Fishing Michigan

That would be rod and reel.  The new St Croix Avid that I ordered came in the mail on Friday.  For those keeping track, St Croix is the last major rod company to be made in the United States and be American owned.  All the spinning and casting rods from the Premier on up, are made in Park Falls, Wisconsin.  They also make a large variety of fly and saltwater rods.

This rod matched up perfectly with the Ambassadeur low profile that came as a replacement from Abu Garcia.  Even though technically an early Father’s Day gift for my dad, I couldn’t wait to get it spooled up with the 30 lb Power Pro, tie on a snap n swivel and go playing in the back yard. 

You can buy the plastic weighted casting plugs if you want to spend the couple of bucks.  Believe they go up to 5/8 oz in weight.  The easiest way to do it, is take that ol’ Dardevle that was made up in Dearborn, MI,  remove the treble hook and go practice.

I set up a 5 gallon bucket 30 yds away from the back drive. Set the tension on the reel’s spool, which can be done by a hit of the thumb bar to see how fast the lure drops from the tip of the rod.  Get it to the point where the spool stops spinning when the lure hits the ground or water if you are fishing.  Tighten the small knob for heavier lures, and back it off for your lighter lures.  The kicker is if you are starting out with a baitcaster, not to go below or above the reccomended lure weight for that rod you are using.  Either way,  if you arent extremely experienced using one, you can have a birdsnest in no time.

So the first cast, bucket 30 yds away…not even close.  The line on the reel just kept going and going.  Sixty yards away, 20 feet up in the pine tree it went.  If it had landed,  would have been an 80 yd cast easy.  Crazy distance on 1/2 ounce spoon!

Thats the deal with a good baitcasting reel.  The better it is, the more responsive it will be.  The difference between a spinning reel and a baitcaster is, with a spinning reel, even the cheapest model will cast a good distance.  A good baitcaster makes a huge difference between it and a lesser quality reel on distance.

Match the rod to the reel, reel to the rod and go catch fish!

Took a little while to get this entry ready, had to do a short version for the paper.  Will have a few more pictures in the blog to give a better idea of what was going on last Saturday out on the lake.  I was with a guide, but it wasnt a guided trip if that makes sense!  Steve Webb is one of the many guys who I fish the winter Ice Team tournament series with,  and he had an off day.  Steve loves to troll, gets him ready for the summer tournaments and allows some time for experimentation before it counts for money.

We got our bait over at Matthews in the morning and got a little report on what the action was like out on the lake.  We started trolling just passed Luna Pier and made our runs North and South in waters between 16 and 20 ft deep.  Steve’s buddy Joe made the trip with us and we had six lines out from the boat.  Here’s a quick pic of the inline planer boards that Webb and I both use when trolling.  You cannot see it, but there is a rod set up with a heavy bottom bouncer right off the side of the boat. between the two board rods.  We ran two sets on each side of the boat, and a bottom bouncer rod on each side, too.  Its a good method for keep all the lines from getting crossed up, as well as keeping an eye on all three at the same time.

The first fish was mine (this did not make the paper) on one of the bottom bouncer rods.  Bringing it up, we saw what was probably a 24″ walleye, that must have been dead for several weeks, perhaps as far back as ice out.  A quick shake of the rod and it fell off the hooks of the crawler harness and sank back down to the bottom.

Remember that I make my harnesses 10 ft or longer,  because the first few (phantom) bites that I had were actually clumps of zebra muscles.  To remedy this, I still let the 4 oz bottom bouncers down to the bottom, but at the end I cranked the reel up twice, just to get it a bit further off the bottom so the rig wasn’t dragging.  This adjustment resulted in several fish being taken on the bb set ups.

We switched out all the rods to crawler harnesses eventually because they were producing better than the jigs and crankbaits.  The nicest fish to come off the boards was this big 6 lb male, caught by Joe.

The fishing was hard only in the fact that we had to avoid so many boats out on the lake that day.  There was a tournament that launched out of the Detroit River, and it seems like none of the boats stayed in the river at all.  We had the tourney anglers looking at us with binoculars to see what we were doing right.  Then we had a few locals almost turning into us to follow our passes.

Webb kept us on track with his Lowrance fishfinder/GPS mapping system.  For giggles, I did the same thing with my Garmin handheld unit.  Its a good option for those with a fish finder already in the boat,  and not wanting to add any more hardware to the boat.  A great option for adding an additional fish finder to the boat, is to rig a puck transducer to the bottom of your electric trolling motor, in front of the propeller blades.  Vexilar makes the flasher units  and are easy to rig yourself.

All in all it was a good day, each of us getting a Michigan limit of five fish.  These five totaled over 25 lbs.  The other two guys probably took come home close to 20 lbs each themselves.

If you havent been yet, get your boats ready and tested.  Call up the bait shops to see where the bite is happening and GO!!!  If you dont have a boat, take one of the many charters available in the Monroe area or give Webb a shout at Trophy Charters  and you can check on rates.  Speically if you are thinking of buying a Lund of your own,  its a nice boat to fish out of.

Went down to Bolles Harbour to get my Ohio License this afternoon and found that  Matthews has reopened under new management.  The shop has been open for three weeks,  and while they are waiting for a few more things to come in,  the selection of items was pretty good.  Live bait, hair jigs, trolling baits and plenty of jigs.

Matthews was a mainstay in the area before closing a few years ago.  Located on the right side of LaPlaisance Rd across from the marina docks,  the shop will be cleaning walleye and perch for a fee.  They have a website,  www.matthewsbait.com,  with updates and weather reports.  Mike and Jay were friendly and helpful, give them a shout @ 734-242-0666.

Even though the machine for the Ohio Licenses hasnt arrived yet,  they guys are connected to the internet and can process your information while you wait.  Your paper license will be printed off, the cut and trim it, and offer a small plastic bag to place it in for safe keeping.  Course if you know you will be fishing in Ohio’s waters,  you can do this at home with any printer.  Just remember for the remainder of this month,  there is a 4 walleye limit, which will go up to six at the begining of May.

That s walleye for everybody out of the Detroit area Was down to my last pack of walleye from Brest Bay from this winter. Thought I would toss this out there for anyone who wants try some fried eye without the heavy batter mixes. The portions are up to you, but I usually kick it up a notch with the cayenne pepper, gives it that red/gold color. Just a dry mix, put all the stuff in a paper bag (use two) and shake!
Its light, crispy and actually works for crappie, gills, pike and perch too.  If fish doesnt float your boat, try it on fowl.

Little stinger rigs are short hook extensions, easy to use, versitile and simple to make. The basic stinger is made of one hook, short piece of line and either a lure clip or split ring.  Fully adaptable to lure, harness or jig, the rig can be used in many applications.  Just a basic set up that can be made in just minutes.

If you want to buy them, thats fine.  They are reasonably priced and available in most stores that stock fishing equipment.  Popular brands include Northland and Lindy, and available in two hook types with variations.

One has a clip attached that can be hooked to a split ring on a lure or a jig.  The other has either a loop in the line or a split ring, both are covered in a material that allows for placing over a hook and remaining in place while fishing.  Most common sizes are 1 and 1/2 to 3 inches in length.  The hook styles include a single bait hook and a treble version to choose from.

Best times to use the stinger rig include when fish seem to be mouthing  your bait or short striking it.  Mouthing occurs when the fish will close their mouth over the bait, and then remain motionless with it.  Short strikes are when the fish are taking swipes at your lure, jig or harness and just missing it. More often than not,  the angler never knows it happend.  But, if you are marking fish on your finder and not catching fish, give it a shot.  On the average it will improve your catch totals.

If you want to make your own, go for it.  One of the coolest things about fishing, is making something yourself and putting fish in the cooler.  For the most part I use a lot Mustad hooks, but there are several brands available today that will work.  Try using a #4 or #6 livebait hook, or #10 treble.  Have some fun, make a few up with bronze and red.  I’m using 20 lb Berkley Big Game for the line.  If you want to be a little extra stealthy, 17 lb Berkley Vanish fluorocarbon will provide that lil extra line invisibility factor.  For your own preference experiment,  and you could choose from 14, 15, 17 and 20 lb.  The lure clips are available at Jann’s Netcraft, Cabela’s and Knutson’s that I know of in the area.  Most fly shops and catalogs will carry them, as well.  These slide over the split ring, or some jigs ( Northland Fire-Ball) have an extra eye just for the clip.  The style that slips over the hook can be made with a split ring or just by tieing a loop knot.  You want some type of slicone or rubberized paint. Once it dries around the loop or ring, it is ready to slide over any hook.

Yesterday morning was the perfect time to take a drive and see what I could see.  I had been south the previous weekend, thought about going west, and decided to head north in the end.  I really didnt need much, the only item on the shopping list was some 10 lb Trilene Big Game in the 1/4 pound spool.

Big Game seems to be just as good as XT for trolling, and I had the new pair of linecounters to spool up.  The only difference is the price, comepare 1,500 yds of BG for 8 bucks, vs 1,000 yds of XT for 22 dollars.  I asked an employee at one store if they had anymore in the back,  and he said, “ no”.  He then asked how much line I needed, and I told him the name and make of the reels I had to spool up,  and that each would require about 600yds of 10 lb mono.  Now this wasnt a young person, so I cannot blame the new math being taught in the schools today, where students can  seem disfunctional without a calculater in hand.  He said we can spool that up for you, at 4 cents a yard.

I asked this person, why would I want you to spool my reels at four cents a yard when I can buy the line for 8 dollars?  He returned a somewhat puzzled look.  So I told him,  why would I want to pay you $48.00.  The little light bulp went off finally, and the discussion faded fast.  The kicker is that customers do this all the time,  people  bring in their trolling reels, anywhere from 4 to 12 of them,  have their reels spooled, and just about faint when they saw the bill.  I can use that extra $40 for more fishing stuff!

As it turns out,  when my order arrives with the spools of Power Pro,  150 yds of that mono is going to be stripped off those reels anyway, and replaced with the braid.  When using the braid, you need to build up the linecounters with mono, and then top it off with new line.  It helps to avoid slipping, and when the reel is full, you get an accurrate  read on the counter. 

Why 150 yards, becuase that is 450 ft of braid.  Example would be using that ol’ reliable Hot n Tot,  and I am fishing in 25 ft of water.  The walleye are holding to the bottom, so according to the charts (example) I need to let out 230 ft of line to get down there.  For the example, I am running boards that day,  2 on each side of the boat.  I spread the outer boards about 110 ft from the boat, which comes to 340 ft of line let out.  If I had run only 100 yds of Power Pro, which would be 300 foot,  I would have gotten into the mono backing.  150 yds allows you to fish any circumstance,  without running into that problem.  With the line on the reels, I won’t have to run into my math challenged friend every year when I would have replaced the monofilament.  The line doesn’t stretch,  and I get better hooksets.

 SEMINAR FOR BOATERS

Using VHF & VHF/DSC Marine Radio

Boaters should be aware that a VHF marine radio is your “first call for help” in an emergency—the first responders most likely to come to your aid will be your fellow boaters, and the best way to reach them is with a VHF radio. Soon all VHF marine radios sold will have the DSC (digital selective calling) capability. DSC vastly simplifies and improves rescue and routine calls, making it easier to make a call while the system frees up Channel 16 for essential communications. However, you need to know how to use it. This seminar answers those needs and explains basic VHF operation. Just $5.00 for this seminar brought to you by the Toledo Power Squadron at the Point Place Library, 117^th St., on Monday, April 23 at 7 p.m.  Contact James F. Sommers 419-691-7719, email somaga@aol.com.  Sail boat, power boat, kayak, jet ski, no boat? Age 18 and older? You are most welcome to join the Toledo Power Squadron. Check us out at www.toledopowersquadron.org.

Ever get that feeling like its Christmas morning,  when you just know that there is something going to be delivered in the mail that day?  That was Monday around here,  only question would it be an early afternoon delivery, or would it take all day to get here?  It was the early afternoon variety,  and I couldn’t wait to get that duct tape off the ends of the long white tube.

The rods from St Croix were here,  two 8′ Premier glass trolling rods and a 6′9″ Medium Light Avid casting rod.  I choose these carefully to match up with the right applications.  Will any rod get the job done in a pinch, answer is probably.  Will these rods perform exactly the way I want, to get that optimum feel, absolutely.

I picked the glass rods out to run my inline boards,  these may be a bit stiffer to some anglers who target walleye.  They are rated Medium Moderate action and will handle lines from 10 to 20 lb test.  Some believe they need a really soft rod for pickerel fishing to absorb the strike.  My philosophy is that the boards will do that in the first place, on the strike the boards slide back.  That little extra bit of stiffness, coupled with the glass tech that goes into them, just handles the constant stress that the boards cause better.

The 6′9″ Avid Medium Light casting rod, actually says “dropshot” on the blank.  It was designed for a method of fishing for bass, that until recently was illegal under Michigan regulations.  Because the walleye tour that my partner and I fish has included Houghton Lake this year,  I needed to expand my rod inventory just a bit to be able to adapt to the situations that can come up on that shallow inland lake.

What does this have to do with shopping in Toledo?  I had to put some new reels on them of course.  The original plan was to get a pair of linecounter reels  to match up with the glass rods.  I will drop in a shop or sporting goods store from time to time just to see what they have in stock,  but when I go shopping for something specific  there is a little planning involved.

I always call ahead, to make sure they have the item in stock, and to check with the store if they will allow me to bring the rods in, as well.  Why bring the rods in?  Because I want to check the balance of the rod and reel together, to get a feel for the weight.  I could have gone to a place practically in my own backyard, but what fun is that.  Besides with your better linecounters, the price is the same wherever you go and after a couple of times  you know the place and speel by heart.

I wanted to see a pair of Daiwa SG 27 LCA’s, without the walleye handle.  I might want to double this rod and reel combo some day for salmon fishing, and cranking handle is best suited for it.  So I called a place in Taylor, all they had was the walleye handle model, then called another downriver location I haven’t been too in a very long time, all they had were the 17 sized models.  So I called down to this place in Toledo.  Just a straight shot down Lewis Avenue and they had them in stock, even said bring the rods in, no problem.

I walked in and started looking around.  It was a small area to browse through, and the kid working there was quick to ask if I needed any help.  I told him I was just looking the place over before I picked up some linecounters that I had called about.  He remembered the call, and had them sitting out when I got to the counter.  My mistake was that I kept looking at other reels.  Found another reel that would be perfect for the Avid rod, wouldn’t you know it,  it was on SALE.  Normally I would have looked at the line after that, but knew I had some at home in the shop, and thought I better get while the “getting was good”!

I knew I had spent a little more than I had planned, but I could always tell “Betty”,  “look honey, I saved us 60 bucks because of the sale”.  I always wanted to turn that around to the other foot!!!!!  Bad news is that I think I have to go shopping this weekend,  and it won’t be for more fishing gear.

Had hoped to hit the Irish Hills area this weekend for some crappie,  but between the winds and the whole idea of fishing in a snow globe, I decided to take a pass.  If the warm weather had continued,  I would have been hitting my favorite canals and spots on several of the lakes.  The crappie would have been moving into their spawn areas and been ready for the spring bite.

I usually take three rods out with me, an ultra light for casting,  a light action for bobber fishing, and a pretty whippy medium light that I have for fishing heavier weeds.  I have 4 lb spooled on the UL rod, 2 lb for the bobber set up, and six lb for fishing heavier cover ML rod.  I can always double up the six lb rod for finesse fishing by adding a leader of 2 lb fluorcarbon line.

The rods all have ultra light reels on them.  The newest reels that I have gotten the last couple of years are the new Cardinal 300’s from Abu Garcia.  They have performed well so far, thus no complaints.  To date I have pulled up a 27″ pike, 3 lb largemouth (Minnesota through the ice) and quite a few good sized crappie and bluegill.

One reason I like spring crappie fishing so much is because I just kick back and relax.  Its gets me back on the water fishing after the ice has left, without any pressure from the ice tournaments or the walleye tournies I will be in later on this spring through the fall.  Guess its little wonder that I just enjoy using the bobber rods more often than not.  I use the fish finder on boat to set my depth and then rig up a slip bobber set up with a number of different sized bobbers to match the weight of the hook/sinker or jig that I have on.

I have everything I need to go bluegill and crappie fishing all organized in one tackle system storage tote.  It contains the baits, plastics, leader line, bobbers, tools, sinkers and hooks.  Its one of the few bags where I dont interchange the plastic trays,  so I know where everything is located from year to year.

I have 20 or so little crankbaits in one of the trays.  Since they dont dive very deep, they mostly get used in shallow water,  like you would find in the canals that hold crappie.  With the water temperatures where they are right now, they wont see the water for several weeks.

The last couple of year I have been playing around with these tiny spinnerbaits.  Normally anglers would use them for trout fishing, or have used them primarily for fishing trout.  They are extremely versitle,  some are heavy enough for the light action rod, most work best with the ultra light rod, and others are light enough to be used with 4 weight fly rod.  Fish them in 4 or 5 ft of water or as deep as 10, just let them sink a little before starting your retrieve.

Light weight bugs are a lot of fun of a fly rod.  Both dry and wet flies work, as do little panfish poppers.  The dry flies work best in the shallower waters, wet flies in deeper water because they sink, and the poppers work anywhere under the right conditions.  Fish can be caught shallow or deep, depending on fish location, weed growth and eating activity.

I use both plain lead jigs and those tied with maribou dressing.  The lead heads can be tipped with a minnow for deep water crappie, or  with plastics for casting and retrieving.  The hair jigs seem to work in either situation, but best either retrieved slowly after a cast or drifting over a known weed bed.

Have a good Easter, good luck.