Quote Originally Posted by Hoss928 View Post
I'll be watching this thread closely. My first year attempting to hit the jig bite alone. I've only done it on a charter. Ought to be interesting.
if you,ve done it on a good charter your already a step up on alot of guys. you can learn more on one charter than you can learn in years on your own. just repeat what you did on the charter but dont be afraid to try anything.

me and my crew made it up one time for the jig bite. then we didnt have a clue what we were doing. we ended up just drifting the holes between the reefs. we caught fish but just never went back up that early. that was back in the early 80,s. this year i have plans to go back up with some friends that fish the jig bite every year. so maby i,ll learn something about jig fishing the reefs.

when i moved from the western basin to the central basin i was lost. i had used downriggers and planer boards on the western basin and on lake michigan. so i could run them but i only had 2 riggers. and i really didnt know how to get down to the fish using the big boards. i had never even seen a dipsy used. so we went out on a charter. i learned how to run 3 divers on each side but thats all i really knew. so we planned a trip with my boat. we chartered the guy out again on our 1st day up then was on our own. that has been 15 to 20 yrs ago and i still have so much more to learn. i didnt even know about using inline weights untill last year. we took another charter out on our first day. he used inline boards with inline weights. i did learn alot but im not ready to give up my lite bite slide divers which i use now. but i think i could run the inline weights over the top of my lite bite slide divers if i ever need to.

i would highly recommend anyone going to a new type of fishing to take out a good charter atleast once. or find some open seats with someone who knows what there doing and go to school. and tell the caption youre going to school. he will or should spend more time teaching than just catching fish.
sherman