kingpossible

A friend of mine just bent some 1/8 aluminum to fit over the lip of the transom and hang down into the water. Shape is like a "J". He uses it for his Fishhawk transducer.

Walloholic - Take the reels apart yourself and clean off the drag washer that are in there. I've soaked them in dish soap and water for a few days, rinsed them off and let them dry. Might be worth a try. The thing is that these reels don't have the largest drags to begin with. I think these washers have then felt drags? If so, put a drop of oil on them before reinstalling.

I think most hooks are size 2, 1, and 1/0. It has been tricky to find a brand to get the replacement hooks. Ideally, you want the replacement hook to match the weight of the hook you're replacing to get the same spoon action. I've used VMC 9650 hooks for some stuff, and have bought some Owner ST-36's (pricey). I wish I could get some of these hooks in silver, but have not been able to find any.

I have an overfilled spoon. What I do is measure 50 ft in the driveway, pull the cable to 50 ft, set the counter to 50 feet, and fish it from there. It will read negative when i bring it up, but I make my adjustments based of the 50 ft baseline.

Definitely an exciting trip! I can see trouble from running a longer core down the chute - especially when the fish this year have been tangling up with my board coppers that I have out 60 ft+ on each side of the boat!

King Possible - Fish Hawk Calibration Method.pdf

I'll put some more details on the calibration in a bit, but here is my experience: On several different Fishhawk units from the factory, the speeds vary! Switch probes out to another head unit and the speed changes again. Unless you calibrate your unit together with all the other fishermen on the lake all your units will read slightly different.

You should calibrate downspeed with GPS! And the surface speed with GPS and downspeed too! BUT... Make sure there is no current where you do the calibration. I calibrate going about 3 mph GPS. To check the water is calm, I go in one direction set the calibration, then troll back the opposite direction and make sure the speeds match. If it's slightly off you have current (if it's not much you can figure out what the difference is and factor that into the calibration. Make sure to calibrate water temp at the same time too.

I have two 15" strips of king salmon soaking & 1/4" of meat soaking in brine right now. I'll see if I can get them stiff enough to run.

I mainly fish lake Michigan from St. Joe to Muskegon. I've fished a few smaller 1 day events, but once the entry fee increase from $20 to $30, it just wasn't worth it to me. I know that's not much, but here are my concerns: 1. Shot gun start - I have smaller boat, and with a shotgun I have to stay inside the pierhead to avoid getting swamped when all the big boats take off. I also am slower than some of the big boats. I'm losing prime fishing time getting to my spot. 2. Start time - some of the best fishing can be before the tournaments even start. In the summer that can be 4:30 - 6:30 am. 3. End time - If I've found a bite, I don't want to abandon it to go weigh fish. I'd rather catch more fish while I'm out. Or in other words, I've invested a lot of time to make it out. I don't want to cut a trip shorter than it has to be if my crew is cool with fishing until 3 or 4 pm. 4. Port restrictions - If there are good fish 10-15 miles away, I don't want to have to run that many miles to get on to fish. I would rather just hop a port over and get them from there. 5. Weather. Tournament says 1-3 foot forecast is ok to fish. I'm only comfortable in my boat with under 2 foot waves. 2 foot and above just isn't fun. Boat can handle it, but boat control becomes an issue. 6. Money - When the winnings get into the good money category, I'm out. Tends to bring out the worst in people sometimes. I'm not fishing for the money but some people are. 7. Info sharing - when a big tournament is coming up, people tend to hush up on the reports. It's really hard to get any info. I can't compete fairly when people are pre-fishing for 2 days and don't say a word. 8. Big tournament behavior. One example - I went to a shop to get a second stinger spoon that had been good for me the past few weekends. Guy says that someone came in and bought every one of several good spoons. No way someone was planning on running 15-20? of the same spoon? People will go around and buy every one of the hot baits in local shops so other tournament fishermen can't buy them. Seriously?

Here's the image for wave height. They do include the belly of the wave, but as rolmops included in his post: "Individual wave heights may be more than twice the significant wave height." The buoy is reporting the significant wave height. And yes, a reported wave height of 2 ft. on the buoy will probably look rougher on the water.