Fishigan Fishing Team	Searching for the Largest Fish that the Great Lakes has to offer!!!
2002  Great Lakes Tournaments

BWSACT Ludington - 

Conditions for the first day were excellent. We had all lines set at 5:45 and our first King in the boat by 6. Then at 6:05, all hell broke loose as we were attacked by Kings. First a Low diver went, then the High diver On the same side went, next a rigger popped, and the low diver on the other side went. 4 Fish on at once. We stayed calm and landed two of the fish. Then the last Diver rod (a high diver screamed taking the line counter from 240 to over 600 ft), so we still had 3 fish on behind the boat. We concentrated on the two that were right behind the boat and got them in. Then Dave started working on the one that took over 300ft of line on its initial hit. After about 10 minutes we slid the net under that one and had boat our first quad + 1 of the year. Action slowed for us after that and we only boated 2 or 3 more fish the rest of the day. At the weigh-in, we found ourselves in 3rd place with a little over 70 pounds.

A new rule in the club tournaments then bit us in the @$$. On the second day of the 2 day tournaments you get a partner. We got paired with Coyote. After the weigh-in on Saturday, we exchanged note and tips with them. That evening, they decided to take a trip out to try their luck with some of the tips we gave them. In the process they ended up loosing a cylinder or two and our partner was going to be sidelined for Sunday. The rules are the rules though.

Sunday morning we knew we had a lot of ground to make up as we were about 20 pounds behind the leader and were going to not get any weight from our partner. Another bad thing that happened was thunder storms delayed the start to 8:30 so we only have 6 hours to catch-up. Mike set the first diver over the side and a nice 19 lb king nailed it as he was letting it out. So right away we had caught up, but it was not enough. We weighed-in around 35 lbs and remained stuck in 3rd place. Our total was 114 pounds.

Crew - Capt. Dave Rymar, Mike Rymar, Lloyd Rymar, and Gerry Rymar

BWSACT Harbor Beach - 

Conditions were great, and so was the fishing. 

Here is an image of our winning catch:

 

We boated 25, kept 17 and only lost 4. There were 4 Kings, 3 Coho, 8 Steelhead, and 10 Lakers.

Best numbers were in the 04's north and 45-47's west. 75% of the fish came on a Full Core with a Green Chewed up Dolphin on the end. Great Fun

Crew - Capt. Mike Rymar, Larry Rymar, Dale Domas, and Dave Goldenbogen

BWSACT Port Austin - 

Conditions were great, but the fishing was not. We were happy with a 3rd place finish. We went 6 for 8, 5 small lakers and 1 small king. Only 3 boats, us being on of those three, boated at least 5 fish.

We primarily fished straight out of Port Austin in 80-150 FOW. The two boats that placed ahead of us ran the 20 or so miles to Port Hope.

Crew - Capt. Dave Rymar, Mike Rymar, Phil Clark, and Adam King

Blue Water Classic - 

Day One (Saturday): Seas were on the rough side 4-5 footers. We slowly motored N of Port Sanilac 2-5 miles and set lines in 55 FOW. At 7 o'clock we were 0 for 4. Then our luck changed in the next hour and a half we picked up 4 silvers and a laker. After 8:30 we did not boat another silver. We caught 5 more lakers releasing most of them keeping a larger one. We had 6 fish, 5 which were weighable for a total weight of 32 lb. This put us in about 25th place. The top boat had 84 lb. Majority of the top weights came from straight out of the harbor to a little south in 80 FOW. Going 0 for 4 to start off was tough on us seeing we estimate those fish to be about 25-30 pounds that we left in the water.

Day Two (Sunday): Plan was to repeat what we did on day one. Fish a little N in 55 FOW. Set lines at 6:15 and by 7:00 we were 4 for 7, 3 silvers and a laker (Not one boat within 3/4 of a mile of us). That was it for our morning bit. We took one silver out in deeper water at 10:00. Nothing else out deep so we headed back to our water in skinny and boated a 7 lb laker. Again 6 fish, 5 weighables, but more weight 42 lb. Giving us a total of 75 lb good for 16th place. However, we left at least another 10 lbs in the water. Just landing 1 of those fish would have pushed us into the top ten. The crowd really followed the top boats out Sunday and scattered the pack of fish that was out there Saturday; this caused many of the top boats to have bad days. The winning boat, "Rawhide" I believe, had 13 lb on day one; they decided to run 37 miles N to the northern boundary and fish for day two. It paid off with a catch of 103 lbs for a total of 116 lbs.

Crew - Capt. Dave Rymar, Mike Rymar, Dave Lenich, and Adam Heinrich.

Northland Classic - 

Well, we took 4th. We were 11 for 13, but 6 were Lakers and could not be weighed in. We had 5 weighables, 4 Coho's in the 3-4 lb range, and the largest King weighing 19 lb. Our weight was 34 lb while the winner had 75 lb. 12 boats were invited so the winner walked away with $1200 and 12 cases of beer.

Crew - Capt. Dave Rymar, Mike Rymar, Dave Goldenbogen, Phil Clark, Matt Gordon, and Craig Waelens.

Algonac Lions & BWSFA Club Tournament - 

Due to the Fishigan Engine being pulled over the prior week to these 2 tournaments, the Fishigan did not make it out. But Dave Rymar fish the Algonac Lions on another boat, and Mike Rymar fished the BWSFA tournament on another boat. Dave's boat got skunked along with 42 other boats entered, only 5 boats I believe caught fish. Mike fished aboard Kid's Fishing with Capt. Dan Owens and they took 3rd place landing one fish in front of the Algonac State park. Due to 6-8 foot waves on lake Huron, many of the boats entered in the BWSA tour had to fish the river, and with Mike and Dan being Muskrats (Algonac high school graduates) gave them an advantage. Hopefully fishing will improve now that we are going to start concentrating on the big lake. The Fishigan will be out for at least one ore weekend, so some of us will be looking to mate on other boats for the River Crab and Fish-On. We should be up and running by the Northland tournament.

Muskrat Classic - 

What a disappointment for both the tournament and the Fishigan crew. We ended up launching in Algonac at 6:00 am. We began to motor to our spot, when we lost oil pressure after about 1 minute of being on plane. So we called it quits right then, with not even one line set. 
For the tournament, conditions were not to be desired. It had rained Tuesday and Friday before the tournament, making the river extreamly dirty for fishing Saturday. Only about 8 boats fished, with only 1 walleye being caught. The tournament chairman decided to award the boat that caught the walleye the winners of it all, which our crew thought was a good call. Hopefully this tournament will be held next year, because our crew plans on fishing this next year. 

Crew - Capt. Dave Rymar, Mike Rymar, Dave Goldenbogen, Phil Clark, Matt Gordon, and Craig Waelens.