Paulywood

I think that Great Lakes Fisherman is appropriate. That is what you will be doing on it, fishing the great lakes. That's how I named my boat. Someone asked me what I do on my boat. I replied, "I don't know, drink beer and stuff." So that's what I named my boat, "BEER N STUFF". It seems to fit.

The big question is how are you going to set it up? Riggers, rod holders, fish finder, auto pilot, radar, rods, reels, lures? I'm sure Steve and the fishdog guys would be willing to help you out. Maybe they have payment plans?

I fished at Grand Haven, on the beach in the State Park. There seemed to be more guys fishing the south pier than the north. I had the beach all to myself.

Took my first surf fishing trip this morning. It was a beautiful morning with about a 2-3 foot chop. Unfortunately, the fish didn't cooperate, I didn't even have a hit. I saw 2 steelhead caught by the guys fishing the pier. Great morning on the lake and I plan on going again next weekend.

I'm waiting until the end of the month to put mine away. I haven't given up on Lake Michigan yet but I will definitely be going up to Higgins yet to fish trout.

We went 3/7 or 8. All fish came between 100-130 ft. Moonshine Moonshine 55 down on a rigger was a big producer for us. Green speckled Silver Horde 45 down on a rigger also took fish. We ended up moving inside around 9 am and never got another hit. We were having problems controlling the boat in the waves with only 2 guys. Really could have used a 3rd. Lost 1 fish when the swivel seperated at the bearing:( . Felt like a good one too. Also lost another fish when it got into the full core. Lost one off a dipsey with a glow frog because we both had fish on. Big fish (17 lbs., not the 20 I estimated) took out our whole spread. Hit on the rigger than tangled into the dipsey and half core on the same side. Later crossed the boat and tangled in the full core. Fought it for 30 minutes and had to finish bringing it in by hand. But put it in the boat. The half core is out of commission though. After that was when we headed in. Had a great time.

I just wanted to thank Caz for getting me involved in this league. I plan on fishing every event next year. Rich puts a lot of time into it and I really appreciate it. Hope to see everyone next year.

That's not necessarily true. The wife of one of my friends works for the DNR. Her office is in charge of writing and issuing the reports(sometimes that's her voice when you call for the report). According to her they receive the information for their reports from baitshops around the state. That is why they are not always the most accurate.

Just wanted to thank everyone for the help. Should be hitting the road in about 8 hrs., not that I'm counting:D Looks like today is going to be a little too rough to get out but should be heading out first thing wednesday morning. Can you say...........Fiiiiiiiisssshhhhh Oooooonnnnnnn! :OrangeCrush: :Turtle: :BlueAlewife:

Nice job Larry. We were barely in Ludington, got up there about 10 pm friday and left at noon saturday. I'm leaving tuesday morning and spending a few days in Frankfort. Hopefully we'll get into some fish up there.

We took our annual charter out of Ludington on saturday and had a great time! We have gone out with Ed Stell aboard the Encore for the last 5 years and this year we added a second boat, the Hat Trick. Both boats had a great time. Here is the catch for the crew of the Hat Trick: And here is the catch for the guys aboard the Encore: We had a mini tournament with the young guys aboard the Hat Trick smoking the old guys aboard the Encore 12-8 in fish. The Hat Trick also took big fish @ 17.5 lbs. We had another fish at 17.25, and the biggest fish on the Encore was 15.5 lbs. I fished with the winners, the crew of the Hat Trick, and we took our fish almost exclusively on flahers and flies or meat. White flasher/white head meat rig on center rigger took 4 fish. High divers also took fish with blue? flasher/flies. Things started hot and we had 8 fish in the boat after about 2 hours. Then we hit a lull, and went a while with nothing. Then went 3/4 in about 30 minutes, then went 1/2 right at the end to get our 4 man limit. Everything came between 50-65 down. Only took 1 hit on a 7 color core, also the only bite on a spoon all day. Nothing on J-plugs. Captain Jon and his first-mate Andy worked real hard for us and did a great job putting everyone on fish. They also managed to not throw anyone overboard even though the crew gets a little rowdy:grin: . Ed and Andrew also did a great job for the guys on the Encore, even though the fishing was a little slow. Sounds like they took almost half of their fish on core. Can't wait to go back next year. Thanks a lot to the crews of both boats! Nick

We will be taking off friday.

Thanks for the tips, appreciate the help. At least some people try to be helpful instead of just being a smarta$$. ahem..... Caz:D

OK guys, I'm heading up to Frankfort tuesday morning and I'm looking for any help or advice you can give me. I plan on going out tuesday night and at least saving the launch and pierheads in my GPS and will probably try to fish. I plan on stopping by the Tackle Box and get an up to date report but I'm looking for any general information people might have since I have never fished out of this port before. Thanks in advance. Nick

well, I ended up going out of Holland saturday morning for my shakedown cruise and it wasn't a very good day. Got out on the water and started setting lines around 5:30. Got the dipseys and riggers down and took the first hit on a dipsey with the spin doctor/ fly combo from the Dreamweaver. Problem #1, my girlfriend can't get the dipsey out of the rod holder. By the time I got over there the fish was gone. Started setting out my cores and we took another hit on the same rod. I grabbed it and handed it to my g/f, she felt it for a minute and it was gone. As she reeled it in I went back to setting out my core and the rigger right in front of her popped, no one home. That was the Mag Habanero from the Dreamweaver(those were 2/3 lures that didn;t take bites for us at the tourney). My g/f got the dipsey in and everything was gone off of it. I mean swivel, leader, spin doctor and fly. I don't know if I didn't lock the swivel right or what, but the white end on the snubber was gone too? Anyway, i pulled up the riggger that tripped to reset it. Got the cable all of the way up and was locking it into place when the cable snapped and i watched the ball float to the bottom of the lake. All of this happened by 7:00. By this time my crew wasn't feeling very well and were having a hard time keeping the boat on a straight heading. So we decided to troll east and called it a day when we got in to 75 ft. of water. Pulled line and were back to the dock by 8:00. The good news was that my g/f loved her first time on Lake Michigan. She had never been on a boat out on the lake before. The other good news is I got the boat out and everything worked pretty good. I am going to make a few adjustments and we should be good to go for our trip to Frankfort next week. I'm going to replace the cable on the rigger I snapped just to be safe. Thanks everyone for your help, couldn't have done it without all of the advice and recommendations i have received, not to mention the rides I've had on other people's boats that helped me work out my set-up.

Nice job on the fish guys, too bad about the tires. You had a better day than I did.

My uncle just gave me The Black Box this week for charging glow baits. I will be trying it out this weekend and I'll let you know how it works. It's a wooden box painted black on the outside and silver inside. Looks like it has a halogen headlight bulb inside and hooks for hanging lures. Plugs into a cigarette lighter. He made it a few years ago for a friend but never used it.

Well, it looks like the waves made my decision for me. Looks like its supposed to be rougher in the afternoon so I made a deal that lets me get out of work at 3 am. Caz, I think that we're just going to fish out of Holland because it's fast and easy to get to. That way if something doesn't work out we're close to home. I will also be fishing sunday and we might run up to Muskegon then. I'll post a report when we get back. Nick

This weekend I will finally be getting my boat out to fish for salmon. I think that I'm going to do the "shakedown" cruise on friday but planned on taking my girlfriend out saturday for her first time on the big lake. I just found out that I have to work friday night so my plan of having lines set at dawn is out the window. Here is my question: If you had to choose between fishing in the morning but not starting until around 8 a.m. or fishing in the evening which would you do? So far the wave report looks promising so that doesn't matter. It's her first time and I was hoping to put her on some fish to make it as enjoyable as possible. Thanks in advance for the input.:LemonIce: :Chernobyl: :OrangeCrush: Fish On!

I voted for that orange icicle thing. We took bites on everything but the spin/fly, habanero, and other black/green one. We took our biggest 2 fish on the icicle on a full core.

Fished the Dreamweaver Sunday and managed a 2 man limit in 5 hours, nothing big but steady action all morning. We took hits on 6 of the 8 spoons. The only 2 that didn't go were the Habanero and other green/black one. Fished north, 90-115 ft. Most fish came on north troll in 90-100 ft. Good day and great tourney.

Saw this somewhere else and thought that I'd share. I know GLF isn't the only one who has trouble telling the difference between chinook and coho. Some of us that are new to Great Lakes fishing struggle with it. The easiest way I know of determining coho vs king is to compress the anal fin. If the front tip of the anal fin (when compressed) is more than half the entire length of the anal fin - you have a coho. Less then half the length - you have a king. This is the method all the DNR creel census wokers are taught to use here on Lake Superior. All black mouth = king black mouth grey gums = coho I think easiest for me is the uniform size and distribution of spots on the tail of the king. Coho have few if any on the lower part of the tail. Color, number of ridges in the anal fin and mouth color are also helpful but fastest is the tail And don't forget to check the mouth on small steelies, it will be all cotton white, many confuse them with coho or vice versa. http://www.great-lakes.org/fishid.html Hope these help.

My girlfriend said that even if they didn't catch the most fish their the best looking team in the state:D

Since Caz hasn't submitted a report yet I will do it for him. We went 5/11, all kings. We were 3/9 by 7:30 and then picked up 2 stragglers later. Riggers were hot early with 5 of our first 9 hits, but only 1 fish. Started north of the pack(except for the 1 guy who set lines right next to us then cut in front and yelled at us) and headed north in 85 ft. Had a release on the rigger right away with no one home. While Caz was resetting the dipsey fired, Caz handed it to me and I farmed that one. Right after mine got off the other rigger fired, steelhead on the slider. That fish came all the way to the boat before getting off. Caz took a turn and landed our first fish on a dipsey with fishcatcher and fly, can't remember what colors. While Caz was fighting that fish the rigger fired again, I grabbed it and it felt like a real good fish but I never turned him before he was off. Travis lost one off a leadcore and then we had 2 more hits. Travis landed a fish off the rigger while I lost another off lead. Travis landed one and lost one before things pretty much stopped for us. I finally landed a fish off lead later in the day and Travis landed one on the slider off the rigger. Nice meeting you Travis and thanks for having me along Caz. Had a great time and I'll see everyone next week at the Dreamweaver.

Thanks for letting me fish with you again Caz. Even though it will probably be the last time after all of the fish I "prematurely released" this morning. Having 9 hits in 1 1/2 hours is great fun but only landing 3 isn't. See ya next week at the Dreamweaver!