We cant do a long year long event. Just one day . Like the thread started out as. Long term plans always get whacked by weather or other things like work and family matters. Hamlin would be a great lake to do this on because no one has really caught any fish up there so to speak of. I see this as a chance for a bunch of us to give this lake a good going over. Friendly competition just makes it more more fun. Michelle and I are going to be fishing some new water this year. Hamlin, Margarethe, Lake Diane , Maybe also get back the upper peninsula this season. My vote is Hamlin. Its big, its bad and its got lots of Muskies in it. The trick will be to find them. Mike
So, Mike, to make the playing field a little more fair, what do you say about giving a short presentation about Hamlin at one of our meetings? You put some time in there last year (or 2 years ago?) You could help fill us in where the weedline is, what weed growth is where, etc. Whaddya say? [smilie=brows.gif] Then, everyone will be starting at square 1.5
"Kingfisher" said:
We cant do a long year long event. Just one day . Like the thread started out as. Long term plans always get whacked by weather or other things like work and family matters. Hamlin would be a great lake to do this on because no one has really caught any fish up there so to speak of. I see this as a chance for a bunch of us to give this lake a good going over. Friendly competition just makes it more more fun. Michelle and I are going to be fishing some new water this year. Hamlin, Margarethe, Lake Diane , Maybe also get back the upper peninsula this season. My vote is Hamlin. Its big, its bad and its got lots of Muskies in it. The trick will be to find them. Mike
I agree…one day at Hamlin, Hudson or Diane?
"Jim tenHaaf" said:
So, Mike, to make the playing field a little more fair, what do you say about giving a short presentation about Hamlin at one of our meetings? You put some time in there last year (or 2 years ago?) You could help fill us in where the weedline is, what weed growth is where, etc. Whaddya say? [smilie=brows.gif] Then, everyone will be starting at square 1.5
The weed part on half of the lake wouldn't be hard at all as the NE section of the lake is ALL weeds! Be a perfect place to speed troll bucktails or topwaters.
We fished it once. Like Jason says the upper part is all weeds from victory Park all the way to the first break. There is weed growth all the way around the lake which is quite large. Nice cabbage in 11 to 15 feet of water in most areas of the lake. Even though there have been a lot muskies stocked there it is still a very tough lake. I would say to go up and fish it before the contest if you want 1.5. All we have is a contour map that we made of actual break line on our G.P.S. . That should be nothing new to anyone as we have one for every Musky Lake in Michigan. 😀 That is just part of the game my friends. W e map out every lake we fish even Osterhout.
But really,any lake would be fine. Why not Lower crooked? 😀 Hudson would be great, Murray, Upper Chain, Elk,
Jim you could get us all on that lower Thornapple lake eh? ha ha ha .
I just think putting a bunch of us on Hamlin regardless of the competition would be good for all of us. I still have not caught one there yet. Mike
Thats what I found out. We have a older navionics gold north. It has Hamlin but the maps contours and what we mapped were two totally different things. Ill stick with ours. I have like 400 way points on it. Its a huge lake. It took us half a day just to map the edges. There tons of cool little points and inside turns. Deep and shallow weeds. Casting and trolling waters. We would have fished a ton last year but I was sick most of the summer. So far its looking good for us an early season. Both boats are running good and we have a brand new 2011 Toyota FJ for towing the Starcraft. W e are ready. Mike and Michelle
I dont have the cash to buy the latest greatest new tech stuff. We have the 3500c color GPS units on both boats. The navionics chips at times are close but for us accuracy is everything. When we map a lake right over the navionics map its pretty funny how far off certain things are. Im sure the newer ones are better but Im not getting into that throw away or replace every year thing. These units work and are pretty accurate as GPS goes. Its the chips that dont measure up. I may get an updated chip if they are available but for now we like mapping lakes. When you look , you find. subtle little humps and bumps,turns and points come to life. Mike
Flintsone chewables vs. Geritol…
I would run it like a big fish pot at a tournament. Those that want to get in can play, those that don't want to play don't have to enter. I would hate to see anyone skip an outing because they think it's a tournament.
As far as the other… probably need to have further discussion on this.
Ok these are the dates we have available for the Hamlin Lake Challenge young guns against veterans. No other weekends will work for us. Michelle's days are not negotiable with her Job.
May 5th/6th , 19th /20th
June 2nd/3rd, 16th/17th, 30th
July 1st, 14th/15th, 28th/29th
August 11th/12th, 25th/26th
These are Saturday and Sunday dates we have available to fish this challenge. September and October bring hunting season and we will be in the woods both months. Michelle says she favors the May 19th/20th date. Mike and Michelle
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