Oh boy, we had a roller coaster ride in this years Ludington Offshore Classic. Wednesday the 16th was our last day of pre-fishing for the tournament. We have taken out the same group of guys for the last few years and done quite well. We fished south of Ludington by Little Sable Point. We didn’t have a lot of fish on , but the ones we caught were nice ones. The biggest was a 22.9 King. The first event in the Classic is Ruboy Thursday. We headed back to Little Point and fished south from there. We were working between 50 and 80 feet of water (fow) and got as far south as the 34’s. We only had 8 bites and caught 6 fish, 5 Kings and a Coho. Our top 5 fish weighed a total of 74.90 lbs. There were 69 boats entered and we finished in 3rd place, good for $1000.00. Friday was the Ladies Classic. We ran back south fishing basically the same area as the previous two days. Our Ladies Crew did a great job fighting and netting the fish, but we just couldn’t find enough big ones. We finished in 6th place. Saturday was the first day of the Pro/Am. After fishing south of Little Point the previous 3 days we thought we had enough figured out to take 12 fish, the maximum daily amount a boat can weigh in the pro division. After the first couple hours we only had 2 fish, a King and a Coho. It was obvious to us that we were not going to catch our 12 where we were so we pulled and ran offshore to try and catch some Lake Trout and Steelhead. We didn’t catch any Steelies, but we did catch 9 Lake Trout in about an hour and 10 minutes. Those all came on Super Slim Spoons. Our best was a Steelie Dan on a 1 color and a Pete’s Steelhead on a 3 color core. We caught a couple more bigger fish back off the shelf north of Little Point. We weighed our 12 biggest for a total of 82.95 lbs. putting us in 18th place. Day two we headed back to Little Point hoping to put it all together and catch some big ones. We started out right on the Point in 90 fow. We weren’t marking much so we slid out to 130 fow where we hit our first fish. It hit a high wire diver out 100 with a 10 ” White Crush Light Green Scale Spin Doctor /Custom Early Bird Meat Rig. We lost that one. We slid out another 10 feet to 140 fow and hit 3 quick fish. They were all big Kings. The biggest, 22.60 lbs., hit a 8″ Kevin’s Girlfriend Spin Doctor/Big Water Tackle Froggie Meat Rig on a 7.5 color core. We worked between 130 & 160 fow south of Little Point all morning. We took 7 nice Kings in there , 2 Lakers and a Steelhead. All our fish came on 8 and 10 inch Spin Doctors and Big Water & Dreamweaver Meat Rigs. We were using Dreamweaver premium Strips in all our rigs. Besides the 8″ Kevin’s Girlfriend/Big Water Froggie combo our 2 best other rigs were a 10″ Green Sparkle Spin Doctor/Green Gasoline Dreamweaver Meat Rig and a 10 ” Chrome Kevorkian Spin Doctor/UV On Ice Big Water Meat Rig. We ran out deep and picked up a few Steelhead and ended up with 16 fish. After we picked out our best 12 we knew we had a heavy box. We headed in a little early to make sure we wouldn’t be late. About 9 miles out from Ludington harbor we hit a submerged object and broke off our starboard shaft and prop. We limped in on 1 motor and were 21 minutes late. We did make it back in time to get our fish officially weighed. Our day 2 box weighed 146.95 lbs. It was the heaviest day 2 box and the 2nd heaviest of the tournament. Our 3 biggest fished weighed 22.60, 20.10, & 18.85 lbs. That would have been good for top weight in the 333 tournament had we been on time. As it was we were disqualified from the 333 because we were late. Our 2 day total of 469.90 would have put us in 5th place. Our 22.65 lb. King was good for 3rd place in the Fish Hawk Big Fish Event. The tournament was very well run and the turn out was great. I have to admit it was very disappointing to not make it in on time after all the hard work our crew put in. Oh well, we are hoping for better luck next year.
Follow Us!