Fished the Manistee Salmon Splash over the weekend. Chartered the tournament with some family friends, we had a fantastic time all weekend. However pre fishing went well with me and “Moose” we felt confident that we had as good of chance as anyone. The guys showed up on the boat tournament morning and decided it was time for a cocktail while we were pulling out of the slip (A screwdriver they went on to tell me it had orange juice so it was fine) 

Setting lines we had instant action two misses on the set. Finally got everything set and I hit the wheel as Moose set the last copper. And wham strike number three… The 450 copper starts peeling line like i haven’t heard in a while paired up with a Big Weenie meat rig pictured below.. The fight was on from there until someone decided the drag wasn’t tight enough and broke it off with in seconds of the drag tighten. I wont name any names cough cough “Moose”. We shrug it off and went on to have great action all day, we had better action than any boat we spoke too after day one. We lost over 20 fish and at least 10 of those bites were mature Kings. But that’s how fishing goes especially tournament fishing. We only managed to put 3 King Salmon in the boat through day 1 and decided not to weigh them in as it is a 3 biggest fish tournament over 2 days we went all in on day 2.

Day 2 brought wind thunder storms and waves, lots of them. After having two different weather delays I was shocked they sent us to fish. I was in process of getting ready to get the boat on the trailer to head home when I got the call. I called the crew and away we went. It was sporty out on the lake. We fished for 2 hours with out a bite most boats did not even land a fish on day 2. Disappointing weekend on the tournament aspect but we had a blast pre fishing and making fun of the crew on day 2.