1mainiac

Big thanks to Jay ( ICEMAN08 ) for helping me take my grandkids fishing it was a adventure they will likely never forget. I know I won't things started out ugly as we lost both 300 coppers and the first fish at the same time since the first fish took the port 300 copper thru the port diver and into the starboard copper. We lost the fish but retreived all the copper and the lures so we put dive bombs on the full cores and on a 7 color the second hit took out the 7 color and a full core and got off so we were down 6 rods and nothing in the box. And people wonder why we have over 20 rods setup on the boat LOL. Any how got the divers rerigged sure am glad I run a full spool of braid my grandson got bored of watching Jay and me try and untangle fishing equipment and went below to take a nap. We were making good progress on the copper mess when the port diver went off so I dumped the copper pile in a bucket and cleared the area and we sat my grand daughter in the chair with the rod and she reeled in about a 8 lb King. We were reseting that when the starboard diver hit could not get Maleik out of the cabin so Skylar got to reel in another fish much nicer around 12 lbs 2 in the box starting to feel better when Jay says the full core is tangled up so I grab it to clean up another mess feels like a tangle nothing but weight but as I reel it in none of the other gear is affected pulled the board and the dive bomb still heavy then a fish hit the surface behind the boat. About the time Jay gets ready to grab the net the port diver goes nuts so I am on my own and hand lined in a 5 lb King. It is starting to get late so I turned the boat around Malaik woke up sick and we got him to come up in the fresh air which helped him feel better and the starboard diver fired again and Maleik gets to fight his first King ever after a long battle with several runs a 14 to 15 lb king slids into the box and my grandson can say the first fish he ever caught was a 14lb King salmon though since he is now a fisherman it will be a 50lber by the time he is my age LOL. Final score Grandpa 1 for 1 Skylar 3 for 3 Maleik 1 for 3 Jay was perfect all night as other than the one I hand lined in he finished the battle for the kids to bring them to the net he also coached the kids and helped them with every fish but the best job he did besides being a great friend was getting the 16lb king to the net as it went totally nuts at the back of the boat running back and forth thru all the gear several times I have no idea how he kept all the turns the fish took straight but after a good 10 min battle the fish was back in the clear behind the boat and he pulled it in and I netted it. Cost of torn up gear yet to be determined, having a friend give up a night of fishing to help your grandkids more than words can say, seeing the look on your grandkids faces when they catch fish allmost as big as them PRICELESS.

Not too late can sign up anytime we meet out front at 6am fish on honor system and you can pay at weigh in. I will be at Grand Trunk boat launch at 5 am if you want to meet before we fish. Chk in via radio on ch 72 at 5:45 am with all the expected boat traffic weigh in will be at Grand Trunk boat launch. Weather boat will be out by 5 am if we expect any weather changes we fish pretty much Pro rules in a fun format. Rules are about the same as most Pro Am events only no Pro class and open radio. DNR 3 man limit on fishing rules weigh up to 10 fish 10 points per fish plus weight. So far every boat has received a lure package in each event this varies as each event has differant sponsors but we have several who sponsored all 5 events we put all sponsor prizes in packages and draw boat names till we run out of boats or prizes. Lots of cool stuff so far can't beleive we have had such low turnout but it is a new tournament hopefully the next 3 will pick up some steam and we will get more boats. Look forward to seeing you guys there Sat morning.

Well I got the Sound off signal lights now just got to mount them on the boat this weekend and see how they work. So far the advantage to me looks like nearly double the light for less than 1/2 the amp draw as both of these draw less than one of my halogens and they are bright. Wish I had a rocket launcher to mount them on but will fab something up and mount them on the bimini for now. Will put up some pics when done.

Years ago when we moved back to MI I had to start over on my salmon gear I bought 6 Okuma magna 45d reels and rods. I set 2 up with braid 2 with mono and a full core and a 5 color. I ran 2 mono divers to braid divers and the core off boards they are low quality reels but they all still work. Diawa makes a Wilderness rod that is under 20 bucks I bought 4 of them for 14.95ea and they work to catch fish. Since then I have bought better reels but the old cheap gear still catchs fish every time I use them. I am sending the Magna's up to Tuna Tom's to see how well they behave with the upgrades. With a few exceptions all of my rod and reel combos are around 100 bucks ea but I still have several setups with the 14.95 rods and 35 dollar reels. I just bought several Diawa Firewolf rods that were on closeout for 19.95 ea.

Cannon offers 400ft spools which is plenty and what I have on my port rigger. Yes you could put way more on however you need to keep in mind the line counter only counts revolutions of the wheel not actual line out so the more you put on the spool the less accurate the counter is. With 100 on the counter my Big Jons put out close to 110ft of line with 400 on the spool Strangly enough my Starboard rigger with 300 ft of coated cable is much more accurate because even though the spool size is bigger the thicker cable seems to compensate for the difference.

RDF is a directional antenna with a signal meter and a position marked control you adjust it for maximum signal and mark the bearing. The old Loran system used this each station had a signal that was used by that station only so the more stations you could here the more bearings you took draw all those bearings on a map and where they crossed is where you were at. Several radio clubs do what the call fox hunting they hide a low power radio and tell you what freq and signal it is using and you use directional antennas to locate it. Trying to find a moving signal that comes and goes is next to impossible on the other hand if you have the right radio setup and he has his MMSI programed into his you could track him on your plotter if he accepted a position request.

One major advantage to big boards is when people see them coming they will get out of your way no one trys to win a tug of war against them. My biggest issue with them is my inline setup is so versatile and speed tolerant. It always seemed like on some days only one side of the boat would fish right with the big boards. With the inlines I can adjust each one to run differant and tune the spread to speed each one up or down and get my gear where I want it plus I can haul butt in Steelhead mode and cover tons of water at speeds up to 7mph though I usually run between 4 and 5. My goal is to cover water and find active fish if I wanted to just work one area I could save the gas and just drift and jig something more should try as it will work.

Every radio has a signature. All DSC radios if activated with a MMSI number transmit coded info with every transmission. However you would need a very high quality recording to be able to have it verified. I would have to check but I am not even sure if it would be passed thru the FM discriminator to the audio output. The other issue is there is no ownership of Marine Radio Names even though you can Document your vessel with a name it does not mean someone else cannot use that name it only means they have to spell it differant or something to document the vessel. Sadly much of this is like CB radio where untill something very bad happens nothing will be done about it. If he chooses to call himself Tangled Mess he can to make it a crime you would have to prove he had intent to cause harm and not just bad info to pass along.

Looks like you have plenty of testers Mike and I have tons of lures so drop me from the list.

I have used 1/0 2/0 4/0 and 5/0 Owner and Gamakatsu Siwash hooks all work biggest issue for me is getting the spoon to run the way I want it. Changing the hooks seems to play with the action or something 2 years ago I ran all singles on one side and all trebles on the other Steelhead fishing offshore, fish in the box was close to equal however the trebles got a lot more hits. The singles stuck to the fish better but the fish hit the lures with trebles better. I also noticed pretty much the same thing with Salmon only I don't seem to lose as many Salmon as Steelhead so the trebles out fished the singles however on my fly setups singles outfish trebles close to 2 to one and nearly never lose a fish. The heavier spoons like Moonshine seem to be less effected some of this could be that I run faster with them down. As much as I like the Nitro spoons and Stingers they are a very light blank and don't seem to like going fast as well as some of the heavier spoons.

Dipsies go out against the drag as soon as they are in the water running clear of othe rlines they are in the holder pulling against the drag going out. Boards go as far as I can get them away from the boat I don't care if I am 600ft wide unless there is traffic around me and unless i am pounding the fish I leave the traffic and find my own water. Only issue I have is my braid diver getting let out too far and finding my 300 copper.

Will be staying at the Mac Million conference center maybe I should take the 14ft boat up there. Was thinking it would be easier to travel with the pontoon since I can deflate it and keep it in the back seat. Might be fun to toss a few flies but second reason for taking the pontoon is thinking of a diversion trip coming back Thur via Tawas and going fishing with Priority1 Thur morn depending on sched and weather.

I will be at Higgins Lake Mon Tue and Wed next week can't remember the last time I fished up there any suggestions on what to fish for and bring. Unless I bring my personal pontoon I will be boatless.

Fishing the mud in Muskegon I have caught perch, bass, walleye, sheephead, gobies and whitefish trolling out front over the years have caught pike and catfish trolling the sand docks. Herring are not a big surprize up north but would be in the southern ports.

The Outdoorsman in Jenison Gander Mountain in Kentwood I think Al and Bob's also has it.

I would be willing to give a honest review out of Muskegon will even run em in the Shootout.

The same logic would mean you can't salmon fish untill you get at least a 3100 Tiara. But then the guys with the Viking's would point out a 3100 Tiara is too wimpy of a boat to start with. LOL

The only time I would consider using big boards is multiple presentations of the same setup for Coho or Walleye. I tried using mine one time for Steelhead and they could not take the speed or the waves. Even for spring Browns I prefer inlines since I vary my setups for each line and with inlines you can compensate for differences much easier. I watched a show on Striper fishing in Chesapeake Bay and they used huge triple boards but they still ran the same or nearly same setup on each line so they could just keep sliding new setups out.

I sold my big boards 3 years ago and I seldom miss them. If I was running a bunch of similar setups like walleye fishing I could see some value in them but I love my inlines and the fact I can setup any rig I want and add it or subtract it from the spread at will. I can count the number of times I have missed my big boards in the last three years on one hand. I paid a lot of money for my mast and boards still have the mast and sold the boards for less than half what I paid for them and I would do it again.

I have ran 4 boards per side many times with my Off Shore's still don't have enough Z Boards to do that but working on it. as long as you put enough room between the boards they will be fine if you don't drive in figure 8's. Keep in mind the depth difference I have more issues with my high diver getting into my copper or full core than anyothe issue as they get let out thinking deeper without thinking wider and next thing you know it is in the copper.

The parts won't interchange however you can use the motor and some peices the big thing is the transom cutout is nearly identical all you have to do is relocate a couple of bolt holes and a Mercruiser system will bolt in if it were not for the fact the Cobra is a great drive and I know I can install a Mercruiser if it goes bad I would not own this boat. OMC built a great drive however it was completely differant than everything else including how you had to build the boat for it. Pretty much all I/O's now use similar Transom cutouts so you can change them out completely without rebuilding the boat to make it work. However you could have one of the Yamaha I/O's if you think OMC is expensive price out parts for a Yamaha I/O.

I had some trouble with mine as well you might need to bend the arm up a bit I changed releases thinking it was a release issue but if the arm is too low they will dive and pop the release. Once I bent the arm up slightly the problem went away. It does not take much adjustment to tune them it was less than a 1/4 in up to fix mine I am going to tune each one for a couple of setups and label them. Also you can order them without releases and use whatever you want on them.

One other way to get some of the Z Boards is enter the MSCST tournies we will be giving away 3 more sets plus a 6 pack set in the port championship. Jul 3rd is the next event and the Z Boards are in a box waiting to see who wins them.

on my website is a link to Z boards I will talk about them here but not post their website since Off Shore is a sponsor and I still like them but the Z Boards work better on the heavy stuff. Off Shore has talked about building a slightly bigger board for a while Z Boards makes one now. I have 5 sets of Off Shore and will soon have 4 sets of Z Boards. The Z Boards really pull out to the side and you can tune them pretty easy. I will get some more pics of the Z Boards running with my Off Shore stuff but one of the pics I posted here shows my Z Board running over 200 ft out from the boat and way ahead of the Off Shore board that was about 125 or so from the boat. The further forward they run the wider they get. The Off Shore and Church boards look like a bunch of ducks in a V pattern I can get my Z Boards to nearly run straight out from the side of the boat.

The only difference between the SST and regular yellow Off Shore is rear attachment I converted all my Off Shore boards to SST a couple years ago. However I am going to run a Lot more Z Boards they pull my gear better. I am looking forward to my Steelhead program running the Z Boards.