Adam Bomb

Nice job

Great job and great report captain.

I took a gander at your website and its great. Has all the info you need and very easy to navigate. If i were in the market for a charter i would give you a serious look.

Thank you sir, appreciate it. I always thought they made a good rigger, but this is definitely something that should be changed IMO. Seriously, how much trouble would it be to machine a hole for a role pin to secure the shaft?...Pretty simple id say.

Thanks again.

Ive never tried copper for walleye either, although im sure it would work well. Allot of people use lead core, so why wouldnt copper do the trick?...ecspecially when theyre way deep like you found them in your tourney. For the majority of my fishing on Saginaw Bay the water is too shallow to really warrant it...thus, i havent tried it. Now, on the outter bay, i think it could definitly be the ticket.

Speaking of salmon-like techniques, I even caught a few eyes on the vibe fly made by fisher tackle. It doesnt require a flasher to give it life because it has a chatter blade on the front. I havent slayed em on it, but i havent fished it enough to tweak things in right. I did put a small piece of crawler on for scent though....Its tough to mess with things when harnesses work SO dang well.

Hey guys, i have Walker downriggers. This weekend as i was raising the ball up the rigger suddenly freespooled. I quickly put my hand on the spool to brake the decent and clicked the switch off. I checked the spool nut and it was tight, so that wasnt the problem. Began raising it again and freespooled again, but this time the shaft came out of the drive gear/brearing. Just as i grabbed the spool and shaft assembly the counter spring popped off and into the lake...No biggy there, but i was wondering about the shaft. Are those just pressed into the drive gear/bearing? The reason i say that, is because i took apart one of my other riggers and the best i can tell, theyre just pressed in.

So, after inspecting the shaft i didnt see any damage, but noticed the shaft looked to be tapered. So, I measured the groved end of the shaft with my calipers where it would go into the bearing and its definitely tapered. After further inspection and cleaning the grease off i noticed theres a red, im assuming permanent lok-tite or other adhesived, inside the small grooves in the bearing and on the grooves of the shaft where the two would fit together. So, I cleaned everything with degreaser, let it dry, cleaned it with some lacquer thinner and let that evaporate. I then sprayed some Lok-tite primer on the shaft and the hole in the center of the bearing. I let it dry the recommended 3-5 minutes, then put my red lok-tite on, pushed the shaft on as far as i could manually, then seated the shaft fully with my soft tipped hammer, so as not to damage the threaded end. It seems solid as a rock. I repacked the bearing, bearing housing and lightly greased the bushing where the shaft goes through the bushing in the housing and put everything back together. I hooked it up with a 10# ball here at the house and lifted it up and down several times. Its smooth as can be, no wobble or noise...nothing...all seems well.

So, i was wondering if anyone had any insight on how it goes together for sure, as i couldnt find a schematic? I tried the Alegan service center, but Neil's on vacation.

Thanks...Adam

Great report, nice looking King...Gotta love those silver fish....theyre WiLd!!

Great pic and great job on the feesh!

Outstanding!...Excellent job out there.

Heres a few pics from the trip. Wish we woulda took allot more though.

In a day or two...You missed out on the blackened Salmon...Had that tonight...Damn i love those little Kings and Cohos!!

I am putting the battle armor on the boat for Sunday. It doesnt work when 150 boats are working the same 200yds of water. We need some warm water to spread things back out.

I hear ya there, this cold water sure has the fish in a narrow band of water.

Well, we got a late start this year, but we finally made it over. With all the cold water from last weekends blow(49-56 surface temps:eek:) the fishing sure was different this year. Normally we're out in a 100'-175' of water pulling mag dipseys with spinnies and flies, long cores and mid-deep range riggers, but this year we found ourselves hanging out in 40-80' of water with all of our presentations in the top 30' most times. No surprise the dipseys were dead, but i was puzzled why the slide divers with long leads wouldnt go:confused:...Fortunatlely we brought lots of lead core:grin:...and its a good thing we did because they saved us big time. We ran 2 to 6 color cores with spoons and plugs. We took fish on them all, but the 3 and 5 were definitely the best. We also took a handful of fish on riggers 20-40' down and 80-100' back off the ball. Although dipseys were pretty grim, we did take 3 fish on them, lost a couple and had a couple more rips. Fish came on a #1 set at 1 1/2 75' back on lows, and 3 1/2 on highs 60-85 back.

To keep things poppin we had to change things up quite a bit. Seem like we'd hit a fish on something, then itd die, switch it up and bam...We worked for every bite we got, other than last nights crazy triple...We had two big Kings going ape $hit around the boat when another fish hit. Dad was helping mom with hers and Kurt was fighting a big fish on the core...So, i had to net mine myself. And after he went out around the dipseys and was trying to pass the boat i didnt think i was gonna get him. But luckily i got him back to the side of the boat and after a couple unsuccsessful tries i got him with a less than graceful net job just as he was going to get into the high diver....Good thing it was hooked good. Just as i got mine in, Dad did some quick rod juggling and netted moms...and just as we cleared one net kurts board was at the transom. It wasnt long and we welcomed another feisty king on board...Got all 3 of those ornery devils.

Best water was 55-60' along a slick that set up and the same depth a bit outside the peir head for staging four year olds. It was fun fishing around the slick, there were kings and steelhead cruising all over the surface in the flat water. Several times we had fish cruising within 20' of the boat and even had one that made a pass within a foot of our inside board...It reminded me of shark week on the discovery channel.

As far as baits are concerned, it was a plug and spoon bite for us. We had a couple rips on flashers/flies and nadda on cut bait...As far as the hot color, there wasnt really. We had a couple repeat, and that was it.

Plugs

Ace High Green Glow Splatter back

Ace Hight Glow Wonder Bread

Silver Red Headed J Plug

Double Crush Glow Silver Horde

Chrome J Plug

Blue/Chrome J Plug

Emerald Green/Blue #3 J Plug

Spoons

Mag & Standard Blue Flounder

Mag Flounder Pounder

Mag Mongolian Beef

Mag Do-Dee K

Mag Moonshine Moonshine

Mag Happy Meal

Lemon Ice

Michael Jackson

Mag Blue Chilli Willie

Mag Smurf

Mag Gold Mongoose

Mag Green Dolphin

Flasher/Flies

SD Blue/Chrome w/Blue Chaos Fly

Fisher Tackle Vibe Fly Dbl Glow Green Ghost

Our fish ranged in size as well. We took fish anywhere from 5-17#, with the bulk being in the 12-15# range.

Maiden Voyage on Tuesday evening 2 for 6 all Kings

Wednesday 10 for 15...all Kings, 1 Steelhead and 1 Coho

Thursday 11 for 16 all Kings

Friday morning before a disaster with a rigger and going home. 1 for 2...1 King lost a steelie

Ah, gotta love smallies. One of my favorite fish as well....Nice job.

Nice job guys. I never get tired of seeing pics like that.

Great job out there.

Kewl dude!...Nice job.

Hey Frank,

I keep my boat at Gold Coast Storage in Ludington. Its located on Pere Marquette Highway. Last season was $40 a month for storage, I cant imagine it being much more this season, but wouldnt be surprised if its inreased like everything else has. Anyways, its a locked high fence. Lots of boats there. You sure cant haul it for that.

Thats about the same report i could give....We hugged the shore line heading north. Got up to the hole, pointed her east and headed out. The farther we went, the bigger the waves got. We set up, trolled down wave, got ate off a few times, weeded up and boated a cat in about 15 minutes. I looked north and seen the clouds rolling in. I said, look dad, here it comes. Wasnt long and it it widened right out and began working its way down the bay. So, we packed up our toys and headed in. We werent in for maybe 45 minutes when the storm hit. Torential rains, lighting etc....Glad i was not on the water.

Surface temp was only 72 yesterday, but its definitely warm underneath. The cat i caught and the crawlers on my harnesses felth like little heat packs when i brought them topside....Thats definitely not going to help the fishing.

Best of luck to anyone going out, im headed to the west side tuesday morning for some salmon slammin'!

I've had the same Rattle Tots on all 8 lines since the begining of June, 80 back always. And I always spice them up some with a 1/4 crawler (Hook the piece at its tip and never threaded or gobbed) on the front outside belly hook, and run them anywhere from 1.8 to 2.6 depending on where I see the marks on the graph. Deeper/Faster, Shallower/Slower. Started that 1/4 crawler idea 2 years ago and seemed to outfish the guys using straight Rattlers almost every time.

The guy who did so well on the cigar the other day (from what I could see) was using the smaller Eyeliminator flashers with #5 blades using XPS fish keels as the weight. Not sure if he was using real meat, but I think he was.

That sounds like a good presentation. Its amazing what adding a little meat on your crank can do. Ive done it with #10 rapalas run behind BB before.

Well, by the sounds of things, this guy was fishing the spot on the spot because between the two of us we had a pretty broad range of presentation covered and did hit the lotto.

Leeches definetly work well on harnesses. You may actually get up to 3 fish on one leech....Try and get the biggest ones you can. Franks had some nice ones a few weeks ago, but i dont know now.

Thanks for the report Frank. Nice job by the way in some tough conditions. Damn water temp isnt helping either.

Often times when its rough i drift as well. I put my stern to the waves and I keep my kicker running, but in Neutral so that if i need a correction i can make it...same as Frank. I also like to run two bags while drifting because it helps with surges. As far as rod count, i do things the same. Normally theres three of us on the boat, so depending on whats working best i may have all 6 with boards, or if its real ugly out, i may run a couple boards and a BB off the corner on each side.

I cant say i blame you for being particular about how things are run because it makes you a confident angler. And a confident angler is a good angler.....Im the same way. I might run it for a bit, but if it dont go, its gotta GO!...Sounds like we're all set a little in our ways....a detriment at times im sure.

I use a standard hook file as well. I run singles on mine and sharpen them the same way Mike does. If it isnt stickin' in your thumb nail its not sharp enough. Doing this will definitley increase your hook up ratio, as do the tandom singles IMO.

Wow, talk about a shocker.

LOL...i just posted on GLA...didnt realize it was you....too funny.

Id use em for dipseys and core. Those are my most productive rods, so thats why i suggested it....Not that riggers dont have their days for me.