FBD

Trailer bearings ok?  Sounds like a great first trip.  My 22' is sitting with the house battery on the charger seeing if I need to replace it or not...

1987 350 Chevy Merc if that helps.

Have 11 12-14 year old girl sleeping over this weekend.  Time to wake up the Four Winns or pray the forecast holds so I can run the 14'.  Will decide as the weekend approaches.

Surely there's some Lakers in 70' straight out of Holland.  One little one, and we caught him.  Not on all the laker crap on the bottom but on a blue dolphin on a 7 color. Almost made a left turn.out of the driveway and went to Saugatuck or South Haven this morning.  Should have.

Some hooks no bait at piers.  Left that went down beach found no browns but one ratty fall back steelhead.  Tried to fish piers for walleye at dark but the only other boat in there wasn't about to let me run a wide spread so we gave up.  

Target the bottom 5' in 40-70' of water.  Troll about 2 mph or so.  Trash can, silver, white, yellow, and green all have their moments.  

I like my spin and glows but my two go to rigs are a trash can dodged with a green yogurt fly, and a 10" white crush glow spinny with a purple mirage fly.  These will take kings as well if around.  I sorted my logs and these two alone have taken over 100 fish in the last five  years.  I will cry if either breaks off.  Just pull the rods, head in in silence, get a beer, pour some out on the curb and cry.

Yet with constant east winds the shoreline temp was actually six degrees colder than the same week last year.

Good call.  Looks like it might be calm first thing but I'm not going to risk it.

They can.  I'm running 15' or so from the rigger and about 30" to the spin and glow.  I also use a couple beads and heavier hooks that most.  More weight behind the dodger keeps it kicking at higher speeds.

Flasher flies for steelhead are an exception and not the norm for me.  Continue with the spoons and plugs on those.

For Dodgers put them farther back fromthe ball or increase your leader to the fly / spin aans glow to allow higher trolling speeds.  We took a 17# laker last week trolling into a stiff current at 2.7 on the g p s (granted on a spin doctor and fly) but I run my Dodgers at 2.5-2.7 all the time.

You can slow down for Lakers but you don't have to.  Keep playing around and develop your own program.

I'm working on some new stuff for brown trout, seems stupid, can't wait to crack the nut.

Good to know.  Time to get the Four Winns ready.

Trolled the beach in nice chop and some clouds ended up 4/4 on browns.  One about 4# the rest 12" or so, good to see next year's fish but they aren't growing like they should in this continued cold water.  It's May and the water was 42.  Fat little guys though.

Troll with the waves was better, natural colors agakn no pattern silver and brown trout f11 rapalas, silver blue edge flutter delve, die hard nk 28 the last two off one color cores.

Lots of green slime fouling the lures even out deeper away from shore.

Saturday is looking a little heavy for the 14'...

Not sure when or if I will get the 215 out.  Don't need another mouth to feed right now.

Although it's costing me fish not using it now, which hurts.  Easy to find a crew to look for Coho.  No on seems to want to fill a cooler with Lakers.

 Calm to one foot all weekend.  Planned to take the 14' to 110' to find Coho (which were not there) dropped in at 60 and watched the ones build to ugly twos with some bigger.  Nasty current.  Best troll into them.  Plowed out to 140' nothing going turned to ride them in and decided to drop a big white spinny purple mirage fly to the bottom.  On a manual rigger.  

Wasn't down there five minutes it and the wire diver start pounding.  17.2# laker took the spinny got into the wire.

We're cold, tired, soaked from the ride out and trying to baby this fish as it's scraping the wire, turns out it was tangled only in the fly.  Netted it and just stared.  Thought it was all of 20.  36 1/4" so I finally got a master angler.

Stared too hard as we looked up and the other rigger is jacking, nice Coho on a double dutch mini streak 35 down.

Reset both, saw the deep one pump a few times but at 130' down figured it was bottom and wasn't about to check it.  Pulling lines it had a nice c w t 5# laker on it.  All of the five pound lakers I've caught this year have been tagged.  Four heads in the freezer waiting to get to the cleaning station.

Quit at eight as I was headed out this morning.

Trolled the beach all by our lonesome going 4/4 on natural baits, four different ones at that.  Silver flutterdevle on a one color took a one pound brown, shallow shad rap took a nice beat up fall back steel that ripped the rear wire through the side of the plug.  Pair of football browns of about 5# each, I mean old school short thick broad fatties like we haven't seen in years, on a die hard nk 28 and a brown trout f11 rapala.  Cannibalism?  Put all these back as crew has freezer full.

While all reports are good, I hope you were there with me getting soaked and waiting for the next board to pull back instead of reading some stat sheet.  

My largest fish last year, a 16# laker, came on a mini streak.  The largest two walleye I have ever caught, came in the channel on size 5 j plugs though.  Never know until you try...

Shore got muddy čoho moved out.  Nothing but east winds since so they never bothered to move back in.  Thanks for the report.

We stopped putting the gear away and just listened when you opened it up.  Sounded sweet.

My nephew was out in 110' and got and lost a coho in the first 15 minutes, then never had another hit.

Did we all come in together and if so we're you in the boat with twin outboards?

I''ve stuck a deep thunderstick off a full core into the bottom in 65', rolling 2.5-2.7 on the g p s.

Foggy.  With that and some stain in the water  I expected the browns to be on their game.   Not so much.  Popped a nice 5# on a mini streak off a one color, and lost a smaller one on a dream weaver little devil when I tripped the bird too soon and gave him some slack.  Both fish announced their presence by not pulling the boards back but by launching out of the water, the first one way off to the side confusing us as to what rod he was really on.

Trout limit is three of a species five total.  You could have boxed another laker.

Thanks for the reports and keep them coming.  We fished South Haven last week because of them.

Our best was a 8" trash can with a green fly 45' down over 65'.  Our stuff on the bottom didn't do anything. One off a white dodger with a green spin and glow off a diver, and one on a magnum green dolphin off a 200' copper.

All, I have the 21' version of this hull and can't say enough about how well it handles.   You will not find a nicer boat of this vintage than the one listed here.