm. Fished for those for about an hour and caught none so at 5/5:30 we decided to call that and troll back.

Hit 80 fow and set lines back down on a south/sw troll and went 5-7 from 100-120 fow. Pulled lines at 8pm and called it a good day going 8-11 on kings with one laker.

Heres what worked...

1.Dipseys out 175 w/Blue Bubble flasher Bugeye Alewife Fly. (Hot)

2.Riggers Down 42 and 56 one with Flounder Pounder other with Brooke Trout (Moonshines)

3.5 color core with Steelie Cane DW.

Nice job Don. Better luck for all you guys this weekend.

The tails look a little worn. Nice job on the perches Rog an Teresa.

Hey Don, (Plumkrazy)Phil told me to tighten down my drags really good so thats what I did. :D:D

Nah, just not really much you can do when they dont want to fight till they get close to the back of the boat then decide to go APE SHIP on yah.

Ha! Nice.

Fished from 3:30-9 last night w/ rdcatchinafishfishin. We went 1-5 from 40-90fow.

1. Rigger down 52 with a mag. green bubble stinger and stinger size blue bubble as slider. Lost this fish.

2.Dipsey out 69 w/ a stingray size sea-sick. Nice steelie lost at the back of the boat.

3. Rigger down 25 w/flounder pounder. Seen this fish to and it looked to be a decent brown.

4. Rigger down 25 w/flounder pounder. Never got the rod out of the holder on this one.

5. 3 color core w/ blue/silver body bait. Roger landed this one to save another skunk and put the first king of 09 in my boat.

After I dropped Rog off at the dock at around 9 I went back out for eyes till around midnight with no dice.

Your more than likely gonna be buying a couple if not 4 dipsey rods sooner or later anyways.

Just wondering if your tieing your dipseys directly to your line or using a swivel at the end. If you were tieing them directly your line will get all twisted up and that could be why its breaking so easy.

With just a little bigger dipsey to give you more "bite" you should have no problems with them raising up with the 20# test and be able to use them on the 3 setting with a dodger or flasher fly combo. I use the 000 size Luhr Jenson dipseys when im in shallow water, and the 001 size and magnum size when im out deep. If you do decide to go with braid you can attach 5-8' of mono or flouro leader to the end and its back to being a downrigger or planer with keel weight set up.

Just wanted to add 20# test is a little thick for the smaller divers and the bow in your line from surface to diver from having that much line out will actually work against the diver and lift it up. A smaller diameter line or braid will help get the smaller divers down and stay down alot better. Walker recommends you use 10lb. test with the smallest diver they make. (wish I coulda edited this into my last post but i was to late)

If you were using the little tiny walker divers ive had them raise up and not want to dive for me to at high speeds. You need to go really slow with those and keep a good eye on them and leave them at the 0 setting. Prolly didnt help you had a dodger/ fly combo those take a little more to get down. Good luck.

Just fry them in butter. You can dust them with a little flour. I dusted a few with Andys fish mix the other day and they were great that way too.

Nice Job on the Walleye part of your shakedown Frank.

Sry to hear about your prop.

The Fish Sticks.