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Dexter slept in, so Alfie and I went out on the back deck to check the weather. I was disappointed to see thick fog hanging in the air, and questioned whether I still wanted to drive over to Huron to launch, imagining car wrecks, hit deer, or some other unnatural disaster awaiting us this morning. lol

Alfie took my attention away from all that, with his growling, and hopping around playfully, at the dead leaves on the ground. I sipped my coffee, and checked the wind forecast for the rest of the day. It was going to be really nice with a SE wind at less than 6mph most of the day. Yay!

By 4am, the fog was lifted, and I could see the stars shining up above. The air was crisp, and chilly. The air temp was 39 degrees. My friend, Jen, came and picked up my dogs for the day, so I could fish without worrying about the little one. Thanks, Jen!

I picked my Vexus up from her heated storage, and stopped off to gas her up and get ice for the cooler, before heading to the Holiday Inn Express to pick up my crew.

Karl has fished with me for around 6 or 7 years now, and likes to bring different friends or family members with him each time he comes. This time, he brought his friends, John and Bill along.

We headed to Huron to launch and showed up there at around 7am. The sky was still dark, but the ramp was full of lights. Truck and boat lights. I’m used to being the only one there when I show up early, but I felt like I was really late, this time.

It didn’t take very long to get launched, since most of the folks that fish this time of year are pretty seasoned anglers and know how to work with each other at the boat launch.

We were headed out of the river by 7:19. The destination was straight north of the river, until we hit 45 feet of water. So, that’s what we did. There were still residual NE rollers coming in from yesterday’s NE wind, so we couldn’t go very fast. John is older, and I didn’t want to beat him up on the ride out, so we took our time, and got there within a half hour.

The Helix had marked fish on the ride out, but nothing that I would shut down early for…I was determined to get to 45 feet first. When I did get to 45 feet, and came off plane, I wasn’t too impressed, and was hardly marking anything.

I figured it was as good a place as any to start, so the Ulterra was deployed, along with the baby Merc, and set on a westerly course at a speed of 1.6-1.9mph.

Bandits were my choice of bait this morning, because they’ve been my go-to bait for several years now. Knowing that white colors produce best in the fall, I opted to start with a few in the mix.

The stock color called, “Daydream”, was set behind the Off Shore board on the starboard side, on the outside, at 120 back, unassisted.
Next to the outside board, was a “Slim Shady Custom” called, “Glacier Shad”… at 97 back, unassisted.
The second board pulled a “DJ Custom” called, “RC Crush”, at 75 back, and the inside Bandit was another “Daydream” at 45 back initially, but later set to 75 back when the spread was changed to 120, 107, 97, and 75 back unassisted.

On the port side, Karl set up using 2 oz Guppie weights at the 35 mark, instead of the usual 50 back, and set up his spread at 35/35, 35/50, 35/60, and 35/80. His colors were the following…
Fruit Salad
Green Lantern (w/red chin) Another Slim Shady Custom
One color I can’t remember the name of…but, it had a lot of white in it…lol
And, another Daydream.

Everything listed above caught fish, with the Daydream running at 120 unassisted catching the most.

We caught our 4-person limit of walleye by 10:30am, and headed back in, before the rush at the ramp happened, again. Loading out was easy enough, since it wasn’t as busy as it was early this morning. There wasn’t a spot left in the parking lot, and all the grassy areas that could hold a trailer were loaded up with parked vehicles and trailers, too. I’ve never seen it so busy there before. But, it was a beautiful morning, and the fish are biting, so I guess it’s to be expected. 🙂

Everyone had a good time, and John and Bill were very impressed with our fishery. They are from Chicago, and I don’t recall if they said they have ever fished here before. If they haven’t, I know they will be again…the walleye did not disappoint, and kept them very busy.

We had many doubles and a couple triples this morning, which is always a good time.

Karl will be back again next season, and that makes me happy! 🙂

Tomorrow, I have a crew of three. A father and his two sons will be going to try for walleye again. The morning should be very similar to this morning, so I hope the bite will be just as good, if not better.

Stay tuned….

Capt Juls

Since my crew wasn’t supposed to be here until 6:45 I decided to go gas up the Vexus at the gas station down the road from me, and get ice in the cooler, before they showed up. It would save us a stop on the way to Dempsey’s, where we planned on launching this morning. Huron was a zoo yesterday morning, and Dempsey’s was empty this morning. What a difference! No pressure and much more relaxed.

Bruce, and his sons David and Dan showed up 15 minutes early, so we hit the road and got to Dempsey’s a little before 7AM. There was hanging fog above the road, but it didn’t interfere with driving at all, and I was keeping my fingers crossed that it wouldn’t be on the lake, either. I was happy to see, that when we got to the ramp there wasn’t any fog on the lake.

The sky was clear this morning, so the horizon was starting to lighten up pretty fast. Sunrise wouldn’t be for another hour, but it was light enough to head out. The navigation lights were turned on, and the motor was warmed up first, then, off we went. The air temp was a touch warmer than yesterday’s chilly 39 degrees, but I didn’t look at the actual temperature this morning.

I headed back to where I was yesterday, which was about 11 miles out of Huron. It was also 11 miles from the channel marker at Cedar Point, just from a different angle, so the ride was about the same. Again, there were ENE rollers coming in, so we didn’t go very fast getting out there.

The program was the same as yesterday’s program (copy pasted here, so I don’t have to type it all again…with a little more added…I’m tired…lol)

Bandits were my choice of bait this morning, because they’ve been my go-to bait for several years now. Knowing that white colors produce best in the fall, I opted to start with a few in the mix.
The stock color called, “Daydream”, was set behind the Off Shore board on the starboard side, on the outside, at 120 back, unassisted.
Next to the outside board, was a “Slim Shady Custom” called, “Glacier Shad”… at 97 back, unassisted.
The second board pulled a “DJ Custom” called, “RC Crush”, at 75 back, and the inside Bandit was another “Daydream” at 45 back initially, but later set to 75 back when the spread was changed to 120, 107, 97, and 75 back unassisted. Today though, as the morning progressed, we set the unassisted side to 120, 110, 97, and 85 back.

On the port side, we set up using 2 oz Guppie weights at the 35 mark, instead of the usual 50 back, and set up his spread at 35/35, 35/50, 35/60, and 35/80. Colors were the following…
Daydream
Green Lantern (w/red chin) Another Slim Shady Custom
Daydream
And…. another Daydream. 🙂
Everything listed above caught fish, with the Daydream running at 120 unassisted, and 35/65 w/2oz, catching the most.

Speed varied…as slow as 1.4 to as fast as 2.1mph. Water temp today was 51.9 degrees over 45 feet of water.

My crew are avid fishermen, but life got in the way, and they hadn’t been walleye fishing together, in at least 10 years, I was told. They did a great job picking back up on the lingo, and were working like a well oiled machine by the time we had our 24 fish in the cooler. They had never used inline planer boards before, so that was new to them, but they did a great job, and were setting them out like the pros. 🙂

They want to come back in the spring, next season, so that makes me happy!

I’m off tomorrow, but will be back out walleye fishing with Frank Smith and his friend on Tuesday.

Stay tuned….

Capt Juls

After watching the forecast on TV last night, I wasn’t sure if we would be going today, because they were calling for some dense fog to be hanging around until noon. I wasn’t going to go if it were thick fog, because of the brawl going on, and knowing how unsafe some people can be in bad conditions. But, it didn’t happen.
When I got up this morning, there wasn’t any fog…just a misty rain, so I sent a text to Frank, letting him know that we were still on, and that I would meet them at the Huron ramp at 7:30.
Sunrise, isn’t until a little after 8am right now, and since it was cloudy, it was going to be darker than usual at 7:30.

We took our time heading out the river, and by the time we got to our area over in front of Cranberry, in 33 feet of water, it was light enough to set the Off Shore boards out on their merry way, pulling Bandits behind them.

The Ulterra steered us in a northeasterly direction, so that we would gradually get to deeper water, the further we went. The speed was set at 1.7mph.

Bandits on the starboard side were set at 120, 115, 100, and 95 back, and the Bandits on the port side ran with 2oz Guppie weights at 35/65, 35/50, 35/40, and 35/35.

Colors were:
Daydream (4)
RC Crush (2)
Glacial Shad
Green Lantern

It was a slow pick, but enough to keep us in the area.

After making our way all the way to Vermilion, and trolling over 40 feet of water, I turned the nose of the Vexus to the east, and headed towards Vermilion’s breakwall. We caught three nice walleye going that direction when we got over 37 feet of water, but the marks disappeared as quick as they showed up, and we never got another bite. I tried going back over them, but they didn’t cooperate.

It was at that time, when I had made the turn to go back over them, that I heard a Loon call. I looked out, and saw a orange Ninja board being pulled around, like the barrel in the back of “Jaws”.
It would go under, and then pop up when the Loon popped up, and go under again when the Loon would dive.
It was a young female. We were going one way, and it was going the other, so I said, “We should try to help it”, but then I realized, I had 8 boards out, and two old men in the boat. I didn’t know how fast we could bring them in, to go chase her. We would certainly lose sight of her, before we could get back to her.

First, we decided we couldn’t do it, but then a minute later I said, “Let’s pick them up fast, we need to go try to help that Loon”. Frank agreed. Luckily, it stayed in line between us and another boat, so I could keep track of her. And, she didn’t move very far.

Once we had everything in the boat, I turned the boat around and headed towards her. I had Frank get up on the bow seat with the net, so he could try to net the board. He missed the first attempt, and I threw the throttle in reverse, so I could maneuver the bow towards the floating board. The engine must have startled the bird, because she popped up, and sat there. Frank was able to net the board and bring it to the boat.

Once I had my hands on the gobs of braided line, I was able to handline the Loon to the side of the boat, where we scooped her up in the net, too. It’s a rubber net, so she didn’t get tangled in it. Her beak was poking through the basket of the net, so with my gloved hand, I held her beak, and instructed Frank to grab the knife, so he could cut the line that was wrapped around her wing, and body.

Thankfully, it wasn’t too bad, and she was cut free in no time at all. She thanked me by poking at my pant leg, which, you should know, kind of hurts. lol

She sat there for a while, and then I picked her up and did the “Back to the Wild’s”….”1-2-3 Be Free” slogan, and she flew off the side of the boat…beating her wings, landing, and then diving. So, with that, I knew she was going to be okay.

Frank and Ray were very happy that we were able to rescue her, and I’m sure she is very happy we were able to, too. 🙂

The radio chatter said that they were doing well out in 45 feet of water off Vermilion, so we picked up and headed north a few miles, to reach that depth. We set up again with the usual program.

Once again, the radio chatter mentioned that the “Sun Spot” bandit at 100 back was doing well, so I dug one out of the box, and put it out. It wasn’t out there an entire minute, before that Off Shore board when flying back. Frank got a kick out of that, and said to Ray, “How about that, Ray? I think we’ll need to listen to the radio more… they give you tips”. He then asked what channel I listen to, so I told him, “79”.

Then, I put a couple more “Sun Spots” out, but we were interrupted in our trolling pass, by a freighter that was bearing down on us, so I said, “We need to pick up and move out of the way…those freighters move faster than they appear, and I don’t know where he plans on going.” So we did.

We moved back to 43 feet of water, where I had seen several boats prior to moving out to 45 feet. We set up one last time, and needed only one fish to finish out their two-man limits. We caught one nice one, and Frank mentioned he was tired, and since we only had 1/2 hour left, we decided to go in.

It was a beautiful morning on the lake, even though it was cloudy and kind of foggy. The wind was light out of the WSW, so the conditions on the lake were fantastic. They had fun, learned some stuff they had forgotten since the last time out, and are now ready to hit the water the rest of the week, in Frank’s boat.

I’m not scheduled again until the 11th, so I’ll be off, and continuing the training of my new 10 week old pup, Alfie, and keeping Dexter happy.

It’s supposed to be beautiful the rest of the week, so I’m pretty sure, since I’m not scheduled, you can thank me for that. hehehe

Stay tuned….

Capt Juls

PS…If anyone is missing a Ninja Board with braided line and a chrome spotted Bandit…let me know. You can have it back. Thanks!