posted 8/31/08
Let me start by stating that our Salmon fishing effort is a TEAM effort. We totally depend upon each other to take care of many facets of the operation of the boat including, putting down lines, deciding upon which lures to use, deciding what depth to fish, dragging in the other lines that are down and raising up the down riggers when a fish is being "played" and netting the fish to name a few! That said, we wholeheartedly agree that we totally depend upon one another.
Lee, WA8MSD and Vicky, KA8HUZ arrived at the Flophouse North on Saturday, August 16th. It turns out, Lee has a new furry friend called Hairy Beaver. He won the beaver at he recent class reunion as a door prize and decided that he would take Hairy around on trips and then take a bunch of snap shots back to the next reunion. Hmm, you thought you were going to see fish, didn't you? Well, you are also going to see a lot of Hairy Beaver.
The first photo OP for Hairy was at the Platte River Campground, not too far from the Flophouse North, where Lee and Vicky purchased their National Campground Lifetime Passes. The BARF group had a special event station at the Point Betsie Lighthouse so we stopped by there and visited with some of the guys who were operating that shift, which included IOOK'er, W8TVC.
A copy of the QSL card is at the bottom below.
BNZ is short for Benzie which is the county we are in up here.
Lee typically adds up what he has spent on his boat for the previous year and that is what the first fish costs. This year that worked out to about $500/pound of filleted fish in the freezer! That way all the rest are FREE!
What did he do to the boat to incur such an expense? Well, he extended the back of the boat 30 inches, changed the steering over from manual cable type steering to hydraulic steering and added an autopilot to greatly oversimplify his efforts!
We fish on Lake Michigan out of Frankfort Harbor where there is a nice landing that can get as many as eight boats in or out of the water at a time. Yes, there were times when we had to wait to either put in or come out.
Here's a couple of shots of Lee's boat (now 24' long) where the second shot shows the extension. Below left Lee is working on a transducer problem. Below right, SSA Crusty Chuck decided to have some fun with us when we left my '74 Ford (Old Blue) down there while we were fishing. The idea was that we knew we expected to go back out soon, so, we didn't want to unhook Lee's car from the boat trailer, so we left Old Blue there to come back to the Flophouse between sessions.
In the middle left above you see W8TVC taking a boat ride with us the night prior to his most recent partial knee surgery. We had hoped to get some fishing in, but, before we had been on the water very long the wind got quite bad and we elected to come in. If you can imagine the wind and waves were so strong that the trolling motor could not turn the boat and in the process of going in we all got quite wet from the waves splashing us. OK, Dave got the worse of it - he was soaked to the bone!
Below is a shot of Lee and I during our first final cleaning session. Our routine is as follows: Leave the ramp area and go to the cleaning station at the National Park.... Clean the fish and put the fillets in a plastic bag. Bring them to the cottage and let them chill for a day or so in the refrigerator. Then we do a final cleaning and pack them in one meal servings in plastic bags for freezing.
Here are some more beaver shots. By the way, the significance of the beaver is it is their class mascot. They are the "Eager Beavers!"
We took a day for sightseeing. As you can see it was a beautiful day! We met KF8KK for lunch at the Early Bird in Leland and then toured Fishtown! Then we continued north and ended up at the Grand Traverse Lighthouse north of Northport.
It's the first lighthouse I have ever seen that has the light as a part of the house rather than being a tower on the end or a free standing tower!
Thursday, the 21st, was our first of what we call our two-a-days. Our schedule for a two-a-day is up at 4AM. Get to the landing by 5AM. Hopefully fishing by 5:30. Come off the water around 10AM or 10:30 - go to the fish cleaning station and get back to the cottage by noonish. We then eat lunch, take a nap and are back at the landing by 5PM and fishing by 5:30PM. We come off the water around 10PM and clean fish and get to bed around midnight.
This is the first time either of us caught our limit of three in one day! Naturally, we had to celebrate some when we got back to the cottage, so, it was 4AM again before Lee said "OK, it's time to either go to bed or go back out fishing." Yep, we went to bed!
Since Lee had added the length to the boat and moved the motors further back the boat needed some extra weight in the front to better balance it. We picked up some sand bags and KF8KK was generous enough to fill them for us! Six bags of sand did a dandy job of balancing things out!
Because of our late night Thursday, Friday morning fishing was out of the question and it turned out that Friday night was rather windy so we elected to pass that evening as well. There was a big fishing tournament that weekend, so, we elected to not get involved in the mess of lots of boats and fishermen, so, we took the weekend off. It was so windy and rainy Saturday morning that they cancelled that session of the tournament.
Monday afternoon Lee made a change in the electrical set up on the boat. It turns out that with running the lights, radios, electronic devices and the autopilot, the battery could not handle the amount of discharge. All the accessories had been on the battery that was charged by the large motor, but, we weren't running the large motor except for a short trip out of the harbor and back. After he switched the radios and autopilot to the battery on the trolling motor, we never had any more low voltage problems.
The latest electrical fixes made the new autopilot work like a champ! By simply clicking on a button the autopilot will steer the boat in a straight course using input from the GPS. As you look at photo below, in the top left you see the Lowrance GPS and Sonar unit. The large number (2.59) in the upper left hand corner indicates the speed that the boat is traveling in relation to the satellites. The left half of the display shows the map of the area and our various tracks that we have followed in past and present fishing trips (GPS positioning and tracking). Each color is a different trip. The right half of the display is the sonar (fish finder and depth indicator) portion of the screen. The large 135 in the top of that screen indicates that we are in water that is currently 135 feet deep. What you cannot see on the map side of the display are the waypoints that we enter each time we catch a fish so we know where we caught each fish and can retrace our path across that area without difficulty. If you can make out the small 2.23 at the bottom numerical display on each half of the screen, that indicates the speed of the boat at surface level. On the Sonar, the 63.2 is the temperature at surface level. The round display to the right of the map/sonar display is showing the speed of our baits (2 MPH) at the cannon ball (the weight that takes the baits to deeper water) and the temperature of the water at that depth (46.4). You can see two black lines going horizontally across the Sonar screen. Those lines are showing the depths of each cannon ball. Salmon prefer to feed in a temperature around 54 degrees, so we are a little deep for the current and such at the time this photo was taken. To the right of the cannon ball display is a trusty compass in case the electronics were to fail. The gray colored remote control located in the middle bottom of the picture is the remote control for the autopilot (display says "PILOT"). By having the autopilot, while one of us is landing a fish, the other can pull in lines and downriggers so when the fish gets in close it doesn't get tangled in the other lines and such. In the past this has been a concern because the boat sometimes goes in a direction of it's own choosing. With the autopilot engaged, it continues in a straight line! Less confusion and fewer tangles! Delightful!
We got the boat parked in it's spot at Crusty and Jude's at 11:15 PM.
The next morning we were back up and at 'em early!
In the afternoon we did another final cleaning and preparation for freezing session. That evening when we went back out we went past this wild staircase on shore where someone up there can get to the beach and back if they don't die of a heart attack from the extended time on the stairs. I would guess they don't need a stair master! Har!
Wednesday evening we went to Ted, KD8BXJ and Dottie's, KD8BXK place for a home cooked meal! Our visit and dinner were superb! While there we saw these two deer crossing the field behind their house. We also got to check into the Wednesday evening IOOK 40 Meter net as well at the BARF net on VHF/UHF.
Thursday morning the 28th we almost got skunked! When we went out of the breakwater around 5:30AM it was so rough that we decided to go back in and try our hand at fishing inside the breakwater and through the channel and in Betsie Lake. About an hour later there was enough light that we decided to go out onto the big water. It was still rough but at least we could see the waves. We headed into the waves which were 2 to 4 feet. However, there were swells of 4 to 6 feet so occasionally we took a wave over the bow. To add difficulty to the mix of things, the waves were from the southwest and the wind was from the southeast. It proved to be too much for the autopilot to handle. We fought the wind and waves for about an hour and a half and were in about 120 feet of water when we decided to turn around towards the breakwater. This direction the autopilot could handle OK. Once we arrived at the breakwater we spent time trolling north and south across the front of the breakwater. After about two hours of this and still no fish, we decided to troll back through the breakwater, channel and then the lake heading towards the ramp. As luck would have it, we managed to hook up just before the water got too shallow and the skunk was out of the box and a fish went in! Yee haw!
As it turned out, that was our last trip out fishing prior to Lee and Vicky leaving for home on Saturday. Thursday night it was quite windy and it rained as well. Friday morning it was still windy. Friday night we met the gang for dinner at the Roadhouse in Benzonia for dinner.
In summary, we caught a total of 16 King Salmon weighing in at 197 pounds. We never got skunked in all of our outings! No we are not counting the night we got blown off the water. We hardly had a chance to fish that evening, so, as KF8KK said, it was like them calling a baseball game in the second or third inning. :-) All of the photos are actual and other than brightness or contrast have not been altered in any way. Contrary to what Hoss says, there are no cardboard fish shown in these photos!
We consider our 2 week Salmon fishing on Lake Michigan a great success and we are ready to do it again next year!
Plus, there were a lot of beaver shots that you never expected to see! What fun!
A special thanks goes out to Marian, WD8CJD for being so understanding! I love you dear!
Best 73!
Respectfully submitted, Keith, WA8ZWJ - IOOK VP
