Toxic

Started out around 9ish at the 00 line straight out of Bula in 68FOW w/1-3's. We netted 5 real quick. From that point is progressively got worse by the minute. From 1-3 to 3-5 with occasional 7-8 swells rolled in. We trolled further east and picked up two more. We lost 1 around 30' behind the boat and 2 more before we even seen them. My friends son picked up a 28.5 eye Fish Ohio (his first) today and I picked up a Fish Ohio 23"sheephead. We decided to turn around and go back through. It was all over about that point. As we turned all heck broke loose and I to change my drawers once or twice LOL I called the dreaded Capt's call to head back in. We only fished 2.5 hours (all the gas up & back:(). We fished dipsy deep #3settings 210 & 195 #2 at 160 & 170. Rigger set @66FOW. Rigger took the biggest eye. Colors primarialy green or yellow copper backed.

FYI-The weather bozo's should have called a Small Craft this morning.

Good luck and be safe.

Toxic

Good job. I haven't perched in 3 years. I'll have to hit it one of these days.

Great job Ray. I believe you were following me in the harbor coming in on Sunday. We ended up with 3 tickets and 1 steelhead. We started out at the 00/54 line 72 FOW. Planers with wire, and dipsys each took their toll. Board out from 200-250 with sticks. Dipsy set #3 from 180-240, #2 160-140. Fish were slow picking. We would pick up 2 and 3 here and there, no consistency. Anything green seemed to be the trick. Good luck.

Ashtabula finally! Good job on the eyes. I'm hitting Geneva Sunday. I'll try Ashtabula Mon & Tue.

Finally got out today. We left Geneva at 7am for a cement mixer of a day. Weather bozos at NOAA called for 1-3. Yeah right! More like 3-4 with an occasional 5-7 swell mixed in. And it is official, I barfed :eek:for the first time in my life while fishing LOL. The old man just couldn't take it any more

Any way we started in 72 FOW and sailed LOL east. We had out dipsys and jets off the big boards. We banged all our fish off the dipsys and only two came of the boards. We ended up with two tickets early and we lost a few coming in. Hot color was Yellow Jacket from Steel Valley Tackle. That spoon killed them today. Our presentation had no rhyme or reason to it. All depths caught them. The dipsys on the 3.5 setting did the best out from 150 down to 185, port and starboard sides. Speed was from 2.3-2.9mph. After 2 or so it laid down a bit and I tried big boards again. We needed 6 more fish to seal the deal, but we couldn't buy a fish after that. Surprisingly we only picked up three junk fish. Good luck to you guys and be safe.

Thanks guys. I was in 50 FOW running my #1's set @O and also 3 settings targeting the 30-40 FOW range. I'd have to look at my chart to find exact line out. I had my boards running deep diving reef runners w/inline weights. I had anywhere from 100-200 FOL out. I was marking lots of fish. Sounds like I was running a little to deep. Weather permitting I'll be back up this weekend and I'll take the advice.

We fished Ashtabula on Sat. Just some junk fish to show for it. Radio chatter claims that jets were catching a few eyes. My luck, I only had dipsys LOL.

I also like the stingers. But I don't like how the paint comes off. I am trying something different this year. I bought 25 Pro-eye spoons from Jannsnetcraft for less than 1.40 a piece, compared to 5.00 for the stingers. All I have to do is add my own rings and hooks. But for that kind of savings and with gas prices, I don't mind putting them together

Must been one of those homer moments.

YEP LOL! I found out you have to pay to post in the classifieds.

I answered my own question, I found out why. Nevermind!

I tried to post something for sale in the sales thread. I was denied. Any reason why?

Give them fish some directions to Ashtabula LOL. I'm ready to go....

It sounds like this is going to be another great year.

Good read!

I also have vinyl on mine. I found a dealer on eBay.

I grew up on the water. My parents would go camping at Pymatuning Lake in Pa all summer. My Dad would drive over 60 miles everyday back and forth to work. After work and weekends we would spend every minute on the water. We had a 32' pontoon docked all summer. And many fish, mostly walleye were taken from that boat. Now I look forward to taking my little 2.5yr old man out on my boat.

Here is the article so you do not have to register.......

Entrepreneur finds profits in waste rock at abandoned mine

LEE BLOOMQUIST, Duluth News Tribune

Worthington Daily Globe - 01/07/2008

HOYT LAKES, Minn. (AP) - When others saw piles of waste rock at the former LTV Steel Mining Co. property, Brad Gerlach saw opportunity.

"My brother (Bruce) was closing the mine and said, 'Why don't you come out here and take a look around?'" said Gerlach. "On the day I went out there, it was raining and I saw all the different colors of the stone. I said, 'What are you going to be doing with all that beautiful stone?' He said, 'Do you mean that waste rock?' I said, 'No, I mean that beautiful stone.'"

Five years later, Gerlach is selling thousands of tons of the colorful stone to owners of multimillion-dollar homes, contractors, landscapers, masonry companies, real estate developers, architectural firms, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the public.

The Precambrian stone — an estimated 1.8 billion years old — is a naturally produced product that's being hand-picked in an environmentally friendly harvesting process.

LTV Steel Mining Co. operated from 1951 to 2001, producing about 323 million tons of iron ore pellets.

As miners blasted and dug for iron ore, the stone covering the iron ore was moved to stockpiles or used in the creation of berms.

Included in the stockpiles and berms are tons of slate, diopside, jasper, banded taconite, marble, greenolite, flagstone and stromatolites.

Stacked in the stockpiles and berms, the stone is hand-picked and loaded onto trucks for interior and exterior home veneers, walls, steppingstones, ponds, foundation rock, and for countertops, tables, and tiles.

"We like it because it is essentially a green product," said Brady Halverson, a landscape architect at Short Elliott Hendrickson, Inc. a Minneapolis architectural planning, engineering, and natural sciences firm. "It's a byproduct of a process that's already taken place in the mining of iron ore. And it's available in a variety of forms from aggregate size into slabs. You can use small stones next to large veneer and get it to look the same."

A 17-foot-long, 8-foot-wide, and 12-to-14-inch thick piece is being used as a bridge at a new Bell Museum of Natural History building proposed in St. Paul.

Stone from the site was used to build the Paul Wellstone Memorial near Eveleth, at Normandale Community College, the Dr. (E.W.) Davis taconite museum at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis Library, and in tabletops at the Guthrie Theater.

Next year, Short Elliot Hendrickson will use the stone as veneer on a concrete bridge to be built over a river near downtown Tower.

"It is what it is," said Gerlach, 59, a retired food industry worker. "We don't do any blasting and we don't have to cut. We're like a chef's salad that nobody's ever seen. We have the most beautiful stone in the world."

In addition to the stone being reused, the site itself is being recycled. Along with natural stone production, the world's first commercial iron nugget plant is under construction. PolyMet Mining Corp. of Vancouver, B.C., plans to use portions of the former LTV concentrator to process copper, nickel and precious metals from a proposed mine to the east.

"This has to be the busiest closed mine there is," Gerlach said.

The entire LTV site, now called Cliffs-Erie, contains an estimated 12.9 billion tons of stone, Gerlach said.

Joel Evers of Hoyt Lakes, a geologist and former LTV section manager of mining, said the stone is in huge demand by contractors and landscapers as a natural product.

"A lot of the stone used in landscaping is kind of bland, but this stone has blacks and greens and reds and has a lot of different patterns, shapes, and textures," Evers said. "Its colors, textures and patterns are what make it so unique, The landscaping market has been begging for something new and is running out of natural rock. Brad just kind of hit on it at the right time."

It's also heavy. Stone harvested from the site weigh about 225 pounds per cubic foot compared with about 175 pounds per cubic foot for granite, Gerlach said.

"It's some of the densest stone in the world, with lots of intrusions and color combinations," Gerlach said. "When you look at a lot of fireplaces inside or outside, it's cultured rock — fake," Gerlach said. "But now, customers want the real stuff and many quarries in the country are falling behind the demand. Rocks are hot."

From 2002 until recently, the company was known as Cliffs Natural Stone LLC. It was 56 percent owned by Cleveland-Cliffs Inc., 22 percent by Gerlach and 22 percent by Gerlach's partner, Steve Hedberg. Hedberg operates five Twin Cities landscaping yards.

On Dec. 17, Gerlach and Hedberg closed a deal under which each now owns 50 percent of the company. The name of the company was changed to Mesabi Natural Stone LLC.

Mesabi Natural Stone owns 30 acres of property at the former taconite plant and under leases with the state, Cliffs-Erie and Great Northern Iron Ore Properties. The company also has an agreement with Northshore Mining Co. for the harvesting of stone in an area of its Peter Mitchell Mine near Babbitt that's not active. The company picks rock from the middle of March until the end of November.

Northshore general manager Mike Mlinar, Northshore mine manager Doug Halverson, and Gerlach's brother Bruce, who managed the Cliffs-Erie property, were instrumental in helping the stone company become operational, Gerlach said. In 2007, the company had sales of $1 million, Gerlach said.

By the end of 2008, Mesabi Natural Stone officials hope with a partner to construct a year-round stone manufacturing plant operating at the site. About 35 to 40 employees would slice and polish stone, turning it into countertops, tabletops and tile.

By September 2008, Mesabi Natural Stone hopes to reach annual sales of $2.5 million, Gerlach said. Sales of $4 million to $5 million are projected from 2008 to 2009. Future annual sales could reach $20 million, Gerlach said.

Within five years, the dimensional stone manufacturing plant could employ 50 to 70, he said.

In addition to marketing the stone on the retail market, Gerlach said the company will sell stone to anyone who gives the company a call.

"So far, it's all pretty much been from word-of-mouth," Gerlach said of sales. "But we're planning to do a lot more advertising. This is going to be a real solid growing business employing more people every year."

Welcome to the site. Isn't the internet great. Wow, all the way from Russia. I also attach my line with a coast lock swivel and I use the same split ring like the others stated.

I shot two does in WV. And 2 does on two different controlled hunts in Ohio. I only seen 1 small buck and I let my buddies boy take a crack at it. He hit it, but we lost the blood trail after an hour. I was really hoping we could find it for him. I just don't he had all that great of a hit on it.

GLOutdoorstore.com carries Moonshine Flies

www.gloutdoorstore.com. That is a nice site with decent prices.

I was almost scared to open this up when I saw the title. That is some great video. Thanks for sharing.

Man you guys are lucky to have such nice areas to hunt at. I hunt a 200 acre farm in West Virginia. The deer are real thick there as well. And there isn't a lot of pressure on the deer. I shot two does, my buddy and his 10yr old shot a doe a piece and their cousin shot a nice 8pt in two days of hunting. The landowner encourages doe harvesting and who am I to say no to meat in the freezer.

Us Ohioans are so lucky on deer this year. We had such bad weather for the first day. It rained so hard I saw Noah's Ark floating down the river. The rest of the week was windy with 20-30+mph winds. The numbers are down as much as 50% from last years opener. A lot of guys that I've talked to are just not seeing the deer this year. Southern Ohio had a bad case of EHD and it killed a lot of deer. We still have a 2 day second phase deer season 15/16 Dec. and muzzleloader. Good luck to all.

Nice looking rig Toxic. Did you loose the rigger over the side?

Sure did! I put it on the night before and had it locked in on the base. As I was going out on the water and heard a thump. I turned around just in time to see it fall off the boat. I'm guessing that someone tried to steal it and could not get it off and gave up. Or the swivel base mount lock malfunctioned. Bad thing was I had it sold. Arrgh!

I have been hunting since I was 4yrs old. I mostly hunt deer now. I used to hunt waterfowl, until I lost a good buddy and a good lab who I used to hunt with. Good dogs and friend are both hard to replace.

This my 1997 Trophy. She is equipped with a 150hp 2 stroke Yamaha and a 4 stroke 9.9hp kicker. I can hit the water running at 40+mph. I have a Lowrance 332C GPS/FF. I'm down to 1 cannon downrigger (lost one). I just installed a planer board mast and can't wait to try it out next year.