Tad Pole

We also suffered damage! I also had a piece of flashing come loose also the power was off from around 5:00 am until 6:00 pm got kinda chili in here i was pretty worried about my fish (fish tank) but we only lost one little tetra we'll see what the toll is in the morning.the good news is the winds are dieing down and the power is back on.....tradgedy adverted

the Hull design looks very simular to ours i have only got wet in it once we were quartering 6 ft waves with about a 40 mph head wind.and we did get very wet that day but glad to make port all the same.ours is not a walk around and we dont have the "cockpit" that boat has looks like a real nice rig

Forgot the pic

Nick we have a Sea Sprite 230 Escapade it wasn't built as a fishing boat but with a little creativity and some work it works out just fine.ours is a 1986 and as far as ride it rides real well ours has a 4.3 v-6 in it and it pushes it pretty well about 35mph top end.the cabin could be bigger but i'm not there to sleep!!

good luck,

Randy

Thanks Frank! I knew ya would put it in terms i could understand:crazy:

I never got to see that fish are there any pics of it?

Last 3 years best producer has been the watermelon fly behind whatever spinner hits my fancy that day

I also loosen the drag to let my dipseys out but i have wondered if this was hard on my reels doing this,any thoughts?

I just heard from Sixshooter and he asked that i post that the fishing event is a GO!!! see ya all there at 6:00 am

ALLLLL RIGHTTTT the CAZMAN will be there!!!!!!

This report is late but i have been pretty busy getting back to my usual boring life!!

we arrived Thur. afternoon and checked into our slip got everything set for a few days of hard fishing.we headed south as we did every time out this trip, down to the 13's and set up in 175 fow.things were coming a bit slow but steady we were slowly working our way out deeper to 220 and back and forth and it seamed that most hits came at the 200 fow mark, we boated 3 i think before we picked up the lines to go pull a boat in that was stranded at about 7:30 pm we took the Holy Molly in toe and the avid anglers those guys are they decided not to waste any opportunity and set a few lines down in toe and took a fish (that was awesome):in best tommy boy imitation:as it was dark as we got in we called it a night.

back out in the same area before sunrise and the moonshine spoons were hot(especially the dancing anchovie)6 kings and 2 coho one king weighed 18.15

Friday evening we were in the same area using the same baits and taking about the same amount of hits but our catch ratio was way down we only boated 1 fish about a 8 pound king.

Saturday morning we had guests John, his son Rob and Johns grandson Josh went out with us we were again in the same spot using the the same gear with the exception we ran 2 more rods in addition to the 4 down riggers and two dipseys we also put out a 7 and 4 color lead core rods we picked slow at the for a few hours and boated for very respectable kings one of them weighing 17.10then it slowed way down at noon we decided to give it another half hour and then it happened! we were on a north troll in 150 fow(shallowest we have fished so far)fish on rigger rod boated it,fish on 7 color,boated it, fish on another rigger boated it! the funniest part was that on our starboard side a hundred yd,s out was a charter boat the first fish there seamed to be some mild interest,second fish there was allot of gaping our way and before we boated the 3rd fish the charter took a hard right turn and trolled directly away from us. this all took about 15 minutes to happen laughed my ***** off.

Saturday night we had more guests my mother and step dad drove up from free soil to take the evening boat ride as we were not so much fishing as just cruising around i only set the four downrigger rods and we boated one 10 pound king but it was real nice out there and the folks really enjoyed the ride.

we wanted to fish Saturday morning but the boat was getting low on gas and mom invited us for breakfast and Rick and I were pretty wiped out so we loaded up the boat and headed south.

I haven't said what baits and riggs we used only because we never did get a pattern set up to say what was working, some things that did work was Moonshine spoons on down riggers 3 different J-plugs took fish a carmel ladder back a all chrome J-plug and a Pickle J-plug.meat rig on a dipsey took a couple fish most fish came between 65 and 140 down in 150 to 220 fow not set pattern to anything it just seamed ya had to move around and change up baits often and the fish would come.

Rick and i did have one time of hectic fun we had a triple on in 175 fow in the 13's with only us two on the boat we each had a rod and one bouncing in the rod holder at one point i was reallin in two tryin to net ricks fish and steering the boat with the net handle oh did i mention we were in the nets!

well it's over and I'm a little sad but there's always next year and some good fishing to be had yet this year.we met some new great guys caught some real nice fish and had a blast.we caught 20 fish in 2 and a half days most of them in the mid to upper teens.

Thanks JWheeler

I am headed to manistee in the morning and will be fishing atleast up threw sat. night possibly sunday morning as well.i was wanting to know where the nets are so that i could put them in my GPS does anyone know where they are?

Thanks in advance for the help,

Randy

I just got back from a sunday drive out to holland it looked good this morning but right now its big out there good call Jimmy

I've been looking at the web cams now for over an hour and at times it looks flat calm but after looking longer i have noticed that there are some pretty good sized rollers out there,defiantly fishable but they are there none the less

Frank are ya pullin the priority1 over or are ya gonna give us a chance to redeem ourselvs?

Are ya comin over this weekend to fish the tourney?

Hey we will be in manistee from the 28th threw the morning of the 31st maybe we could team up and put a smack down on those salmons.

let me know what ya have planned this could be fun

Nice going, as with most anything with kids concerned if you save one of them it was worth while it is frustrating to lose so many fish but now that i have had a week to reflect back i remember my first trip out.......

::::insert dream sequence::::

My uncles boat (22 ft islander)manistee i believe the year was 1975 i was sitting in the rear facing seat being very bored after all i was only 11 I look up and i see this rod just bouncing my dad and uncle were looking at the old paper graph wondering why the fish were not biting? so i walk over to the rod being the curious lad i am, just looking at it all the sudden the line just starts screaming off this thing my uncle probably would have tossed me over if my dad was not there but instead he yells GRAB IT! so i did, i couldn't get it out of the holder my dad reaches over my shoulder and helps me get it out and makes sure i have it(and he asked bout 10 times) before he let me have it on my own this was probably the biggest fish i have ever had on line.it was all i could do to hold this thing, i wedged my self into the corner and vowed that i was not gonna lose this contest of strength.we fought for what seamed like hours but I'm sure it was only minutes, sometimes i was winning and confident other times i was tired and scared i was gonna lose.we didn't have countdown reels in those days so i had no idea how much line was out or how long we fought this monster and I.I don't know if he saw the boat or he was just resting waiting to make one more big play but the rod started screaming again and the rod tip almost touched the water and then...he was gone. i was crushed i couldn't believe it this fish that i had battled for so long and tried so hard to boat to gain the trust and respect of my Dad and uncle was gone.after reeling the bait the rest of the way in we found that 2 of the hooks in a treble hook were pulled almost strait.

My dad and uncle were great they bragged the day away how i had managed to battle a fish so big for so long even with a bait that was obviously defective and how i must be some sort of super angler my chest swelled to be sure. i still felt the sour taste over losing that fish but i did feel that i was now part of the "salty crew".

years later as i look back I'm sure that i did something to lose that fish i most probably thumbed the reel to stop him from running but to be honest i don't remember.and now i feel a little ashamed that i was so hard on my rookie crew from last week.

sorry i rambled on so but i needed to get that off my chest...lesson learned

Your going to heaven my friend, i was out last weekend with a boat load of rookies and you seam to be allot less stressed than i was,only difference was that my rooks were not kids,good job, the thing that i have come to realize is that the next time they go out they will be a little bit less rooky

Ok heres the lattest,we have had so much trouble with this unit and have had it back to the shop so many times that they have now given us a brand new external antenea and prommised that if this didn't work that they would "take care of us" whatever that means? we will find out next time out.

oh btw we had it in less than a mounth ago and they installed all the latest updates,weird part was on the first trip out it worked flawlessly next trip it only lost possition once or twice next trip out was a little worse and now it only works half the time????

i hate to bash any product without having solid proof but that said we will not be buying Lowrance again!

Good job mike!!i'll take your crew over my last one anytime!!

Went out Sunday morning with myself and 4 count them 4 rookies!! after stopping at the local meijers for some one day passes and provisions we headed to to the lake and departed the launch at a casual 6:30 A.M.,ran out to 50 fow pretty much strait out and set up first hit came shortly after on a green ladder back J-plug on a rigger set down 45 ft in 60 fow handed it to Matt he fought it to the back of the boat saw the fish very clearly was a nice king Matt failed to control his fish and about the 5th or 6th time i had to pass another rod around his to clear another rod it came undone,pretty depressing if my net handle had been a couple of feet longer i could have netted that fish half a dozen times.

next fish same rigger same lure in 65 fow on a NW troll.again fought to the back of the boat with Kevin at the other end of the rod. again unable to control the fish and before to long wrapped up and came undone.by now I'm getting frustrated

3rd fish same rod same lure in 65 fow on a north troll my Son Cole grabbed the rod and it started peeling line after the first run i reached around him and loosened the drag a touch my thought being that if we let the fish play itself out a bit we may not have such a hard time landing this one.finally we put one in the boat!

the wave conditions were not bad(2 foot rollers) but about that time Calvin said that he was not feeling good at all and would like very much if i would take him in i of course said no problem and pulled lines and we motored in to drop him off i was ready to pull the boat and head home but Calvin insisted we go back out so we did.

back out in 70 fow and things had died i thought that the fish may have went out deeper so we trolled west to 130 fow and nothing so i again turned NE to get in more shallow in 75 fow water the full core(Michael Jackson) started RIPPIN it was nearly spooled out before we gained anything on him Kevin had the rod,right to the back of the boat A dandy king again boat rolled to the starboard and a over zealous angler and pulled the hook:angry2:

and then the sun came out Strong and the bite was on!! the fly bite i mean man those things we ornery!

Greasey chicken wing fired on a down rigger 60 down in 75 fow Cole landed that one another fine king. 5 min. later the same rod same lure same depth fired again I gave the rod to Kevin for one last try i set the hook myself so i was fairly confident that he was hooked well,i let him fight the fish and i pulled the other 7 rods for to reasons 1. to eliminate any possibility of a tangle. 2. as soon as this fish was boxed or lost we was outta there the flies had redoubled there efforts to devour me and my crew. finally Kevin boxed one.

OK i learned a few things this trip

1. i will never again take a full load of rookies out on the boat at one time

2. it is still very satisfying to go threw all of that and still put fish in the boat and know that the guys had a good time.

I may have seamed a little grumpy and at times i was a little frustrated but it will be a day that we remember for a long time to come and we all had a good time

final count 3 for 6

We own a Lowrance 5300i global map g.p.s. does anyone else own one of these units?I was wondering if you liked or disliked the performance of this unit? Some of you may know how i feel about ours but i am not putting out my opinion as of now so that i might get unbiased opinions for now.

Glad to see your still hammerin them over there Frank,are you sure your not running a straining net off the back of the boat?good job!

nicely done sea-mac I'm gonna head to Port Sheldon Sunday I'll let ya all know how it went.