jdh

7-21 am - Port Sheldon The the King Possible out of Port Sheldon this morning with my dad and a friend of ours. Got out on the water and set lines at 6:30 and fished until 10 am. Ended up 3-8: 1 steelhead (7 lbs), 1 king (25+ lbs), and 1 coho (10 lbs). I said 25+ for the king because I don't trust my scale, but he was 38-inches long. We fished the from 6:30 to 8:00 am in 100-140 fow going 2 for 3, and then worked out and finished up in 160-170 fow picking up 5 more bites and pulling in a big coho. The fish liked it a little fast this morning and we mainly fished S/SW at 3.0-3.6 at the ball. What worked: 2-2 Steelie/Coho - 300 Copper with a Moonshine Mongolian Beef Spoon 1-1 King - Downrigger at 91 ft with an 11" white UV paddle and BW poofster fly. 0-3 - Wire Mag Dipsy on 2 back 135-145 feet with a 10" Kevin's Girlfriend SD & JJ's Boyfriend Meat Rig 0-1 - Wire Size 1 Dipsy on 2 back 155 feet with a 10" Netminders UV Showtime & BW Spotted Dick Meat Rig 0-1 - 300 Copper with a Glow Back Mag Silver Streak Blue Dolphin

I saw the picture before reading your post and said - "Is that an atlantic?". Awesome.

Port Sheldon 5/14 am I've been trying to get a friend of mine out on my boat for a while. We got our schedules to work out for the most part although we had a strict 3 hr of fishing time on the water. Good thing the fish cooperated also! Started fishing right at 7:30 and had 3 coho in the boat before I got my 4th line down. This included a double/triple with 1 coho on the rigger ball, one on the free slider, and one on a 200 copper. The king bite picked up around 9 am. We ended up with 14 fish in the box and release a three small fish (14-18" kings) hoping to pick up one more big one - but the last three fish we hooked wanted nothing to do with the net. I estimate we had between 22 & 25 fish on - it's tough to keep count. We fished the 120-140 fow straight out of Port Sheldon and a made loops to the south 2.7-2.9 at the ball. Fished the same water all morning making. Never straying more than 1 mile from where we started. Most fish seemed to be down 50-100 feet. What worked: 2 coho - free slider rigger down 90 - blue icicle superslim (missed two kings on this setup) 1 coho - rigger down 90 - DW flea 4 all spoon 1 coho, 1 shaker, 1 king - free slider rigger down 75 - mini streak uv gold jager bomb 1 shaker, 1 coho, 1 king - 300 copper - mag silver streak blue dolphin (lost some king bites on this too) 1 coho - 100 copper - stinger stingray hawg wild 1 coho - 150 copper - mag silver streak mixed veggie 1 steelie, 1 shaker - 200 copper - stinger uv mixed veggie 2 kings - mag diver on 2 back 180 ft - pro king 8" paddle chrome uv blue bird with mirage fly 1 king - mag diver on 2 back 225 ft - pro king 8" paddle chrome uv charlie's special with mirage fly 1 coho - slide diver on 4 back 100 ft - stinger pickle seed

Holland 5-13 5:30 am - 1 pm Fished in from 60-90 fow from 5:30 until 9:30. Waste of time. Couldn't get then to go. Then ran out to 250 fow and found a few kings and coho. Ended up boxing 9 coho & 1 king. Ended up releasing an additional several fish that all decided to bite before we could pull lines. Mag wire divers & chrome pro king paddles were hot. Back 225-250 ft. Riggers down 80-150 were also firing with free sliders taking most hits. 2.7 mph at the ball. N & NE were best direction. Almost all the fish had a few to several alewives in their stomaches.

ALL THE LAKE TROUT WERE STUFFED WITH "NON EXISTENT" ALEWIVES THAT LAKE TROUT DO NOT EAT... but whatever.

Holland 5-9-17 am Launched in Holland this morning and set lines in 60 fow. Worked between 60 & 80 down to Saugatuck and then turned around and worked back north between 80 & 100 fow. I think we ended up something like 11 for 18? Put 4 kings, 1 coho & 6 lake trout in the box. Lost about 3-4 kings and 3-4 lakers while pulling them in. Awesome day on the water. Mag spoons early, normal or small spoons later - mixed veggie was hot. Flasher fly on a diver out 100 ft in 60-80 and out 140 in 80-100 was the rod for the lakers. Speed was 2.6-2.8 mph at the ball. What worked: 1-1 King - Mag diver on 1.5 back 67 ft with Pro King antifreeze & mirage fly. 1-2 King - Rigger down 33 ft with silver streak mag mixed veggie 1-2 Coho (king) - Rigger down 50 ft free slider silver streak mixed veggie 5-7 Lakers (lakers) - Mag diver on 1.5 back 100 & later 140 ft 8" spinny kevorkian & poofster fly 1-2 King (laker) - Slide Diver on 3.5 back 75 ft green/white/yellow stinger spoon with copper back 1-1 Laker - 6 Color Lead with UV orange BLL Solar Flare 0-1 (king) - 150 Copper with Stingray Mixed Veggie 0-1 (king) - 200 Copper with Stingray Mixed Veggie 1-1 King - 100 Copper with Stinger Mixed Veggie

Fishing Port Sheldon?

I've done it on my 17' Lowe, and I used 2 sheets of marine plywood laminated together with West Systems epoxy and sealed completely with the same epoxy. It will be a $200-300 to do it. A lot of older boats seem to have come "new" without sealed transom wood so anything you do to protect the wood from getting water in it should significantly extend its life. Also - check out the iboats Stracraft Owners forum. They'll generally help you out with any questions. http://forums.iboats.com/forum/owners-groups-by-manufacturer/s/starcraft-boats

I was reading that you had good success on steelhead with the slide divers. What's your setup for those? I haven't been able to get steelies on any divers.

Nickle plated is supposed to shine "black" in the water I thought. Silver & gold are supposed to be the right way to go. Mister Twister looks UV flourescent? The spoons are kind of easy to figure out because you can see the clear coat coating really shine up instead of the painted colors. I think the ladderback non-uv would show up as just the ladderback, but the UV ladderback might show up with a larger profile. I'm going to take pictures of the actual spoons that have got me lots of fish and see if there's any patterns I can follow. -JDH

Thanks Dr Hook. I guess I didn't think about them all "reflecting" ultraviolet light. I suppose my question then come down to UV-fluorescent. I've attached 2 pictures below that show what I'm talking about - and they show three types general color patterns: 1 UV-fluorescent coating (first picture far left, second picture right & left) (2) UV-fluorescent colors (first picture dots on spoon 1 & edge of spoon 4, second picture center (3) Not UV-fluorescent (first picture spoon 2 & 3)

Thanks for the response Kurt. I'm hoping a few more people chime in on this. Almost all spoons & flashers have a large amount of uv reflective colors such as green/yellow/orange/pink. With the blacklight these guys shine so bright! When I shine the light on the non-uv lures you can barely even see what color they are. I'll post some pictures later. I'd like to know when people would choose intentionally to run non-uv lures over the uv. -JDH

Non UV Spoons I'm going through all my tackle and I've been using a UV/blacklight flashlight to pull out the non or minimal uv reflective spoons. Most of these are silver/gold reflective, but some are plain pain colors like white or purple and don't reflect uv. I'm just wondering if you can tell me what conditions you would choose to run these spoons? I've included a picture of a couple of these spoons. I've got a bunch though from all different brands. -JDH

That's what I do with my 2-stroke. For the 4-stroke I would check the oil before & after every trip to make sure there's no water in it. Also, I would try to make sure the engine is heated up fully for a little while (under decent amount of power). If you're idling/trolling the whole time the engine may be running a little cold and may "make oil". Another thing to check would be the lower unit oil. I would change it now to make sure there's no leaks.

You might think so, but I'll fish as late into the year as the launches allow. If we could just get the water temps to drop below 50 degrees the skinny water should start producing well.