1mainiac

My list is endless but that is my nature I want it all and to me fishing is a addictive obsession. Manditory is Gimble bearing and transom reseal this will be done before the boat comes out of storage. Next on list is reline a couple rods and recheck all my setups. Then I plan on swapping over to HYD steering I have most of the stuff already so this will most likely get done as well. The rest of the lists will depend on my budget I want a Radar arch with rod holders then a Radar system to put on it and a Auto Pilot. I would also like to remove the bottom paint and restore the gel coat as to me it looks like crap and the boat sits on a trailer anyhow so is unneeded. Other than the gimble bearing the boat was fully serviced before storage so no other work needed. Maybe a few more rods and reels and a couple more lights in the business end. Would like a free fall windlass some day but seldom anchor so more of a luxury item then anything else. Ok that adds up to close to what I paid for the boat like I said is just my addiction.

Pretty much say it all and HAPPY NEW YEAR

I have a bunch of items I am going to put on EBAY soon so will give you guys first shot.

Norcold N841IM refridgerator with ice maker works great missing a few plastic peices but a very nice refer. It is 3 years old and I want 600.00 for it.

Older Dometic refer has bad cooling unit will still cool but will be a parts unit or maybe a good smoker box makea offer and come get it

I have a lot of A&E awning springs and a complete A&E 20ft awning also some hardware arms etc

I am also going to reduce my tool inventory not sure yet what I want to keep so let me know what you may want or need I might have it.

I have 3 new props I bought for a 40hp Merc never got installed lower unit blew up.

1976 402 merc upper complete I spent way to much on it but it runs great and has lots of new parts.

Still have a pile of OMC Stringer mount stuff

several boxes of RV parts

TGAFISH are you flashing them and sending them down might be tooo bright. I started storing all my glow stuff in clear plastic boxes and bought a 12v blacklight to go in the compartment with them. I know with the Moonshines and a few others they seem to glow real bright and it takes a while in the water before the settle down and fish hit them. When I started using the Moonshines a few years ago they very seldom got hit right away if they were real bright. So I started laying them out on a board and flashing them several at time and holding the flash unit further away. I see a lot of guys flashing them as they put em out and sometimes I will still touch one up with the flash. But my best results come when they have a good light soak and several min to settle before going into the water. I have also noticed that if I run glow spoons on my high lines in the last light before dark they don't need to be flashed they will pick up enough light to glow as the sun goes down.

Ok I buy that but when I can run 14 lines crew permiting divers are not my choice for running shallow. I only run divers to be outside and behind my riggers for wide I start with 2 colors and a dive bomb behind a board can get that down to close to 25 ft and out 200 ft on each side then send out five colors with a dive bomb on next board to cover down to about 35ft and 125 ft off the sides full cores on boards 60 ft off ea side next run out a high diver on braid and a low diver on wire and four riggers and you are 400 ft wide covering pretty much everything with 14 in the water and still have my 2 copper rods and 2 spare rigger rods that I can use to change out or throw in the mix somewhere.

Lack of stretch using mono on divers down deep there is so much stretch in mono that often you cant trip them very well. So you have to fight them all the way up till you can get them to trip. Happens a lot with smaller fish the diver rod takes off and you begin the fight and feels like you have a whale so you don't want to horse it and break it off. as you finally get it close to the boat the diver trips and you have a small fish to reel in. With wire and braid there is no line stretch so even down deep you can feel the diver and get a clean release. You also feel every head shake as you are hooked to the fish with a 100 yds of mono out you lose a lot of the feel as the head shake and some of the lunges are lost in line stretch. There are charts that tell how far differant lines stretch under loads but with 25 lb test tied to a tree start with 100 ft and connect a hand scale and begin pulling see how long the line is at rated strength my guess is at least 10% longer maybe more then continue till it breaks and see how much the line grows before it breaks. Try the same thing with braid or wire you will be lucky to gain 2 in.

Well after using mono on my divers for years I will never run anything but braid or wire on a diver rod again. I don't know what you consider a very cheap price but the pro tournament models you mentioned in your other post are not likely to show up on the used market for a long time. Simple cause like our boats we tend to sell our gear to friends and family so very little makes it out on the open market. My Big Jons are old and have been sent in for rebuilds a few times and may get auto stops and speed controls this year as a update. They would still bring 2 to 3 hundred ea on EBAY I saw a set of old manual Rivera's like the ones on my old boat in the front yard go for 150 ea and they weren't much more than that new 10 years ago. Even when we buy new gear most of us hang on to our old stuff which would explain the row of old unused tackle boxes that are full in my garage next to the wall of fishing poles collecting dust cause I seldom use em anymore.

Since I run divers under all conditions they accounted for more than half my fish this year. With the rest divided between riggers and core I will always run my divers but the number of core and rigger poles will vary depending on cond and people in the boat. If I were fishing alone it would always be 2 divers and either a core or rigger to make up the third rod

I used to run em long Nick but have to admit the way I ran them this year worked really well.

Strangly last year a friend I chat with on the radio ( Ham Radio ) who did a lot of testing and research for Rhyes Davis had me make some changes in my dipsey program this year and drop the meat rigs. Honestly my dipseys were hot all year and I had many trips the rigger poles went untouched. First thing I changed was I ran shorter leads on every thing behind the diver Spoons 4 to 5 ft back plugs 5 to 6 ft back as maximum leader lengths. for flasher fly setups I ran 24 to 30in behind the diver for the flasher and never more than 3 times the flasher length back to the fly. The reason is the water is getting clearer if you attract a fish get the hit as soon as he sees it don't let him think about it. Shorter leads make the fish think the attracter is trying to get the bait and cause them to decide to get it first. Salmon are aggresive and will often strike just cause they can and if they feel they are competing for a food source they will go all out to get it first. Keeping the diver setup short makes it easy to manage at the back of the boat and reduces problems netting. I go after the fussy spooky fish with long leads behind the balls and SWR setups as well as using my core program. So when runnig a full program the divers get the aggressive fish the SWR and long leads off the balls picks up the tenative ones and the core program goes after the rest.

You should go see them live they come to GR every year I saw them down in Houston years ago. Kinda like mixing Pink Floyd and Genisis and christmas music the live expereince is beyond belief. I have often thought about doing my front yard for christmas and digging out my old PA and lighting gear. Maybe if I win the lottery I will do it at least then I could afford the electric bills and distrubing the peace tickets.

Well it depends on what kind of rods they are my braided line dipsey rods are 10 ft OKUMA MOOCHING rods very stiff lot of backbone not anything I would want on my riggers. My old down rigger rods are Okuma classic pro 8 ft medium action and I bought a couple of Diawa Wilderness rods 862mr they work well on my riggers and at under 20 apeice I may grab a second set for spares. But if you want a wild time at least a few times a year I use my 10ft Steelhead rods on the rigger with 8lb test. My personal best is about a 15lb king that required pulling all the gear and running down with the boat on 8lb Maxima. Was like one of them Marlin fights you see on TV took forever but had a blast. I love light gear and as much as I love big fish catching 10 to 20 lb kings on 30 lb line is not as much fun.

http://www.daiwa.com/Rod/detail.aspx?ID=259

those are the rods I mentioned good luck I got 2 of em on sale last spring for 15 bucks ea which is why I tried them they worked fine for me so will probably get a couple more.

Frank I used to fish out of Grand Haven on a good day the run from slip to the lake would be close to 45 min all no wake. Put a couple hundred boats in the channel and you might just as well drop lines you ain't moving. I have seen down riggers on a canoe and guys in paddle boats in the channel it was not pretty. I can launch from Fruitport 3 min from my house but is well over a hour to the lake minimum roughly 14 miles of no wake zone.

Frank the last couple years have not been bad but I remember what it was like at times when everything that could float was in the channel. Hell I have seen fistfights between boats and everyone stayed in their own boat they were that close.

Well I see it this way since Salmon are non native fish brought in to control a non native Alewife problem which they did we have 2 choices for the future. Continue to reduce or eliminate stocking them or increase bag limits. You notice they put maintaince levels in the rule which means they can adjust the limits as needed similar to to what they do with deer. Monitor the population and the success rate and adjust the bag level to meet it. The big advantage will be that guys who are compelled to fill the box every trip will no longer have to target other fish like the Lakers and Browns and Steelhead. The odd thing is we mostly brought them in to wipe out Alewives but in the process built a solid sport fishing industry to the Great Lakes. Like it or not the high cost of fishing is cutting deeply into the number of guys on the water even at the tournament level nearly every event last year had less than expected turnout. Even the combat fishing had less pressure the last couple of years. I can remember when you could walk from boat to boat and had to allow up to a hour to get thru the channel. We used to put down lines in the channel cause you were not going to get thru anyhow so might as well fish your way out and in. Not once did I get bottled up at Muskegon this year I was able to drive thru and go fish every trip. Most of the time I was out this year I would say 30 to 40% less boats. And if you love catching them and can't eat them all try releasing them. There is no rule that you have to bring home a full box every time just like you don't have to shoot every deer you see.

Nice catch Jay guess I should have got up early and came over maybe Sun

Cool that will hopefully cut down on going after lakers to fill your bag. This is something i had discussed with GLF Mike that would have a effect on tourny bag limits if passed should make for a fun year on the water next summer. As now we will no longer have to pull up and try to hunt down Lakers to make a box. To me it has always sucked to be on a good school of fish and have to either quit or pull off and go deep after Lakers to finish the box. Yes I know you could try for Steelhead or Browns but for me Lakers are always easier to seperate from the others due to their colder water life style.

Ok finally had a chance to catch John Williams today had a great chat with him. I am going to put together a few units and will be looking to have some guys test them this comming season. I think they will work best on 20 - 30 ft boats to improve speed control and stability when trolling. will have to see how many I can get built and and then see about picking some guys to run them. So any guys running bags to slow down that would be willing to try a differant method let me know. I am going to start building them as soon a weater warms enough to work in the unheated garage.

Pretty much all the probes except the Cannon hook up the same. The probe attaches to the DR cable and has a short cable below it that you attach the ball to. Usually a lower test line between the probe and ball so it the ball hangs up you only lose the ball but if the probe comes off you lose the entire setup. In 3 years I have lost 2 balls and 1 copmplete setup. Not cheap by any means but still the best investment I have made as a single purchase to improve my fishing rate. While I still like to see a mark on the fishfinder now and then I now run my unit in split screen mode and often have the chart as the larger portion. The fish alarm will tell me to chk the screen to see what depth the mark is at but the probe tells me if I am fishing a temp they are likely to be active at and if my lure speed is correct.

Also I talked with John Williams today and was informed they have a new control box for my DR that will give me auto stop and speed controll. I may try it out next season if my wallet permits as the down speed on these Brute equilivant riggers is smoking fast probably approaching free fall speed. Often causeing the setup to spin on the way down and making it neccessary to hand adjust my depth at times. Also with a 15lb ball it will slingshot the ball at you as it clears the surface making it tough to stop correctly when resetting lines in a hurry so speed control and auto stops will be a great improvement.

Put me down for all of them Rich.

Bill I will look forward to taking you up on the offer.

Thanks Joel will be in touch after the Holidays. This Thread is not just about fishing tournaments it is about meeting new friends and fishing together. Most of us come to this site for similar reasons to get a report ask a question share a idea. As we read the other reports and ideas it is easy to consider that it would be cool for us on the west side to trade some trips with the guys on the east side. When I look back on my season I realize how many times I fished shorthanded as did several others so I thought this year I would do more than just chat with guys here I will try and fish with some of them.

Tight Lines

Jim

Did they go out of business? Website is down and see a few post mortem sites stateing that Big Jon is doing their repairs. Was going to see what the auto stops would cost to add to mine and they appear to be gone.

Since CAZ has posted his scheduale and Mike is rolling on getting his lined up for the season. I had trouble doing tournies last couple seasons cause I have no real team I have some family and friends that are willing to fish with me but I end up with all the expense. Simply put I don't have the funds or the teammates to compete all out. I have a pretty good setup and should be able to fish with the best. So I will lay out what I have and see if any one is willing to try this with me.

BOAT

1989 Four Winns 267 Quest 26ft walk around 260hp OMC Cobra with full canvas on a trailer. Depth Raider, Lowrance LMS 525C-DF fishfinder chart ploter with chip, Garmin GPS76 as backup, I am converting to Hyd steering the winter and hope to have a Auto Pilot this spring. Back of boat is open flat floor with wash down. 4 electric down riggers 16 rod holders 6 inline boards also a 6 ft dual mast board setup. Boat is Coast Guard legal insured and ready to fish and can be towed to pretty much any port budget allowing.

GEAR

18 rods 2 SWR 2 braid 2 wire 2 5 color 2 10 color 2 copper 6 rigger. Mostly Okuma gear but it works and is all less then 5 years old. Hundreds of spoons J Plugs and Flies can put down nearly any color combination. Dipsey's flashers pretty much everything needed to fish is here but have room if you want to bring your favorite setup as well.

ME

Well the boat name pretty much covers that I would fish 24/7 year round if I could. I have fished on Lake MI since the late 60's was in the Coast Guard Res from 76 to 80. I can handle the boat and the weather and know when to get in. What I can fish in may be more than some can handle so I will never force anyone to stay out if they are scared. Vote of the crew always wins for me. Well to be honest if the fish are hitting I might ask to suck it up for a little longer but hey never had anyone complain about the weather when fish were biting. Treat me and my gear with respect and I will do the same for you and yours. 2 years ago I felt the only thing keeping me from doing well on the tournament scene was my boat and equipment solved that with my wallet last year but could not crew and fund all the events I wanted to fish in. Sound like something you are interested in let me know perhaps others can get together in this thread as well and maybe we can trade trips with some of the guys on the east side.

Well the boat is still here had several people agree to buy it but no one returned with the money. There is nothing fancy about these old boats it is just a great starter boat for Salmon and big lake fishing. It is big deep and roomy for a 18ft boat it will need TLC but I fished in it for 3 years and it always made it back to the dock.