chowder

I don't think the lake will lay down much until Sunday mid day.

I'll take it, pmed ya and texted

At the risk off sounding like a real PITA just keep in mind that your meat strips should technically list the ingredients on the package be they commercial or not. We went through a long period when regulations prevented the use of these products and some Great lakes states are still very restrictive.

Sweet!, Nice fish

Blessed were your times together! RIP Bob.

First trip in the new to me vessel. First I need to extend my thanks to Hank for the great job rigging this boat (as well as Emily I, and Emily II ), she is a true pleasure to fish out of. Based on word from others we started out in 70 FOW and deployed a varied spread against a fairly favorable screen. Ran east crossing from 75 to 100 FOW while working most of the water column yielded one young teenage king that went into the box and a few that didn't make it that far. Overall, the situation , although looking like it was going to get good, didn't really pan out, so we pointed out. Somewhere past 200FOW we started a frustrating run of Meat/diver fish that were tough to keep on. The screen out there was pretty empty looking but we put a few high teens kings in the box and opened some bubbly to 'christen' the boat. Screen just got positively dead looking around 330 so we retraced our passage with a slow pick that started inauspiciously with limp laker on the 400 copper/carbon 14 chute rod. battled and lost a couple more high teens kings on deep meat rigger and a meat/diver combo and finished up with a stellar rod handling performance on Greg's (aka 'reel Doc') part with a hefty, aggressive King again on a diver/meat rod. We had surface speeds from 1.5 to 3.2 that took fish, noticeably quiet were 8 and 10 color spoon rods off the boards. It was an absolutely gorgeous day on the water made better by good company and a trolling boat masterfully fitted out.

Found a decent screen in a relatively narrow band of water from 60-80 fow west of the Oak. Fish came on geezer, carbon 14,and two face spoons anywhere from 40' to 75' down off riggers, core, and copper and wire divers hauling meat rigs. There was a pronounced band of trash filled water at 80' that cleared up somewhat west as we headed west of the Oak. Surface speeds from 2.4 to 3.0.

Excellent post, full of honest, specific stuff. Great job out there. I've had the same screens and frustrations- you are not alone and you guys had a good go!

Nice job hanging in there and making it work!

If you do not need to mount riggers and equip them with swivels and you already have places for board lines I can't see why you would need to spend $ and time putting trax on the vessel. It's a no brainer when there is nothing on the boat and it needs mounting capacity but from what you describe I can't see why you would do it unless you wanted to completely change the setup. 2 Bigjon or other type adjustable fixed in place rod holders / side would get you dipsy rods horizontal for salmon wire applications (for walleye we just put our 2 diver rods/side in the rod trees since they don't have that much tension on them). I'm in the process of switching boats (I have trax on 2 other vessels) and the only reason I'm putting a 12" section of trax on either side of my new to me is because I want to be able to take the rod trees on and off.