Had the exact same issue last year and ended up having to replace the transducer…

I think you doubled the number of antlers twice. Once for the per day calculation, but then again in the per hour calculation??? Still an impressive number either way!

I drove in there yesterday to check it out and I think it would be a little hairy. You have to drive thru water a couple of times on the way in, but not a big deal. The landing area itself is completely submerged, but with waders you might be able to launch. You’d be better off using Berna’s down on Peterson.

Why can’t you put up a few photos with some background in them?

Lindner’s are running the new VMC rigs and jigs this year. Available at Mills and Gander…probably other places too.

Lurk Lurk Lurk

Unfortuneatley it stayed up there way too long! I ended up making up some ground on the same pattern that worked on Gull the week before, but it was far too little and far too late! I’ll go at it again next year…

Hey D-nort,

I have both the Lakemaster and the Navionics navigable rivers. Lakemaster is really good for pools 4 and 8, good detail and accurate. Once you get off those pools, you’re kind of stuck though…that’s why I added the Navionics. Navionics is pretty decent for depth contours and very good for wing dam location and shoreline / island contour and location. It’s actually shown me a few things that I never knew were there…I’d go check them out to verify the map and sure enough, I’d been driving right by for years! That’s my 2 cents…good luck!

I couldn’t agree more John. The only guy that beat him on Day three was KVD for crying out loud! That’s friggin’ awesome and they didn’t even mention it! The whole thing has become so political with the sponsors / anglers too…it’s pretty unfortunate to not see Yelas and Nixon coverage in their last classic. As a businessman, I understand ESPN’s position, but I think they could have come off looking a whole lot better if they had taken the high road with some more of those long time BASS guys that are leaving.

Hey Chuck…who else do you have? Did you take Champman? I added him at the last minute and it looks like he’s gettin’ ’em…hope they’re toads! Bad deal on Rook!

Where did you see that KVD caught a 10 Lb’er? I can’t find anything that shows actual weights?? One of my co-workers knows the observer in Andre Moore’s boat…he said Andre had about 11 Lbs and he’s culled up a bunch of times…sounds like alot of small ones.

Can’t really tell from the picture, but the sure way to find out is by looking at the bill. The old style is all one piece of plastic…the body and the bill are all molded at one time. The new style has a separate, clear bill attached to the bait after the body is molded.

Hey Joe,

To hook up your 24V, you need to first connect the two existing batteries together. Start out with no connections on either terminal of either battery. Next, connect the positive of one battery to the negative of the other. This basically will give you with a 24V battery. There will be one negative terminal open on the first battery to connect to the TM and one positive terminal open on the second battery to connect to the TM. Let me know how it goes. Good luck!

Hey Joe,

I fished the big water on Georgian Bay a couple of years ago at Regionals and you’ll do just fine. The drift sock thing is huge…it’ll save your TM big time. Take your time on the rollers and they’re actually easier to run than the nastiness on the lake we had last year…they’re farther apart. Put your seat back on the front deck…you’ll want something to lean on. GPS everything, including the landing. Sounds like the guys fishing Lake Erie right now are fishing about 30 feet (if you can believe ’em!). Good luck and have fun…no matter what, you’ll learn alot!

TS already has the full results posted. Pretty amazing weights…4 bags over 20Lbs, 3 lb avg doesn’t cash a check, and down to like 30th place still had about 16 lbs. Great anglers AND great fishery!

I just checked the live weigh-in results for day one:

12 zeros
21 one fish
1 limit (Ike…man he’s on fire!)

OUCH!!! How ’bout it some of you local guys?? What’s the deal with this lake? Is it totally pressure? I really thought these guys would have the tricks to make them eat but I guess not.

I’ve used jigs from 3/4 oz to 1 1/4 oz to flip heavy milfoil in lakes for several years. It’s a very efficient way to fish deep milfoil because the heavy jig not only punches through the thick canopy, but also gets to the bottom quickly even at 10+ ft.. Good technique to get the big girls, but I’m always amazed at the little ones willing to take on a big jig too…I guess they want to be big! Don’t worry about it being too big. I haven’t used this technique much on the river yet…seems the milfoil is rarely as thick and never as deep to really justify the presentation, but I’m sure there’s a scenario for it.

I also pre-register. For me it’s about trying to figure them out and just do my best. Nobody likes getting whupped, but many times you learn more on tough tourny days than on the days you can do no wrong. In the long run I think the guys who commit to it and give it their best shot learn more than the guys who only jump in when their honey holes turn on.

Some good points Blackduck…you were obviously writing the same time I was. As you point out, the plans don’t have to be all or nothing, we should be able to tailor them. Good input for a workshop if you can make it!

I was also at the meeting last night with ERonningen…nice summary Eric. I think you guys hit on a pretty significant point here indirectly. One of the consistent inputs last night had to do with sedimentation and how it negatively affects the system. They frame plan A as a “do nothing” plan, but as ERonningen points out, they don’t have anything in any of the plans to address sedimentation…they’re all do nothing from that standpoint.

Another issue I believe is significant for all of us is the trolling motor only zones. The first problem has to do with the need for these areas. Their own data last night indicated that 99%+ of the users were in gas powered boats(hunters, fisherman, commercial fisherman, etc..), so why do we need to create more areas for the exclusive use of less than 1% of the users? Secondly, they are proposing to go from 1 current TM area to 16!! Not one or two more, or even several more…16! I don’t see how this fits into any category of public use given their own data about who uses the system, yet they frame it as a combined public use/wildlife plan.

A third issue has to do with the economic impact of their proposal. They claim that plan D will have a positive economic impact on the communities around the refuge. I’m not an econ major, but I don’t see how that can be. There’s not one element of the proposal that promotes more public use, only restrictions. Can anyone see how that would help a local economy? Seriously…I’m probably missing something here but I don’t know what??

I believe they are playing a few games with words on some of this stuff and everything they said last night wasn’t exactly what was written in their summary. The key will be to get refuge users to the workshops. Across all of the issues there are likely some improvements that can be made and a whole lot of other things that should be left alone, but we’re going to have to go and tell them. They’ve already indicated what they want to go forward with (Plan D). After these meetings, they know most of us users aren’t happy with their proposal. Now we have to go to the workshops and tell them what we want (and don’t want).

Good comments from all. I agree that this thing gets pretty confusing when you try to sort out all of the plans. I spent a fair amount of time trying to crawl through the summary and maps last week as our entire bass club will be heading to the meeting in Wabasha tomorrow…I wanted to be able to arm the guys with as much info as possible…

A few things struck me as I sorted through the summary:

1. None of the plans say too much about water quality / sedimentation that a few posters above commented on. It seems at least this issue that is important to many users of the refuge is not a high priority for them. They do mention it, but there is no significant change in approach in any of the plans.
2. They categorized the plans as A.”Do Nothing”, B. “Wildlife Focus”, C.”Public Use Focus”, and D. “Integrated Wildlife and Public Use Focus” They recommend plan D as the compromise, however, every element of the plan adds more restrictions to public use so I wonder how that is a compromise??? A compromise to “No use” maybe??? Where are they heading?
3. They are recommending adding a tournament permit requirement from the Feds.. Now we will have to deal with the local govt, and the state like we do today as well as get a permit from the Feds. I can almost guarantee that they wont back off the State or local permit, so now we will have tax dollars paying for three govt agencies to issue a permit for the same water. Doesn’t seem very efficient to me.
4. Like any good gov’t beauracracy, each of plans other than “Do Nothing” includes significant dollars for increased facilities and staffing for themselves. They are proposing new offices and maintenance shops in every region and hiring an additional 19.5 HC to administer this plan. No wonder they want to charge a fee to pull up on a sand bar and throw a stick in the water for your dog to fetch.

There are many other concerns, but these are just a few that stood out. Please encourage all users of the refuge to attend a meeting and voice their opinion!!

Steve,

Awesome tournament results summary / pics! I’ve been a fairly frequent viewer of the site but am new to posting. I just had to comment after being able to not only see how many of my fishing buds fared but also to see some of their great catches…all in one quick scan!