Mark,

I have a variety of baitcasters for musky fishing, both round and low profile. He usually just fishes once a year on our family fishing trip and to date has only used a cheap push button reel. That is why I was looking for something that might work.

To your other point, I may just take an old baitcaster set-up and let him play with it for a day and start to get the hang of it. I suppose I’m a little protective about turning him loose with $300-400 rod and reel combo (I had someone have a fish hit as he was pulling the bait out of the water and it caught him by surprise and he let go. I heard the splash, turned around to grab the net in time to see the cork handle disappear under the water. We spent an hour dragging baits trying to snag it, but no luck, so I’m a little cautious with what I let out to others), but it’s hard to learn on junk.

Dave

Still not seeing the form, but what is the date of the event?

Thanks Eric, I’ll take a look.

Total Weight = 19.29

Big fish weight = 5.30

Jason,

I’m set for landing and release, I just need to find the fish. I’m a Muskies, Inc member and we had our big tournament this past weekend. My partner had six follows and boated two fish all on an Orange Spot Suick. I threw everything in the box over two days and didn’t see a fish.
Sometimes there is a particular action or color that seems to work on a particular body of water and if Leech has a hot bait I want to make sure I’ve got one along for the trip. I usually fish walleye on these trips so that’s what’s in the boat, but I know there are some monsters to be had, so will bring the musky gear along and spend a little time to see if we can get one to bite.

Thanks for the help guys,

Dave

Any Results available?

Joel,

Thanks for the info. I was going to pick some up today, but didn’t get there so it’s on tomorrow’s to-do list. My question is regarding the 18# line vs. the 12# line. I thought I read somewhere that this line is like 30% stronger and you could get away with 12# and have similar performance to the old line in 18#. Any thoughts on using the 12# line? I looked at the reviews on Cabela’s site for this line and there were only three reviews and two of them mentioned the same issue you described and rated it low.

I was thinking about going with 12#, but now may need to rethink this decision.

Dave

James,

Great Information. I had not considered pulling cranks over 3 mph. Seems like we are always in the 2-2.5 range. I tried it out on the river and we had some pretty good success so I will continue to work on perfecting this pattern. We also caught smallie, crappie, northern, white bass and of course our old friend the sheepie (must have slowed down)

The thing that I noticed though was that we had quite a few fish come unbuttoned on the way to the boat. I’ve not had this trolling in the past, seems like the fish set themselves. We were using Suffix Braid and #5 Shad Raps with soft rods(duplicated your process almost exactly.) Kept tension on them with a steady retrieve, yet about half way to the boat, no fish.

Any thoughts? Is there something different about hook sets? At the higher speed, are they just swiping at the bait and no getting a good grip?

Thanks,

Dave

I have a similar issue on my iphone when my son downloads some crap onto it because his ipod is too old. The workaround for us is that I have to log him out and log in as myself. It seems like whoever used it last is logged in and if it wasn’t you then log the other out and re-login with your account.

Not sure if this is the most elegant solution, but it has worked for us.

Dave

Jerry Tipping, a guide on Castle Rock and Petenwell, has a cover that slips over the rod like a standard rod sleeve, but also has a second piece that fits over the butt and tip that is attached with elastic. The pieces stay together and the whole rod is protected from scratches. I picked up a couple last year and really like them. Will probably get a few more this year.

Here is a picture from his site:

http://www.anglerspride.com/pages/fishing-tackle-products-amp-specialties.php

I upgraded boats a few years back. Got the new rig home and had that O Crap moment when the garage wouldn’t close because of the tongue. Never gave it a thought while looking at boats. It’s a Shorelander trailer, so I contacted Shorelander for a replacement tongue with the swing option built in. I didn’t want to deal with cutting the original tongue and bolting on a bracket. I figured this way if something went wrong with the swing option it was on Shorelander and not me. I had heard there can be issue with alignment. It’s worked out great though Shorelander would not sell me the new tongue directly. I had to have it shipped to a local dealer and picked it up there. The only issue was that the locking pin that they sent was undersized. It allowed a little play and at highway speeds the trailer seemed to sway back and forth slightly. I also noticed the hole getting worn a bit oblong which made the fit even looser. I went to Farm and Fleet and bought an implement pin with a larger diameter that fits snug and now things are fine.

Like someone mentioned above, I have almost no clearance. The motor is touching the back wall and the tongue gets rotated 180 degrees. When the door comes down there is less than 2 inches of clearance, but it all works.

Don’t you love it when a plan comes together.

Hope things work out so you can get the new rig.

Dave

31.5

Total Weight = 18.4 lbs

Big Fish = 6.9 lbs

Good Luck to all the fishermen

I’ve got a couple Abu Garcia Black Max reels with flipping switches and love them for the reasons listed above. So easy to adjust line. I had a guest in the boat and let him use those rods and I used a Pflueger Trion which doesn’t have a flipping switch and kept forgetting and backlashing the line. It really is a convenient feature. They run about $50 apiece. I have heard that they have a model without the flipping switch, so I would check to make sure it has it before you leave the store.

Dave

Absolutely agree Brian.

The first time I heard the Trace Atkins song about taking his little girl fishing, I thought, “Man he’s got that right”. Took the kids out as often as I could and they thought “we were just fishing”. It’s about making memories. If you haven’t heard it, here’s a link to CMT

http://www.cmt.com/videos/trace-adkins/659727/just-fishin.jhtml

There were three boys in my family and about 7 years later we got a little sister. While the boys were growing up, summer vacation was rent a cabin on a lake and fish all week. As the boys grew up and moved out, summer vacation was Wally World or some other attraction. We would argue we never got to go to any of those places, but my sister would always complain that no one took her fishing. Truth be told, she really is not the fishing type, but what she misses is the family stories that get shared every time we are all together about those summers on the lake. “Remember the time Dad fell in? How big was that fish you caught? Or a hundred other silly anecdotes from those trips” Lots of family memories in those cabins and the stories that have become family folklore. Just for the record, I did take her fishing last summer on a lake near her. We trolled up about 50 fish. Mostly Crappie, but a few walleye and bass. I think she enjoyed the boat ride.

It’s not about the fish, they’re just a bonus.

Dave

I won the guide trip with Brian last fall in the Team Catfish contest and my son and I had a great time on that trip so I have been trying to convince him we should head out again. The planets aligned and we decided to head out last Thursday. I had been reading all the great reports and thought the fish would all but be jumping into the boat. It was a bit slower than I expected.

We did manage a few fish, but missed a bunch more. Didn’t have much rod thumping in the holder, more like I think I saw the tip move, we better check it. Very light bites if there is such a thing with Cats. We put our share of stink in the water. Started with Sudden Impact and later in the night caught our two biggest fish on Secret Seven late into the night. (Thanks Team Catfish, part of the prize package along with the shirts and hats) Lost the fish of the night at boatside. My son is interviewing for a new netman before our next trip. Dad let him down at the end of a long fight.

It was a beautiful night out and my son and I had a real good visit, something that is pretty rare with a 21 year old, so that made the trip worth it. On the way home, he asked when we can do this again, so even if the fish didn’t cooperate, it was a great night. Maybe a good thing the switch turned off. If we were busy catching fish, we might not have had time to talk.

Here’s a few photos from the night

Dave

I’m glad the bite is on. I’m bringing my son out tomorrow night to try out the Team Catfish Prize Package we won last fall.

Any tips on where to head. At this point I’m thinking north towards the dam.

Thanks for the help,

Dave

There are 40 squares

I wondered if it was a heat issue with Ipilots. I was out yesterday and everytime I hit an arrow on the remote to steer, the motor just rotated until all the cords were wound up. I had to grab the foot pedal to stop the rotation. After the fourth time (I’m a slow learner) I just quit using it. I took the battery out and it was essentially dead. I replaced the battery and hope that solves it.

I would start with checking the battery in your remote. I’m hoping that solves my problem.

Dave

Total 10.34

Big Walleye 2.37

Try these. They come with a click that allows you to clip them on the end of your rod.

http://www.rod-n-bobbs.com/index.php?page=prodList&by=line&by_id=LuckyJack&current_page=2

Dave

Congratulations Wade

Looks like a keeper.

Hope Mom and baby are both doing well.

Dave

Nice fish Aaron

Did you get a length on it?

We had several boats fishing on Holcomb Saturday. I think there were six fish boated with the biggest around 44.5. I went to Gander for suckers and the guy in front of me got the last four of the big ones, so I took some northern suckers (10-12″) and got a 41.5 on one of them. Beautiful day top be on the water.

It sure did

Brian,

Thanks for donating the trip. We had a great time. A little different from our usual fishing, but there is something cool about sitting out on the water in the dark when you have the whole place to yourself. And of course there is the good company and conversation. Don’t know if we solved any world problems last night, but had a great visit. Jonathon’s sold, he’s up for going again anytime. That’s his kind of fishing, sit back and not work too hard until you have a fish. We did have to work hard for the Sturgeon. All we could do is hold on and try to gain a little line when we could. Truly a blast.

We got home around 3:00 and the alarm went off at 8:00 so Jon could get to work by 9:00, so it was a short night for him. I sent him off and went back to bed.

Thanks again to you and to Team Catfish. This was a great prize package. For anyone who hasn’t tried their hand at Sturgeon and/or large Catfish, you should give it a try. You might just catch the fish of a lifetime, ie. the biggest fish you will ever catch, and I can’t think of a better guide to get you out their for your adventure than Brian. He walked us through the whole process, so there would not be any surprises along the way. He has a well equipped boat with everything we might need and we knew where it was before we needed it.

A very professional operation, but he made us feel like we were old fishing buddies. All in all a first class operation.

Thanks again,

Dave and Jon

Brian,

My son and I are looking forward to Saturday’s trip. Keep those good reports coming.

See you Saturday,

Dave

Thanks Brian

Total weight 17.9 pounds
Big Sauger 4.7
Big walleye 7.3

I’m alive and well. I’ll be in contact to work out the details.

Thanks for the trip Brian.

Dave

Thanks Brett.

I worked my way through college as a wedding photographer and the first rule was always fill the frame. Nobody wants to see a little white blob in the middle of the picture and be told that is the bride. I just have to convince my co-angular that it is okay to use the zoom and get right in there. My daughter now has a photography business so we are working on my son-in-law (her husband). Out of fairness, I did crop the photo a little before posting. He’s not quite there yet.

Dave