DUSTER

Thought I would post this info for member MCBA Capts. and interested fishermen. Several weeks ago we started posting on Facebook for our members and the interested public. We're able to get info out in "real time" as we receive it for our members...If your on Facebook...just do a search on Facebook for MICHIGAN CHARTER BOAT ASSOCIATION...and our page will come up for you...Some Capts are posting pictures already to the page for the public to see...Also we're "test" buying a little advertizing on Facebook to get our name out to a bigger public...via the Facebook network.

On another topic...we're in the process of doing a new website with all the new "tekky"things...such as APPs and more user friendly navigation site features.. That should be up and running sometime in May 2014....

John...........George has been gone for at least 1o years or better now. Time flies and it could be 15 years now ,I just don't remember for sure. When George was alive I bought several 100 flies and squids from him . His son Casey Ritchie took over the fly making business and still may be making flies. I still see a few around in several area tackle stores in northern Michigan.

George's aqua-gold fly was a killer on king salmon for me with a Bechtel fish catcher flasher in white/glow or white with silver prism tape. Another one that worked great was George's black squid fly and a white Luhr Jensen dodger on over cast or dark days .

George usually gave me a good break on flies if I bought a 100 at a time,think I was buying flies from him for a buck a fly if I bought a 100 and they at that time sold for 2.75 each at local stores.

George was a firm believer in the double single hook set up on his flies and over the years I've come to think he was right there.... I lose more fish on today's treble hook flies....such as the KRW flies. Now I buy KRW fly bodies and make my own double single hook set up.

George lived in Honor,MI on Big Platte lake and had a barber business in Honor and I grew up in Benzie county so I knew him for many years.

Just in the past several weeks his twin brother Dave Ritchie past away. Dave wrote for the Detroit Free Press for many years doing the sunday outdoor page. Both Dave and George wrote books on fishing in their lifetimes. George also wrote for the local weekly Benzie Record news paper on fishing/hunting in north west Michigan. The Ritchie brothers grew up in the Flint,MI area and both moved to northern Michigan...Dave lived in Buckley,MI and as I mentioned earlier George lived in Honor,MI....

I still use some of George's flies that I have left,just last week I used a yellow/glow squid and a chrome dodger for lake trout off of my home port of Arcadia. MI

Congrats....with your new boat....those Tiaras and Slickcrafts have some of the best hulls in the business. I'm sure you'll be happy with it..

Welcome Tom, KRW Aqua Gold or Aqua Gold Glow are my favorites.

Same here ...Ed...but I change Ken's treble hook to a single double hook fly set up. Most of the time I buy the 3 pack fly bodies from KRW and make my own hook setup. I was on a friends 33 Blackfin on Tues. evening the king that came in was caught on the 2 single hook fly and the other lost on the treble hook fly on its way to boat after 5 minutes or so into the fight. Same colors,same spin doctors on both dipseys.

Some of the guys came down to Manistee from the Arcadia marinas to fish the Tightlines for Troops tournament over the weekend...no problem in the channel for their boats. Those boats averaged in size from 30 to 33 ft with inboards..

I post a couple of photos from our days last week on the Baltic sea..

11 salmons over 22 lb and several 28-31 lb and a nice 34 lb salmon

And a big number of 13-22 lb fish

Many two and three strikes, When the 34 lb strike at the same time a 24lb strikes.. nice fights with 400-800 ft of line out on several fish

Best Regards Jonas

Hej Jonas.....flot laksen i billeder....tillykke med fin fangst i Svergie

Ryan made a very accurate statement about todays new charter requirements. I do believe though, that the TWIC card is no longer required. The rest though, is right on. The amount of hoops and related costs have gone thru the roof these days. It wasn't anywhere near this much in the old days....lol. You are also required to belong to an org. that has you on a random drug test program year around, that's about another $150 for memberships, plus you have to renew your license every 5 years with a new physical, that's another $250 or so. Then you have to get your boat, or the charterboat being used, inspections from the DNR for about another $250, depending. Then the charterboat has to have a lot of new safety equipment and such, including special marking on PFD's with special doo-dads, another $500+. By the time you're done, you have a nice fat wallet drained. You are also now a part of Homeland Security, background checks back to birth, and you can't have any legal problems at all. The amount of federal paperwork is voluminous at best. You are now approaching about $3,000. This isn't for the faint of heart, nor the guy just showing off for fun. Good luck.

Ed...your right about the TWIC card not being required...but I do know the Coast Guard licensing center in West Virginia asked for a current issue photo copy of it when I did my license renewal this last February....So its kind of like you don,t need it from local Coast Guard people but need it for license renewal...go figure I guess....We,ve talked about this at MCBA board meetings and still do not have a 100% firm answer from Coast Guard officials .

Looks reel nice! :thumb:

Riggers closed for good?

Just a quick note. Riggers is closed bring your own lunch. Beer still cold in the frig but the boat is still in the barn. I hope to get it in so that I get down to Manistee for Tight Lines.

Bruce .... any news on Dredging the Arcadia harbor ? If that's not done before the Tightlines veterans tournament how will you get out of the harbor to travel down to Manistee?....According to Jimmy at Arcadia marine ....they are waiting on money for dredging before they start the dredging process.

Not till i am 50 with 8 million in the bank, then I might considered buying a big boat, until i kinda like run other peoples, less head aches!!!

Matt....... I think Denny just turned 80 or is right around eighty if I recall...great guy...I've known him for 28 to 30 yrs and always a great Capt.and friend to talk and chat with.. And if you have 8 million in the bank at 50 you can buy a marina instead of charter fishing...:D

very nice tiara and do you have any recommendations for camping and a launch in Arcadia

Arcadia Township has a good launch ramp right on 1st street between the public marina and Acadia marine's private boat slips....can't miss it, Arcadia is to small to miss it:D. For Camping there's Sunset Valley resort/motel and they have camp sites.Their about 3/4s mile north of town off of M-22. Another is Muldavid camp grounds right at the north corner of 1st and Lake st..they have RV and camping right there on Arcadia lake and a primitive boat launch there as well. Sunset valley resort is probably the better of the two ..

Eric what year is that Tiara and did I see you were out of Arcadia planning on coming up in June when it slows down here my brother-in-law really wants to fish there

It's a 82 Tiara/Pursuit and yes I'll move back to Arcadia right after the Tightlines for Troops veteran's benefit tournament in Manistee on May17th and 18th

double posting

I thought Denny was getting out chartering?

Matt...he wants to...but he's trying to sell the boat and business. He told me it's hard to sell a boat without a customer base if he just shuts it down and walks away. So he'll be out there again the way it sounds as of our conversation last weekend.... Beautiful Rampage 33 he owns Matt...there's your 1st charter boat for you .

Out of winter storage and In the water again ...the work begins now with getting rods and reels filled with new line. Spoons,plugs ,flys and flashers need to organized ,last summer's charters kind of left everything loose in tackle boxs and drawers down in the cabin....So I hope to be out on the big lake next week.

Think everyone is a little uneasy right now about the salmon "where abouts" in the big lake. Could be their out in deep water . I'm going in the water soon with my boat,guess I'll have to start looking if we don't see any spring salmon in May. We usually get an early run of 6 to 14 lb fish,kings, in mid to late May up our way.

Maybe I'll have to target "offshore" steelhead this year...and with the late spring and longer winter,there should be some "scumlines" form up in June/July off Ludington to Frankfort. Guess time will tell.

Yep...I agree with Ed...the only reason to me for a kicker motor on a 27 to 30ft boat would be ....a backup motor if your main single motor failed. Such as a single motor 27 to 30ft Sportcraft or similiar boat. Have seen one 28 Cherokee with a small diesel engine installed when it was buildt at the Kaleva,Mi plant.That worked pretty good as they were able to hide most of the motor below decks... From what I had heard,I guess it was real cheap on fuel for trolling . It had enough power to maintain boat control in a 3/4 ft sea without running the main engines...or so I was told anyway..

I'm fond of VMC Hooks for my spoons but I like big single hooks on my flies. Last summer when the Coho showed up off our port....I was losing them about 50% of the time with my customers off our wire line dipseys using spin doctors and flies....So I went down into the boat cabin and rigged up some flies using hook setups from some of ol George Richey's squids I had kicking around in a not much used tackle box. George always told me he had better hookups with big single hooks in tandum rather that the treble hook arangement on most of todays flies.

Short of the story is...wire rod on my port side rigged with big single tandum hook arrangement ON A kRW fly body out caught the starboard side with the treble hook fly 3 to 1. Both flies same brand..KRW in Aqua/gold and same color spin doctors.

On the next mornings charter did the same thing...kept the same setups from the day before...big single hooks out catching the treble hook fly . Approx.Same number of hits each rod...just that the big single hook fly with an inexperenced fishermen on the rod would get the Coho to the boat....The fish were hooked good with the big single hook buried in their jaw or completely through the jaw most of the time.

Others feel the single hook flies lose to much fish..but on Coho salmon which by the time their in our area ,they usually weigh around 7 to 10 lbs most yrs , late August,I find single hooks tied tandum work best for me and now tie Gamakatsu single hook setups for my flies.

Looks like the Big Weenie brand uses a big single hook on their flies along with a treble hook Their flies have worked better for me than others using this arrangement for kings I've noticed on my boat ...so just my 2 cents about hooks.

My new chore. Wondering if with this weather I need to fit it with a snowboard.

I'll be interested in any info on maintenance, updates etc for those who know the SS235. Like should I run a lead substitute?

Judging from the looks of your Slickcraft...I'd say its vintage is around 1970 to 74. If that boat has its original motor you will need a lead additive put in each time you get gas at a gas station. I used to buy a additive called VALVE TECH for my 76 28.5 Slickcraft...that boat had twin 1974 350c.i. rated 255 h.p. motors even though the boat had a 1976 mfg date on the hull.

Later on I had a newer 350 installed starboard and new heads installed on other port motor so I did'nt need a lead additive anymore.

Here is a little history...if I remember correctly about the past..

The original spoon that the Fishlander spoon came from what was the Big Jon Company's ...FINFIGHTER spoon. Big Jon Co was being sold and the spoon die plates were either bought or given to Mike Steffes who is the nephew of John Emory who was the original owner and who started the Big Jon Co. Mike had his start in the spoon and downrigger manufacturing business from his uncle.

So after the Emory family sold the downrigger company Mike went off to Fishlander as a partner and founder of that company were they made riggers and FISHLANDER spoons.

That relationship went south and the company disbanded ....so Mike formed the Warrior spoon company that he's involved in today..

Over the years I've always had good results with the FINFIGHTER then FISHLANDER and now WARRIOR spoons...Last year off lead core and copper the Miami dolphin Warrior spoon was a killer for both steelhead and kings. The UV blue pearl Warrior off riggers was great on bright days for kings..

Never been a big fan of Mike Steffes as it seems like he has got an attitude problem with people...maybe it's just I take his personality wrong...but I will say I always buy his product because I do catch many fish with his spoons

On charter boats here in Michigan....DNR officers doing dockside inspections told us that flare guns were not approved on our boats. They said that children could open the flare gun box and accidentally shoot one off while on the boat.

There's some logic to that ...as I've had kids get into about everything and anything on the boat during a charter while parents sit there and just let it go on...

Aint all bad guys...the fruit farmers up my way are hoping for a late spring....they took a beating last year with their fruit trees and early budding then frost . Usually in the past we had some pretty good off shore steelhead /scumline fishing with some great temp breaks when the big lake warmed up in June. Mild winters and the breaks were not very defined way offshore and it seemed like those surface feeding fish were really scattered.

My spring time brown trout fishing was always better after a normal cold winter then a good spring warmup...can't say that now with demise of brown trout in northern lake Michigan or least from Manistee north that is.

I have had Cannons on other boats...they've been a good rigger with not much problems...maybe a up/down elect. switch go bad on one of them..but thats about it.

Last decade I 've owned Big Jons...mainly because they're made about a 1/2 hr from my home here in Northern Michigan. Only issue I've had is 2 bad motors on the new Tournament electrics...Big Jon in Interlochen had me going the same day .They're about 3/4 of an hr from my marina dock.

Over the years I've broken a couple rigger arms where the coupling is for rod boom extension pieces hooks together to make a 4ft rigger arm...Have'nt had that happen on their newer riggers. This happened several times on their Capts.Pak model I had 10 yrs ago. Bye in large they've been pretty reliable over the years for the heavy use I've given them.

One thing I do like is that Big Jons rigger arms flex...letting me know I have a small fish on that has'nt broken my rubber band release.

Scotty makes a great weight retriever so you don't have to lift Big Jons rigger arm to rehook a line to the rigger release. Hate lifting a rigger arm in rolling seas and having a cannon ball swinging around trying hook up a line again.

So to sum it up...their factory being close by is the big factor for me buying Big Jons..

That's my favorite port to go out of. I will check in you when I pull the boat over and see about lunch @ Riggers

Sounds good ...look me up this summer and we'll do lunch....a couple of the guys at my marina may want to have lunch also... They love talking about the day's fishing and what was working for them.. It's one of the nice things about fishing out of a small port...Everyone shares info on fishing.

Hi Michael......I'm new here myself. After reading through the different posts,I'd say you came to a great site for sure. Anyways... a big welcome from me and I'm sure the fisherman here feel the same way.