Admin 1, Author at Down Range Fishing Charters

Lorain 7/25

Admin 1 — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 22:45:46 +0000

Before sunrise, we headed to a mile-wide “reef” 7 miles NW of the harbor. It is about 39 feet of water there while the surrounding depth is 47-ish. Last year I caught a limit from there all the way to the weather buoy, so thought we would try it again. The waves were 3 to 4 feet for most of the morning, actually crashing over the bow sometimes. Glad the bilge pump worked. With those waves I really didn’t want to go to the weather buoy. Fortunately we had great marks right there at that 7 mile plateau.
Only 6 lines on my boat. Two were bandits unassisted, two were spoons with divers, and two were crawler harnesses with snap weights.
My new LiFePO4 batteries were showing 100% capacity but they were putting out no voltage. So no Minn Kota today. That made it challenging in the strong chop. Speed was all over the place and we had a lot of inadvertent S turns. Tried to average about 2.5 mph s.o.g.
We got an 18 incher before sunrise so we were off to a good start, but then nothing. Kept going over those great marks using different colors and different depths and different directions, but the fish just weren’t interested. By the third or fourth pass, they finally got hungry. We had also switched over to Flicker Shads, Flicker Minnows, and smaller reef runners by then so maybe that was the ticket. We landed 4 on that pass and lost another at the net. Also had two small drum when we got too far east of the plateau. The walleyes were particularly beautiful today. Golden, radiant.
But then the bite shut down again and we were out of time.
Back at Hot Waters, one guy said he too got 5 walleyes in 40′ of water, and also with small cranks. Another guy said he was in 40′ and wasn’t doing any good so he moved to 50+ feet and got his 18 in an hour – with spoons and worms.

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Fishing with Lee and Cameron…7/25/2026

Admin 1 — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 19:49:47 +0000

Took a cup of coffee, a couple of dog treats, and the dogs out to the back deck to check the forecast. It was a duplicate of the day before, so it…

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Fishing Day 2 with Joe, Ron, and Dale…7/24/2026

Admin 1 — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 19:49:47 +0000

I was up early this morning, so I had a little extra time to spend out on the back deck with the pups. The coffee was tasting better than usual for…

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Fishing Day 1 with Joe, Ron, and Dale…7/23/2026

Admin 1 — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 18:44:24 +0000

Short report?
Fun morning out of vermilion today with Joe, Ron, and Dale. Trolled from Vermilion to Lorain at 2.3-2.5mph.
Dipsies on the zero setting did best at 60 & 70 back, and the three settings at 97 back.

PEC Lites with 2oz behind the Off Shore boards at 50/75 (125 back), 50/47, and 50/24.
Purple Tiger, Green Tiger, and a custom color I don?t know the name of?

Bandits ran on the other side with 2oz?same distances.
?IB Infected? (DJ Custom) was best
?Whiskey and Water? (Slim Shady Custom)
And another custom I don?t know the name of but was used a lot in the earlier reports back when I was running Bandits.

Then the bandit side ended up in a huge tangle somehow and took that entire side out of commission. Had to cut lines and will need to re-spool?Uffda! lol

They caught their 3-man limit and I caught 3 of mine before we headed back in. We went through a ton of sheep and white bass, too, so they stayed busy.

I have them again tomorrow, but we decided to try for perch instead of going for walleye again.

Stay tuned?

Capt Juls

Attached Images

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Perch

Admin 1 — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 14:45:14 +0000

Fished Friday near G can. Two of us caught plenty of perch for a 2 man limit in 3 1/2 hrs. The problem was many of the fish were undersized (6? or so). We probably returned 20-25 back to the water. No sheep and 5-6 white perch. Beautiful day on the lake.

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Perch

Admin 1 — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 02:51:03 +0000

Caught perch yesterday and today at B can. Some nice perch with some throwbacks mixed in. ALOT of boats at B can this morning, many did well.

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Looking for tips

Admin 1 — Sat, 25 Jul 2026 01:46:09 +0000

I?m 16 years old and love to walleye fish. I fish off a boat based out of Sandusky bay but often go out infront of cedar point to troll. Any tips or advice about lures, speed, and anything else helps out a lot as I am not the best.

Thanks!

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Perch limit at Huron

Admin 1 — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 21:47:04 +0000

If I come back to Huron State ramp what is my perch limit? The line dividing central from Western basin is close. 30 vs 10 limit.

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Fishing with Stephanie and Jeff…7/17/2026

Admin 1 — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 20:47:50 +0000

As Canada and the western US burn, the smoke is a reminder of courage, love, and perseverance. So many are losing their properties and everything…

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7/16 report

Admin 1 — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 03:43:46 +0000

We actually perched the last 90 minutes of light on Wednesday at Waterdog’s honey hole. We were using shiners on spreaders with no bling. My son landed 2 yellow perch that just barely hit our 8″ requirement. Returned one that was too short. My wife lost 3 at the boat. I didn’t even get a nibble.
Thursday, we started south of Green before sunrise. We went out in the dark but after sun up we only had a quarter mile of visibility. It looked like fog but it was actually the annual annual forest fire smoke from our friends up north. It burned my throat a little. The smoke would persist all day. You might want to check the smoke forecast before going, especially if you have asthma.
Anyway, my wife and son each landed a couple keeper yellow perch there south of Green while I got nothing again. Only two other boats came to join us before I got too bored with it. It’s just too early for perch in my opinion.
So we set up for trolling. This time of year, I would normally go to Lorain and troll deeper water out to the weather buoy and back. That’s where the big fish go when the water warms up, right? I would normally use big cranks and big spoons in hopes of catching big walleyes.
But we were at Green, so I decided to try out what I’ve read in a few posts lately. We trolled a wide circle around Green using little lures. Little spoons, Flicker Shads, and mini Reef Runners. As expected, the trolling was a lot more exciting than the perching. We were constantly pulling up drum and white perch. We also got two little walleyes there – 17″ and 18″.
Despite all the action, it just wasn’t very satisfying to throw back almost all the fish we caught. So we soon pulled up our lines and motored over to Round Reef. My wife and son began perching again, but I put on a crawler harness with a bottom bouncer. I pulled up another drum there, and a pretty big gobie. Maybe 7 inches or so. Big enough to consider for a second how much meat I could get out of it. We got one yellow perch there too.
We didn’t last too long before the black flies began to eat us alive. I was happy that all the other bugs seemed to be done for the year, but those black flies were vicious. If you go, be prepared to douse yourself in DEET every hour or so. Even with DEET, we had to drive fast several times to get some relief.
We drove back to Waterdog’s honey hole. This morning there were two headboats and two others right there. Could have been more, but we could still only see about a quarter of a mile due to that smoke. I used the same crawler harness while my wife perched. My son tried a Searchbait (to absolutely no avail). None of us had any activity at all there today. We weren’t even marking anything.
We didn’t stay long. It was hot by then. The breeze was dying down. The flies were awful. So we trolled one last time – in the direction of Catawba. Saw some promising marks here and there but only caught a white perch and a drum. Finally decided to call it a day. When we pulled in the lines, every one had a white perch on it.

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