FBD

We caught some kings last spring close enough to the dredge to need ear plugs…

Basic economics.

What is something worth?  Whatever someone is willing to pay.  Plenty of lots of crap Carrylite duck decoys asking $50 a dozen on Craigslist to attest to that.

Just sold some $179 new Abu Garcia reels for $60 a piece and it took two months to get that.

Cool report.  Really interesting spots on that bottom brown.  Almost thought Atlantic at first.

You’ll be lucky to get 25 cents a piece for old Northport Nailers.  Pity as they still work.

The other spoons I see are Producer’s spoons which you might be able to give away.

Swap meet last week barely used currently popular spoons we’re going for $2 each.

I know you just bought a boat so you’re used to spending $$$ but cannonball prices are stupid these days.

10-12 and those are on manuals.  Anything lighter and you get a ton of blow back and poor hook up’s.  

Cool never heard of that one.  Can you get more?

Did you choose the pug life, or did the pug life choose you?

Producer’s brand made a lot of knock offs in the day but they’ve been closed a while.  I know they had a “banana” lure in their inventory.

It could be a Flatfish, a Kwikfish, or a Mag Lips.

I don’t think it’s a mag lips as they have more pronounced eyes.  A flat fish should have a size number molded into it.

Second Mystic.  Did my 309’s myself.  Also greased the drags.

Back off the drags when storing the reels.

Work over a cookie sheet.  I remember an incredibly small spring and pawl falling out only way I knew where to put it back was the grime was missing where it was…

Trolled the beach south of Holland this afternoon.  Nothing from the piers to the dune climb.  Slid out to 20’ after we turned around.  Nothing there either.  About a mile from the piers slid out to 27’ or so and had a pull back on a planer board we lost - 2 color orange edge flutter devle.  Then the other two color went off green dolphin DW.  Rigger down 23’ fifty pulls back went DW mag green dolphin.  Ended up with a pair of nice lakers both fell off in the net so it seems they were not too aggressive.

Fishing in January in hoodies and no gloves.  Weird.

$2 rectangular stone

Because it works 

Hook needs to hang on a fingernail with no pressure applied

Slid behind a freighter in Grand Haven once.  Not sure what it pulled off the bottom but it mangled my prop.

Seems to me the more the salmon are showing themselves the less likely I am to be hooking any.  Frustrating.

Cranks / spoons / sticks.

I’ve caught a lot of really nice walleye on J plugs.

I also need to run my Saugatuck spread in Tawas to show those Huron guys a few things.  They seem to be stuck in a rut granted it works but I could leverage a paradigm shift and make it a win win synergy for all shareholders.  
 

Granted the Tawas guys are very good at finding fish - they have structure and currents and offshore winds and all kinds of things our 25’ a mile sand shelf doesn’t offer.  Much more dynamic over there.

70’ of water mag moonshine 225’ copper.  I’ve gotta run my Tawas spread down here sometime and see what I can do preferably under better conditions.  I’ve taken quite a few in closer when conditions have been better but this was the deepest by about 35’.

I have caught rainbows in tribs of the Grand and Kalamazoo where they are not planted so I know steel naturally reproduce down here.  Whether they leave and run the gauntlet of everything that wants to eat them and make it to the big lake in any appreciable numbers I can’t say.

When I trapped and there were way more salmon running I would find them in ag drains with their backs out of the water.  I found a dead coho in a drainage ditch at the (Todd farm) Fennville farm unit.

So we know the kings are making the effort down here just not sure if those creeks allow the parr enough resources to mature.

No walleye in Holland.  Nothing to see here.

Also I believe 2022 was the last king plant for Holland.  I wish those fish were split up between Saugatuck and South Haven but I think they were allotted somewhere else.

What I cannot find is proof the DNR clips all, or some, or none of the kings any longer.  I thought they switched the CWT program over to steel and stopped clipping kings but I cannot prove that.  I also thought the fish stock info had a column for tags / fin clips - I know it used to but now I don't see it.

That said my results align with yours - a clipped king was a rare catch this year.