1mainiac

I would go with the keep em separated plan while in theory you could run the copper inside the core they odds a angry fish is going to follow your rod alignment plan is slim at best. My experience is when a fish grabs a long line he pulls up and away from the tug. I try to keep 50ft between my boards and still have fish crash the whole program with way more separation than you are talking. This is one reason I don't have any short coppers yet and when I do the core that runs closet to them in depth will be removed from the spread. So if I had a 150 copper out the full core would be in the cabin or on the other side of the boat at minimum. One of my plans for this season is to convert 2 of my full cores to 150 coppers add a 450 copper and cut all my other cores down to 5 colors or less then I will run Torpedo divers on them to get the depth I want.

Well the rigger bite is not what it used to be but I would not fish without them they add way too many options to the spread. And when the release trips it is just you and the fish no diver boards or miles of line and trinkets between you. It is also pretty much the only way you can run light tackle down deep trolling. And when you add up the other stuff it can be the least expensive option if you find a good deal on some used riggers. I run fairly cheap wire diver setups and still have over 200 bucks a rod into them now tie on another 40 bucks worth of stuff on the other end and it is not a cheap setup. Copper is the same way not hard to get close to 200 bucks each into rod and reel setups ready to fish. then add in planer boards and lures. Lead core is cheapest option till you want to get deeper than 40 ft or so then you need a Warn Winch for a reel to hold the line and again a planer board top that off with the fact no one ever runs to grab a long lead core rod because it is a PITA to reel all that line in. I used to run a dbl core and no one ever wanted it to go off. Only times I ever saw guys give up their turn for a fish is on long cores. But you can put your kids Zebco setup on a rigger and send it down. And it will catch fish, will likely burn up on contact but it will hook a fish down deep.

Please remember to check our website for updates and info www.mscst.com as it will always have the most current info.

Not sure what it would cost to ship them but I have a set of Rivera Manuals you can have for 60 bucks for the pair. They served me well have counters and are in decent shape with 4 ft booms. As others have stated you can fish without riggers and I went down to just 2 riggers one thing you can do with riggers is run light tackle. I used to run my river gear with 8# test chasing Steelhead out deep what a blast but you can't do that with a board on. A rigger will send nearly any fishing setup down to most any depth depending on ball weight and currents.

sad day when a man gives his balls away LOL

I guess for me every year I go down my pre-trip check list but one thing I never leave without is Tow Boat US on my speed dial. Then the first thing I do once in water is spend about 30 mins in Muskegon lake doing shake down stuff checking bilges, watching the gauges, idle for a while to make sure it will troll on old gas verify everything works then go fishing.

Too many choices and depends on what the water looks like when I go deep I run a dual program and pay attention to every detail. A late Jul setup in 250 to 280 would have a 11in Pro Troll hot chip in white or something with white and a UV fly down at least 170 on my deep rigger other rigger likely pulling a Moonshine Flounder Pounder with a slider on it. If I am running meat it would be on a wire diver back around 250 to 280. Other diver likely at 180 back with a UV flasher and Mirage fly. 300 coppers with Ace Hi plugs probably Yellow Tail and Blue Mylar. Everything else would be high and wide if I find a good slick or temp break the whole setup will go high and wide. If I see good marks down deep I will put the boat in neutral and let the coppers sink. Usually when I am out deep I don't fish all that deep with more than a couple of lines but again is temp and condition dependent. For me deep water is Steelhead hunting grounds when you find them the action is fast and furious.

I have to agree with Aaron I have done dozens of show at the Devos and have never seen a parking pass. They usually have a all day rate for the parking garage which is not too bad. Esp if the weather sux cause you can stay dry.

Charged up a BW XXXtreme glow head next to a Purple Taco glow head and a Atom-Mic glow head same amount of light applied to each at 20 min only the Purple Taco and BW were still glowing at 1 hour only the BW head still had visable glow tried to take pics but could not get exposure settings to capture any of them after 20 min. Guess I need a better digital camera.

Not surprising I have caught fresh spawning kings on the Muskegon in Dec before.

The Big Weenie heads glow like they are battery powered I have bullet heads from Atom-mic, Purple Taco and Big Weenie. I have used the Atom-mic heads for 2 years and they work. I have several hundred flies tied with them and have given a lot of them to friends as well as the bunch that we added to the prize packs for the MSCST events last year. I have not heard of a single complaint they catch fish this year I got some of the Purple Taco Extended glow heads and was blown away until Gary sent me his samples. That is one of the new BW beads and head. I can't find one of the Atom-mic fly pics right now but will will tie up 3 identical flies using the different materials and see if I can get some good picks.

I love singles but on spoons my catch rate has dropped every time I have tried them. Which has me thinking the weight change has some effect on the action or something not sure. A couple years ago I ran a Moonshine Happi Meal with a 4/0 Siwash hook on one rigger and a Happi Meal on the other rigger right out of the package. The best I can tell other than the hooks they were identical setups maybe a few in difference in distance between the ball and lure. Ran the setup on 2 different days for about 2 hours pre sunup. The spoon with the treble took at least 2 fish both days the one with the single never took a fish. Not a scientific test by any means but enough to in my opinion give up on spoons with singles unless they come that way in the package.

Maybe this would have been a good year for the Ice Fishing event you planned last year. We even have ice this year to go with it.

Dates are for this year I will try and get last years results up on the website soon. All of the events results are also posted on this site under Tournaments here is a link to the final standings. http://www.greatlakesfisherman.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19307

I have some of each but really like the Pro Chip I have a lot of Spin Doctors but could sell them and not miss em much. I don't think we caught a single fish with a Spin Doctor last season. I keep saying this to pretty much everyone find what works for you and how you fish and build your program around it. There are hundreds of little things that cause fish to bite and often you might have something bringing them into your spread that they don't bite but they bite something else right up till you pull the thing that attracted them to begin with. So I will often leave my spread intact if we are getting fish even if it looks like I have a couple of dead rods in the water. Many times we have pulled the dead rod only to have the whole spread go dead so in fact it was not a dead rod it just was not getting hit. 33 trips last season worst trip was 3 fish so not a bad season.

11in Pro Troll white with blue crinkle with a white UV fly I make ran it all season and took a lot of fish on it. Also a ProTroll 8in UV paddle with UV no see em style fly I make, we make tons of changes so only a few things stay down very long the big Pro Troll board is almost always down unless we send down a different 11in Pro troll board and fly like a Wonder bread which also takes fish no matter what fly is behind it. I really don't bother to name my flies or try to copy other flies I just keep mixing stuff and seeing what it will catch.

Well I did not say all I said most I helped a friend of my FIL a few years back he had 3 electricians give him est to hook up his 4000w gen all of them demanded he buy a 200 amp transfer switch. I suggested he could use a sub box and a 50 amp switch which the inspector said was fine. Funny thing to me was he lived in a mobile home with a 100 amp service yet none of the guys he got est from would even consider a 100 amp switch we moved his well, furnace and 2 light and outlet circuits to a 50 amp sub box and used a 50 amp switch which works great and saved him a bunch since I gave him the switch for free. By the way I have several 50 amp transfer switches if anyone needs or wants one let me know before they go in the trash. I might even have a couple of inverters as well.

I have worked on generators in the RV business for the last 13 plus years and most of the issues with Generac have been that they fall apart and the belt drive they used on many units to save money and slow the motors down sucked. When Onan came out with the quiet series with 4 and 8 pole gensets generac went to a belt drive to reduce engine rpm and noise. it also allowed them to use vertical shaft engines which can be cheaper because they are mass produced for lawn tractors and other stuff and the blocks don't have to have the genset mounts cast in them. The reduced cost put them in a lot of RV's the problems and poor results removed many of them for Onan units. We had skids full of take out units at a dealership I was at down south. I gave away 3 of them before I moved back here. That said of the choices Nick offered I would choose the Generac nothing wrong with the Onan but it is kinda light on power to try and run a house. I guess it would come down to what is on the circuits my well uses close to 3000w while it does not run all the time I would hate to brown out other circuits because someone flushed the toilet. As a reference 200 amp service is 44kw so the 8000 watt Generac would handle 20% of that versus 10% with the Onan. One thing to consider is if you have a amp clamp meter put it on the neutral line turn on the things you want to have run and see what the amperage actually is then multiply amps time volts to see how many watts that is.

Nick of those choices I would pick the Generac it might still have a couple of American parts and is not a inverter generator. Since it is a direct drive many of the things complain about them will not be a issue. Not sure what transfer switch you have but most electricians tend to go with over kill on them so you should be fine. I will be honest I am not a big fan of Generac but as long as you maintain it and run it several times a year you should get lots of good use out of it. I mentioned the welders because they are overbuilt and tuff and price compared against the whole house systems are a good deal.

Have it used it one time in 4 years fantastic service and nice to not have to pay the 400 plus bill.

Opp's just realized you are other side of the pond so here goes I Use Octipus hooks for the single and Owners for the treble. Start by running the tag end into the front of the octipus hook pull it out the back run it back thru the front forming a loop pull enough of the tag thru to tie the treble on with a Palomar or knot of your choice I prefer Palomar. Now pull the treble up to the back of the single and adjust the loop size so you can make several loops around the hook shank from the front of the loop working back towards the treble after 6 or more wraps of the hook shank while holding the wraps pull the line from the front hook to close the loop and form the Snell once it tightens up pull the rear hook to cinch the knot in place. Once you get the hang of it you will start putting beads between the hooks and playing with the hook spacing. When I was a kid I bought a few crawler harness's to go fishing with my grandpa he basically smacked me in the head and said no one in our family pays to have some one else tie a knot for us and showed me how to make my own. A while back I was looking at some trolling flies and could almost feel him smack me again. When I thought why am I paying 6 bucks for something I can make for under 2 bucks. Good luck no better feeling in the world than landing a fish on something you made.

similar to tying a crawler harness if you are at the Swap meet Sat I will be glad to show you how I tie them. Just tied one 1min 45 sec start to finish I am getting slow LOL.

Don pretty much covered it lot of fun low entry bragging rights tourney's. Last year we had great sponsorship with lots of free stuff to pass out and this year looks to be real good as well perhaps even more stuff than last year. Each event is ran stand alone with a small portion pooled for the port championship prizes. 5 dollars from each entry goes toward the Port Championship 5 dollars goes for big fish at the event and 20 goes for prizes we try to pay down 25% of the field. Every penny is paid out we keep nothing, all the sponsor prizes are awarded 100% as such sponsor prizes will vary from event to event. Last season every boat got at least a nice lure package many worth more than the entry fee and all very nice stuff. This year will be ran the same way we do weigh in award cash prizes and then we draw boat names till we run out of stuff or boats. We can't guarantee every boat a prize every time but we are trying and our sponsors have been fantastic. I need to make sure it is ok with Mike before I list our sponsors on his website but they will all be on the website. www.mscst.com which is still a work in progress and I need to do a few updates soon. Don and I along with the members of the Tournament committee are doing this because we love to fish and have fun.

Nick I can get you any size generator you want however they are not cheap if you want to be able to run the entire house you are probably looking at 12 to 15kw. I don't know what your budget is but there are some decent options out there. This is what I am looking at once I showed my wife what it would cost to put in a 10kw standby generator she agreed that when we have the extra money this is at the top of the list gets me a much better welder and her a backup generator in one package. http://www.millerwelds.com/products/enginedriven/product.php?model=M90334 this was my first choice under 10 g http://www.millerwelds.com/products/enginedriven/product.php?model=M00182

Personally my choice would be a Lincoln welder generator or a Miller but then I would use the welder.