The 2013 Ludington Offshore Classic is over. I will give a recap of the week for Team Free Style. The fishing was tough on Sunday and Monday. We fished up north off the bank both days and then headed out deep off the point looking for Coho and Steelhead. On Tuesday and Wednesday the fishing really picked up. We fished the bank north of Ludington early for mature Kings and then fished the deep water off the point trying to put together a program for Coho and Steelhead. We figured for the Saturday & Sunday tournament we would need to get some Coho to get our 9 salmon and some Steelhead for our other 3 fish to make our 12 fish box. We found them both days. Our best Steelhead baits were a Dreamweaver Super Slim Goldilocks and a Super Slim Steelie Dan on 5 color cores. The Cohos weren’t too picky about what they would bite as long as it was between the surface and 60 feet down. Our first tournament event was Ruboy Thursday. The rules are simple . Catch as many fish as you want and weigh your heaviest 5. The King bite was tough on the bank. We opted to fish near Big Sable Point for big Kings and stick it out all day trying for 5 big ones. Our strategy almost worked. We got 4 nice Kings, but could not get the 5th one. We caught a total of 7 fish and had to weigh a 6 lb. Lake Trout to make up our heaviest 5 for a total of 83.25 lbs. The Blue Fairways Team had 5 kings for a total of 68.25 and won 1st place. Our 83.25 lbs. was good for 2nd place and a check for $1500. Next up was the Bud Light Ladies Classic on Friday. 
Our ladies team showed up bright and early Friday morning ready to fish but the tournament committee determined the Lake was too rough to hold the event and we think they made the right decision. We still wanted to do some scouting for the weekend tourney and were going to go out in the big waves and try to find some Kings. Some of the other teams were going out too so Tony from Living The Dream put together a small tournament using the Ruboy Thursday rules – weigh your best 5. Six boats entered and all six fished up north on the bank. The kings were really biting in the rough water. We ended up catching 13 Kings and our 5 heaviest weighed 103 lbs. That weight was good for 1st place and $600. All our big Kings that day came on 10″ Spin Doctors and Big Water Meat Rigs with Erie Dearie Meat. Saturday morning was the start of the main event. We headed up north hoping the Kings would still be biting. We managed to pick up 3 before we decided go out deep and catch the rest of our 12 fish. Our pre fishing in the deep water off the point paid off and we took our Steelhead and some Coho to make our 12. We then headed back to the bank to try to upgrade our catch with big kings. We had 2 hours to try do catch a couple but we never had a bite in there. Our day 1 total was 111.55 lbs. The wind blew hard form the north Saturday night and the water cooled off considerably at the point. It was hard not to go back up there but we decided to go south and fish Little Point Sable. We got our 12 fish there but not enough big ones. One of our 4 mature Kings weighed 25.40 lbs. It came on a Purple Haze Kingfisher / Purple UV Big Water Meat Rig with Erie Dearie Meat out 290 on a high wire diver. Our day 2 total weight was 110.35 lbs. We ended up in 7th place and collected a check for $650. Our 25.4 lb King finished in 10th place in the Fish Hawk Big Fish tournament and earned us a check for $200. We also finished 7th in the 333 tournament. All in all it was a good tournament for team Free Style. We were in the money in every event we entered and we had a lot of fun. The tournament was vey well run and we are looking forward to participating next year. Congratulations to Capt. Sean McDonald and Team Katch Me on their 1st place finish.
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