Early Bird vs. the Worm?

Early bird gets the worm...right?  Well, in this case the launch was backed up with a fairly long line of eager crews, all seeking Salmon.  John J wisely suggested we stand by in the parking lot and let the crowd subside.  Time to grab for the donut bag and began munching on a piece of fried dough and was amazed with this being mid-week (Wednesday) at the amount of boats stacked up in line.  Manistee's public launch ramps can accommodate 14 boats at a time.

I choose to fish aboard John J's 23' Four Winns, because it far better reflects what most of the readership of this website fishes from.  Gone are my charter boat days and 11 foot beam boats.  Seeing the challenges first hand, better acquaints me from the times preceding 1983, when I first went into the charter trade.  Dealing with motor boxes in close quarters area to work fish to the net, let's me see...first hand what needed to make life easier for the trailerable boat angler in sub 25 foot vessels.  

The 10 inch flashers and the shorter 2 fly meat rigs came into being after seeing the difficulties presented by fish on your 10 foot diver rods in a 8 foot beam boat.  Cutting the distance from the tip of the diver rod by even 2 feet is a big advantage when it comes time to put the fish in the net.

My vision when I entered into the tackle manufacturing business in 2004 was to make a pro-grade product, to best standards in the world and make it here in the good old USA.  Seeing first hand, under battle conditions in the style of a boat most of you fish from leads to constant improvement.

By now, we already paid our cover charge by getting to the ramp early, preparing our own bait and sizing up the situation.  We set up in 60 feet of water, heading west and nary a mark was on the graph.  No boats around us were into fish either!  The time frame was pushing 8am when our first lines went in the drink.

Drats, the wrong call by going north from the Port of Manistee.  While there's a good piece of structure, known locally as the shelf......the best part of this drop-off from 45' to plus a 150', lays south of the port.  Once you're a mile, or two north of the harbor, there's a extended, sloping plateau, before the deeper water is reached.

The wind was on the build and John J patiently get setting rods, and being only two of us onboard, I had to stay on the wheel, since we had no autopilot.  We were in lumpy 3 foot seas with plenty of surface wind. He set the starboard out-down (long arm rigger) at 60' and got the port rigger in the 50' range.  Now, we had to riggers down and within a short spell, the port diver rod was set, and still nary a tap.

Double drats my mind, (or what's left of it) began to think.  Bad call on going north?  Bad call?  Shouldn't have went this way, as second guessing and hindsight came into play.  Just about the time, I figured we were entirely defeated, I heard the fast scurry of John's fleet feet from one side of the boat to the other and heard him yell.......fish-on!

"Fish-On" spells relief for anglers, no matter what part of the world you're from.  Then, another powerful statement was heard......"get that fish" from John J, as I went for the other rigger.  On the way to the rigger from the helm, with the rod dancing, the only diver rod we had in the drink was getting smacked pretty hard, and line was screaming from the reel.  This is dilemma for me, cuz I had the rigger rod already in hand with a fish headed for Wisconsin at full tilt.  I stowed loaded rigger rod back into a empty rod holder and got my paws on the diver rod to deal with the nasty varmint with a bad attitude still pulling line against the drag.

Two fishermen in one boat do not need 3 fish on at one time, especially a non-auto piloted vessel.  After a little verbal coaxing, I did get Johnny J to admit....I could still move pretty fast for a fat boy in his early 60s!

All fishermen are created equal before we leave the launch ramp, or dock!  It's when we hit the cleaning table that separates the men from the boys.  One of the reason I prefer to fish with John J, he knows I'm no big deal, or blessed with a special magic wand that means instant limit catches.  He's seen the work that goes into be successful when he crewed for me back in 2002 & 2003, before I retired from being a charter captain.

Yes, it's work and the work is called the process of elimination to put the odds in your favor.  If I have a leg up on any fisherman, it's I will not keep making the same mistake.  My view is, if I'm gonna make another mistake by the wrong call on speed, depth, or area fished, let's make a brand new one, as not to keep beating on the same dead horse.

Tip: Making the right decisions all depend on having a graph you can trust is essential.  Sonar is the single most important piece of electronics on your boat, so 
do not skimp!  The a huge difference between knowing fish are around, or not.

In fishing/Great Lake trolling everything is about presentation.  Get it right and you'll box out early.  Get it wrong,......well,.... it's gonna be a long day.  Sight, sound and scent all combined in one neat package it what I offer to the world.

Matching your colors can not be overstated.  Give me one, or two working colors? Game over!  I'm not trying to confuse the fish, just catch them is another way of looking at a uncomplicated coordinated attack.  Having the same colors on your divers as what's on your riggers (per side)?  Simple logic should says, "it sure not gonna hurt!"

BTIs on the divers/lead core, 12" inch Reel Flashers (on the riggers), paired with identical meat rigs will put the odds in your favor from what I witnessed during 2006.  If a fish is on the scent trail of a meal and spooks from a rigger rod, this fish gets another good long look at dinner in duplicated colors.  Or, if a fish hits a diver with a certain color, the same color will work on a rigger.  You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure this one out! 

All the hits we had came on 2 colors we had on our paired-up 4 rod spread.  Simply put, the port rigger had the 12" Green Bubble/3 Fly Green Bubble Meat and the port diver had the 10" BTI/2 fly Green Bubble Meat Rig.  Our starboard set was the Blue Bubble/3 Fly Meat Rig on the right-side rigger.  The starboard diver was towing a 10" BTI Blue Bubble/2 Fly Blue Bubble Meat Rig.  Two colors working in tandem with each other makes for a presentation that will wreck havoc on the fish!