Lund Explorer

While I agree with the idea of anchoring, at times you do need to be somewhat mobile. When that isn't an option you're going to need to learn how to hold position using your trolling motor. Here is how it was taught to me. Before you hit the water, go buy yourself a marker buoy. Don't get one of the bright yellow or blaze orange ones that attract everyones attention, but see if you can find one that is black. If you can't find one, buy a yellow one and paint it yourself. When you come upon a spot that you want to hold on, toss the buoy out and drift back down wind from it. By keep your foot on the power button, dial down the speed control where you are staying the same basic distance from your marker. I never use the constant on feature as I use cable steering. Without this feature, I can simply let off the power button briefly if I need to fall back a little or stay on it if I need to make up lost ground. If you have a power drive unit you may be able to get away with using the constant on, but you may need to override it if winds speeds are varying. Casting your "weighted" offering directly upwind towards the buoy you may encounter a small amount of slack/bow in your line. The best ways that I've found to detect a bite is to hold my rod low to the water and watch the line where it enters the water. I also palm my reel so that the line runs over my index finger so I'll sometimes feel the bite that way. Finally, I will back off the trolling motor every so often (think 10 seconds) so that the backward motion of the boat will take the slack out of the line. BTW, if you try this line over your index finger thing, remember to move your finger away before you set the hook. Those line cuts in the first knuckly hurt like the devil.

And I was all ready to tell you to ask your wife! I don't think that small of a change is going to make too much difference. Look at your current motor in the up/stored position. Try to get a mental picture of that 3" sticking out past where the head of the motor is now.

Welcome to the forum and congrats on your new boat. Short of trying to write an entire book, I'll give you two things to consider. First is to turn that boat into the wind and practice holding your position by setting the speed dial on your trolling motor. Secondly, you need to put some weight onto that worm. Texas Rig, Carolina Rig, Drop Shot are all good deep water options but you have to have enough weight to be able to get bottom contact. Keep that weightless rig in the rod locker until you move back to the docks!

Hey Mikey, welcome to the boards! I know you've got a few lakes to the east of you like Wixom or Sanford, but don't forget to look to the west too. I'm only a half-hour away from you in that direction, and I'm surrounded by some pretty good lakes. Give me a scream if you want to check out some of them this summer! Steve

Thanks for recognizing the problem. I can remember many years ago reading an article on delayed mortality associated with catch and release fishing, and I do think it is important that people understand that even though most of their released fish will survive, some will not. While I was researching this again, I found that almost all of the studies were based on bass tournaments. It was no surprise that many state's fisheries departments had conducted these types of studies along with several major universities. I also found a few news articles from media sources that discussed the topic. Unfortunately, when the news media became involved, it wasn't good news as this linked article shows. http://ww2.somdnews....511_32215.shtml While this may be an extreme example, it does show that problems exist that need to be addressed. It represents a public relations disaster to the non-fishing segment of our society as well as to those recreational bass fishermen who watched as a part of their fishery was destroyed. From everything I have either witnessed and read, a certain number of fish will die of delayed mortality after tournaments. While it is most likely unavoidable, tournament directors need to do everything possible to keep that number down as low as possible. If not, bass clubs could be forced to change, or in the extreme, give up their part of the sport if too many non-tournament fishermen or property owners complain loud enough. On a positive note, I did find several articles that discussed the efforts that the Oklahoma Fish and Game Dept was making to support fishing organizations in reducing this problem. The department had developed a tournament kit that included holding and dip tanks modeled after what a few of the big professional organizations were using. They also supported the dispersal of fish away from the weigh in site after the tournament was completed. http://www.nesportsman.com/articles/catch_release_studies/oklahoma_largemouth.html This brings up another problem. Anyone who attended last year's BR Roadtrip got to witness first hand what happens when a large number of bass are released into a small area. The Saturday we arrived there, Moor's Resort had been the site of a tournament weigh in. By the next day, a number of Catch & Keep fishermen had arrived inside of the breakwalls to take advantage of this manmade honey hole. This happens at many tournament release sites. In other words, the catch and release crowd is actually giving an unattened helping hand to the catch and keep crowd. However, regardless of the problems associated with tournament fishing, my reason for starting this discussion dealt with the angler who catches and then immediately releases hsi fish. My only hope was that I could make a few anglers understand that not every released fish lives on to become a lunker. An ethical angler takes this into consideration and should think about how many bass he/she has caught during an outing, and may think about hanging it up for the day when he could reasonably assume that he may have killed his limit for that day. Hopefully, we will see continued studies done to address this problem. The more we learn, the more we consider our impact on the resource, the better we will be able to help protect the future of the sport.

Junk Scientific Bias: Whenever a fantasy is threatened, make claims that aren't backed up with any proof. Sounds like more than a few people are worried their halos don't shine as brightly as they think they do!

A full bucket? You might be asking too high a price after several of those lazy no-look turnovers he had last night. Good news is they are headed back to hockey town all even.

Bleach here too. Not only use it to take the smell out of the cooler, but I use it to sanitize the water tank on the camper before use. Note - Never had a dead fish in the water tank though, thankfully!

Our region has a number of manmade humps also. Fishing on lakes where lumber operations took place from the 1850's into the early 1900's, it is normal to find a number of humps made entirely of waste lumber sunk into the lake. Some are massive enough to be considered structure itself rather than cover on structure.

For short trips with the boat, they are in the rod locker or strapped to the deck. Long trips or in the truck bed (when fishing in someone else's boat) they all go in rod socks/reel bags.

It's interesting to read all of the responses here. I expected to see some members respond such as K_Mac did. Open minded as always, understanding that there are many ways different fishermen partake and enjoy the sport. I also expected that some members would disagree with the point I was trying to make and/or the results of the study. It didn't surprise me at all that nobody offered links to show that this study was wrong. Perhaps it is because there are a number of other studies that show the same basic results of the one I offered. I chose to provide the study I did because it was written in a little more "user friendly" format. It covered a wide variety of fishing methods from live bait to artificials, as well as looking into mortality based on where the fish was hooked. I was somewhat surprised that plastic worms were the number one reason (above live bait) for throat hooked fish. I think the study shows that the truth of the matter is that catch and release fishing does lead to a certain amount of delayed mortality. These are fish that have been removed from the resource just the same as if they were released into hot grease. The percentage of fish that die due to being caught may change from location to location, or season by season, but the bottom line is the same. So my other questions remain relevant. If you are practicing C&R, how many fish can you release before you have killed your legal limit of fish? If you exceed that number, are you in some way worse (for the resource) than the angler who kills the first five fish before quitting? On a side note, I'm happy to see that no one has suggested throwing the C&R angler into the lake instead of the fish!

How many times have we heard someone state that they have never kept a largemouth bass? How many times have we heard someone berate the bucket fisherman who kills the fish he catches? Now read the linked study on the mortality rate of released bass and try to answer the question of who kills more bass. A bucket fisherman may catch his/her five bass limit and goes home. Using the average mortality rates from the study, how many fish can you release before you have possibly killed your five bass limit? How many bass die when the C&R angler brags of having a 100 fish day? A 50 fish day? Is it ethical to catch and then release more bass than what the averages say puts you over what the bucket fisherman takes home? http://www.seagrantfish.lsu.edu/resources/factsheets/catch_release.htm

Yes, you probably should have. The reader can only reach a conclusion based on what they have available to read. As I read that post, I couldn't decide whether to laugh or shudder as it seemed so over the top if you will. My initial reply was meant to be somewhat tongue in cheek. Now that I add your further explanation, I'm going to say that you were just as much at fault for missing that tournament. If you could count on him, why make the comment about having two backups? If anything, you should be happy that it was only an open tournament. I can't imagine what it would have been like had this taken you out of an Angler of the Year race. Move on and try to learn from your mistake.

You're lucky Catt. I'd like to explain a little further why I'm dancing to a slightly different beat. I have discussed on here before about my long time friend and fishing partner Mike and how he lost his battle with ALS. One story I have never shared was the last chance we had to fish a tournament together. It was the annual fishoff for a 30 boat club we belonged to. You didn't need to catch fish, place in the money, or anything other than to enter into five of the eight regular tournaments to qualify for this tournament. In the years prior to Mike getting sick, he and I would fish all eight tournaments and then look forward to fishing the fishoff regardless of where it was. We actually had the somewhat funny distinction of always finishing in 4th place. Something like five years in a row. It got to the point where the tournament director would offer to give us the trophy and prize money for that place prior to blast off! The last year we fished tournaments, things had changed. A couple of tournaments that involved long drives or lakes Mike didn't like, we didn't bother to fish. He even used a substitute in the last tournament of the year so we would have our five tournament requirement. That year's fishoff was on Muskegon Lake which was a rivermouth lake just off of Lake Michigan. Over the years, the lake had gone from a very good smallmouth lake to one that had few smallies and primarily largemouth. Mike Loved Smallies! The morning of the tournament, I picked him up at his house and we began the 1 1/2 hour drive to the lake. As we drove to the west, I could tell he wasn't into the trip. Twenty minutes from his house we had crossed the Muskegon River. The same river that fed the lake we were headed to, but still had the distinction of being good smallmouth water. As we crossed the bridge he kind of groaned that he wished the tournament was being held there. He complained about how much he hated fishing for those darn green fish. Another twenty minutes or so down the road we came to an intersection where turning to the right would put us on the road heading straight west to the lake. I turned left, which just so happened to lead us right back to the river. When Mike asked me what the heck I was doing, I told him I was going fishing. I was going fishing with my best friend at a place where he wanted to be. We didn't catch a lot of fish that day, but they were all brown. While we still had the chance to fish quite a few times after that, Mike and I never fished in another tournament together. The last few times we got on the water we didn't even fish that hard, we just went fishing. The day I turned that truck to the left, I quit being a full throttle fisherman. I can understand why so many guys attack the sport the way they do, I just wanted you to know why some of us don't. Edit: I should add that for these last few years that I only fish one tournament each year. It is a memorial tournament held in Mike's name to raise funds for ALS research and it is held on that same river at the same launch. It is a day that I spend going 110% in celebrating his friendship.

Random thoughts that are a tad different. One group I fished tournaments with gave you placement points if you weighed in fish and a goose egg if you didn't catch anything. On lakes that I didn't fish very often, hadn't had the chance to find a winning pattern, or I just didn't like, I would target any keeper I could to simply get some points towards making the classic. While I never started out with the goal of weighing in a limit of dinks, there were times when the pattern I thought would work flopped. Pounding easy docks for a limit sometimes still put me in the money. Even when I was catching decent keepers, I've come to the point where catching 50 fish that all weigh 3 lbs doesn't advance you up the leader board. So I can honestly say that on those days I went looking for a kicker. That usually meant a change in location and baits to areas that may have held large fish, just very few of them. Odds were that I couldn't catch more than the 15 lbs I already had, but one 5 lb bite bumped me to a more respectable 17 lbs. Finally, I found that there were certain non tournament days when a kicked back style on my part was the way to go. It may have been the chance to put the wife or kid's success in front of my own. Sometimes, it was just to have fun. If you think about it, that's probably why we all started fishing to begin with. It was the same way with golfing. Even though there was a time when I carried a 2 handicap, I was still up for a day when the only clubs I carried for an entire round was my 7-Iron and a putter. My point is, that the quickest way to turn a hobby into a job is to treat it that way. Slow down, take time to enjoy the simple things!

After reading your rant, I'm thinking that there are two possibilities. First is that it might be your fault. Had you called him at 2am to make sure he was getting some sleep prior to this tournament, you would have had time to get him into the ER in time to make it to the blast off. Second, he may have actually been sick. You spent two weeks fixing the boat and trailer. You spent the "whole day" talking to him about your plans, what time you were meeting him, and how much money to bring. You called him in what most would say was the middle of the night to make sure he had new line on all his rods and that he had good knots. I'm pretty sure that your buddy realized he had bitten off more than he could chew, which is awfully close to being sick from something he ate. The bottom line is that you may have gone a little overboard and your buddy wasn't as geeked about this open tournament as you were.

Great accomplishment, but it will be the runner up whose name and best shot will be repeated for more years than the winner's.

Ahhh, the price of fiber avoidance is rather high. Here's hoping that everything comes out okay, literally!

I'd love to agree with you, but after watching the way they've played the last month, I think Ferris State (lost in the finals) went a lot farther than the Wings will this year. We can only hope that this new "season" brings back a little more focus.

If you are involved in tournaments and want to make it into a money making prospect, then you've got to be willing to spend money to get you there. Like any other business, it all boils down to what your goal for that return on the investment is. As an example, I could say that the guy with a rolling hotdog stand may not have near the amount invested as the guy that owns a five star restaurant. You also need to consider the market. A full blown restaurant isn't going to do very well if the customer base is more interested in just grabbing a quick bite of lunch, just as a hotdog stand isn't going to do very well with the Saturday night date crowd. Bass tournaments actually run fairly close to the above example. You can choose to compete in a small local club or go full bore into one of the national tours. For any tournament angler to be successful, you've got to understand what your potential payoff is going to be. It would make little sense to buy a 21' fiberglass rocket with a 250hp motor tied to it if the tournament lakes are as small as the $20 entry fees in a small club are. I also wouldn't choose a 16' tin boat to fish the FLW/BASS tours on bodies of water where you can easily run 100 miles. The same holds true as far as fishing tackle goes. Nobody can answer this question on how much you need to spend because the potential goals are so diverse.

I'm going to agree with Scrutch's very first sentence and expand on it. Most of the bridges I've fished had some kind of current associated with them. The current can be the result of the natural flow of a river, it could be generated by wind, or by water being released through a downstream dam. Regardless of the cause, I have found that bass will use bridges as ambush points waiting for forage to swing by them. In some cases, current is going to push logs/brush up against the upstream side of pilings which offer the bass even more cover. If there is enough current will undercut the aprons of the bridge too. If current is present, I always try to fish on the downstream side of the bridge so that my bait of choice naturally washes into the cover. On shorter bridges, I fish from side to side to cover the entire width of the bridge prior to moving father up and under it.

Structure and Cover on Structure - The two most misunderstood things in fishing. Thanks for bringing this back up.

Congrats, its very rare that a tournament angler can cover all of his/her costs. You obviously must fish a higher quality tournament trail than I ever had the chance to. My really good years got me to the break even point for entry fees and travel costs. That meant the boat and tackle I decided to use couldn't be figured as part of the investment into tournament cash. Those items had to be justified by chunks of plastic, a narrow boost in reputation, and comfort while I was on the water. I'm happy to see that you came back with that second highlighted comment about your post aimed at tournament fishing. After reading your original post (several times), there were parts that made WW2Farmer's comment in the very next post was going to be almost prophetic. I'll bet you are into the tournament phase that I was in 15-20 years ago. If I hadn't lost my fishing partner I would probably still be there myself. It's a vicious cycle of having to keep buying the next great everything to try to stay on top of the game. Here's hoping to your continuing success, the bait monkey needs you!

Hooligan's quote: "When I fish for fun, I'm usually fishing a future tournament lake or fishing a technique that I enjoy and want to get the most out of." leads me to believe that the act of FUN fishing is only an extension of tournament angling. Hence, it is part of the job.

My question to Hooligan would be what the return on his investment yielded? I can fully understand the tournament fishing aspect of the sport. Has prize money won using high end gear, exceeded the money spent?