Author: Admin 1

My brother was passing through heading home to New Orleans. Got in yesterday and had to leave early this afternoon. We went out around 7:00 and headed just east of Kelleys to troll a north/south line that had been productive a few weeks ago. Fished until noon and came within a fish of a 2-person limit. I was surprised that in early July Bandits were the hot ticket for us today. 50 2 Oz plus 85 Back was the best with 125 back unassisted a close second. Ran dipsey’s on the corners with spoons. They picked up plenty of sheephead but only one walleye. Zero Setting back 40 and 55. Not sure why, but I was surprised we had continual action on a very sunny hot day with modest wind. What a great day with my brother.

I arrived at Huron at 4:30. I would be meeting my crew at 5AM. When I got there, and needed to use the bathroom, the bathrooms were shut. A sign said, “Closed for the Season”. Wait…WHAT? lol Ugh…I drove up to the gas station, but they were closed until 5:00….grrrrr.

I drove back to the ramp, and readied the boat. When Levi and Michael arrived, I asked them if they could take me up to the gas station before heading out. It was still very dark out, so we had plenty of time. They obliged me, and we were back to the boat in 5 minutes. I didn’t like leaving it there unattended, but there was no one there, unlike the previous mornings that I’ve been there…I think everyone was slow moving this morning after last night’s festivities. I wouldn’t know…I slept through all of it.

We launched, and were at the mouth of the river by 5:20. It was just light enough to read the waves as we rode out. There were still some residual rollers coming in from the NE, from overnight, so the ride out was slower than normal.

The air temp was 82 degrees. The wind was out of the south at 5mph. The forecast called for a partly cloudy sky, but there wasn’t a cloud to be seen. The sun was going to be shining on us all morning.

I pointed the Vexus towards Vermilion and set down over 36′ of water. The FishHawk went down to record the water temp and “speed at depth”, (which in my case is usually at 18-20 foot down). The temp read 78 degrees at 18′. The speed was set using the Ulterra and the baby Merc, in unison, to a speed of 2.5mph.

Once again, Bandits were running on the port side behind Off Shore boards.
I got a couple new colors from Slim Shady Customs, that I liked, so I put those on.
One is called, “Big John Here”, and that one caught a bunch of fish. I had it at both 77 back and 120 back. The other one is called, “Fire and Ice”…(you can view both new colors on his website.) That one worked at both 77 and 120 back, too.

The starboard side ran two new colors of Flicker Minnow 11s…more Slim Shady..
one is called, “Pink Salamander”, and the other is called, “Copper Confusion”. They both caught fish…but, I eventually took them off, because the Bandits were doing better. I put a couple more Bandits out, but that side just didn’t want to fire as much, this morning. Could have been a current issue, I don’t know.

Dipsies ran on the usual zero and three settings (one set, on each side of the stern)
zero settings went anywhere from 35 to 54 and anywhere in-between. I was moving them a lot, due to the pesky little White Perch chomping on everything. They were very annoying to say the least.

Someone’s going to message me asking these questions, so I’m going to answer them now. I run the size 1 dipsey with the ring. I run a shorter 6′ Med Ugly Stik rod on the “inside”, or furthest back in the rod holders. I run an 8’6″ Downrigger rod on the “Outside”, or second from the back rod holder.
The inside rod is on the zero setting, and the outside rod is set on the three setting. This allows them to stay separated, and avoids most tangles. Sometimes a hanging fish can cause a problem, but that doesn’t happen too often. 🙂

The bite was constant, if you factor in those stupid White Perch, but the walleye bite was slower. The size is getting smaller too, so I think it’s time find new water to fish. Our 18 walleye today were mostly 16-17 inches, with a handful of bigger ones in there. There were plenty of throwbacks, too.

Levi, and his 13 year old son Michael, did a great job! They said they had fun, and Levi stated he would like to come back to try for perch later in the season…and, that makes me happy! 🙂

Unfortunately, due to the economy (I’m guessing), I have nothing scheduled until the 21st. Normally, by now, I have half or more of July and August booked. But, people are hanging on to their money right now, with all the uncertainty, and I can’t blame them.

So, with that said….if anyone is looking to get out on the lake…I’m available! 😉

Stay tuned….

Capt Juls

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Headed north out of Huron before sunrise. Marked a lot of fish just south of the dump but they didn’t look like walleye, so we kept heading north, checking for marks as we went. Ended up stopping when we got to 45 feet of water, due north. Marks there were few and far between but we didn’t have any ideas for better spots. Only a couple other boats visible at that time. So we started there and trolled ESE, marking one every now and then. The few eyes we marked were suspended around 35 fow so we ran bandits at 120′ unassisted. Tried Flicker minnows with 2oz snap weight. Spoons with 2oz and with 4 oz. Harnesses with 2oz and 4oz. Varied speeds between about 2.0 mph speed over ground and 2.6, heading into the waves that whole time. Picked up six eyes over 4 hours. None big. Three small drum. By then we were a ways east and down to 38 fow. There were dozens of boats then where we ended up and where we started. Much better marks in that shallower water to the east. However, the wind stopped and the sun beat down and the bite complete shut down. We turned and trolled west toward the dump. Varied our offerings but nothing worked. It was miserably hot in the stagnant air and full sun. We just needed a boat ride at that point to cool down so we picked up and headed all the way over to Cedar Point dump. Still no chop. Marks were not terrible there in the east side of the dump. We caught 2 more eyes and a keeper drum. The west side of the dump was pretty barren. Turned around and headed back to the east side of it. Started to see a little chop. However, on the west-to-east pass, we didn’t mark anything and didn’t catch anything. That was all the sun we could handle so we headed back to the Huron ramp – which took a half an hour because it got pretty choppy again at that point.

I was originally going to launch at Huron, this morning, but yesterday afternoon, I noticed that today’s wind direction would be out of the west-northwest at 5-10mph with gusts up to 17, so I thought it would be a good idea to launch out of Mazurik’s instead.

I had heard of some fish east of Cedar Point…and, knowing the area I had been fishing the last 8 trips out was probably still holding fish…I thought I would make one long troll from east of CP, to where I had been fishing.

I met my crew at Mazurik’s. We launched at 5:30, and headed east.
The air temp felt like 70 degrees (I didn’t look). The sky was clear with stars shining to the west, while the Sun was making its way towards the horizon to the east. The sky was just beginning to lighten up enough, so that I could read the waves on our ride out. The surface water temp was 76 degrees.

The Garmin marked fish, pretty much the entire way from Lakeside/Marblehead, to the white condos (east of CP), where I came off plane. The Ulterra and baby Merc were deployed over 28 feet of water, and set to a speed of 2.5mph using the FishHawk for guidence.
The water temp at 18′ was, 77 degrees.

There were fish marks all over the water column, so we set the dipsies first.

The zero setting was at 28 and 35, but quickly dropped to the numbers I had been fishing with during the last trips out….43 and 54 back.

The three settings went out with my usual numbers of 65 and 71.

BadMO, Yeck, and Scorpion spoons all caught fish. Color mattered a little bit more today, though, so when one would keep getting hit, I would put another one out.
The copper Yeck#11 spoon, with the orange edges and orange belly was hot.
Scorpions: Blue/Silver, and a purple/maroon(ish) color, with one edge painted chartreuse.
BadMo: Silver belly with a green and black back

We kept it simple and only ran two Off Shore boards out each side, even though we could have had 4 out each side, along with the 4 dipsies…for a total of 12 lines out. Jason learned how to set the boards, and helped set lines, after I initially set them and showed him how I do it.

Bandit colors that caught fish were the Blue/Chrome (120 back) and Sunspot (77 back) All were unassisted…meaning, no weight was used.

The starboard side got changed out several times. I started with the baby Spros (85s), that had worked so well the last time out, but they weren’t doing well enough, so I swapped them for the Flicker Minnow 11s. “Racy Shad” caught one, but then nothing….so, I swapped them out again for Bill Lewis PWC Lite’s, with snap weights.
2oz snap weight was put on at 50′ of line out, and then another 50′ was let out, before putting the board on…that color was, “Green Tiger”.
“Purple Tiger”, ran 50/30 with a 2oz snap weight.
They both caught several fish.

Morgan, who is only 16, did a fantastic job learning how to run the dipsies, but still struggled to see when a fish was hanging on one or not. “I don’t know how you see that”, I was told. “The line angles change”, I said.
It also helps when I’m the one controlling the boat, so I know if we are in a turn, or hitting a current, when a change does happen. I told them, “If you suspect it…check it…you don’t need my permission”. It takes less than a minute to check and reset a dipsey. And, if by chance there is a fish on it, we can get it in the boat…a win-win.

We didn’t have a fast and furious morning, like I have previously, but it was steady enough to keep them busy and entertained. We only put 15 nice keepers in the cooler…however, we also threw back many legals…which would have filled our 4-person limit.

They were very happy with their catch, this morning, and said how much fun they had. Amy caught the biggest fish (27 1/2)…and, according to Jason and Morgan, she always does! Ha! Jason said he learned a lot, and wants to come back with some friends to fish with me again, and that makes me happy! 🙂

I’m off tomorrow….but, will be back out Saturday, with a crew from the Dayton area. They are driving up Saturday morning and meeting me at Huron.

Stay tuned….

Capt Juls

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Got out for a quick morning trip with my cousin on Sunday and we headed East with the pretty big pack of boats to fish north of CP.

Drifted/casted harnesses, 2 golds and 1 purple. Picked up one in the first 5 minutes of our setup and had high hopes of a quick limit! After that first one, they came slow for the rest of the morning averaging only 1 per drift BUT ended with a nice group of 6 eaters and 1 nice one around 26″. They were low early and then we found them suspending as the morning moved along (I think they were chasing big mayfly clumps)

Thanks to everyone on here as usual for the point in the right direction! Hard fishing with old electronics, a boat that isnt designed for fishing, and just my aging memory of good spots from year to year lol.

Tight lines all!!

Tom

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Here it is, the end of June already… my favorite month…deep sigh.

I was meeting my crew at the Huron ramp at 5am, so I got there at 4:30, to do the usual things before they arrived.

I walked over to the boat that was behind me, to say good morning, and he knew who I was, but I didn’t have a clue who he was. He was just a nice older gent, who was also getting things ready before his fishing partner arrived. I wandered back to my boat, and waited for the Vallery family to arrive.

They stayed at a place in Huron, and took a drive over to the launch last night, to make sure they knew where to go. They arrived at 5am, right on time, so we got the boat launched, and the trailer parked in a good spot.

It was still dark out, of course, so we took our time going out of the river. By the time we got on the lake, it would be light enough to see any objects floating in the water.

Speaking of floating objects…I’ll tell you this event from today, right here…because, there’s really no good spot in this day’s report to put this, other than behind a good lead-in. 🙂

Here goes…

Tom (the dad), was reeling in a fish…and, as he’s doing that, a floating log slides quietly down the starboard side of the boat, (scraping the boat kind of “close”), and when it appeared at the back of the boat, it freaked Tom out a little. It was a pretty big log.

But, when I saw it, and saw what was tangled in it….my heart dropped. Nooooo!!!
As the log moved away from us, the FishHawk probe was being moved away, too.

Luckily, though, the log was bark-less and smooth, so the 100# Power Pro had nothing to get stuck on, and I was able to gently pull it up over the log, and free it…whew! The thought of losing it, and having to replace it, made my heart skip a beat..Ugh!

Okay, back to the report….

We headed to the same area as yesterday… the fish were still there. All sizes, from itty-bitties to 26″… but, there are more White Perch in the mix now, too. They were annoying, actually. We were catching fish before all the lines were set, and started the morning off with some weird tangles caused by stupid little White Perch…doing weird little White Perch antics. (Those two tangles were it for the morning, and everything went smoothly the rest of the morning…well, other than that log incident, of course.)

Speed was 2.5 on the FishHawk…

Bandits ran on the port side, behind the Off Shore boards…
Blue Chrome at 120 back (outside board), and Green Lantern (a Slim Shady Custom) ran at 67 back.

Dipsies ran the usual BadMo, Yeck, and Scorpion spoons on the zero and three settings. The zero ran anywhere from 43 to 60 back…depending on how deep of water we were over, and what depth the fish were showing up at, on the Garmin.
The three settings ran at the usual 65 back on the port side, and 71back on the starboard side. (Hey, those numbers keep working, so I don’t change them).

Evan and Eric are Tom’s sons, and had never been on Lake Erie before, so this was new to them. Both of them did a great job, and Evan even helped me set lines, this morning. We were all reelers today, and kept throwing back smaller keepers, so we could stay out longer, but they finally called it at 9:00, and we headed in with our 4-person limit.

We said our goodbyes at the ramp, and I headed home. The river had a nasty slime (the brown bubbly kind) in the furthest launch from the bathrooms, and that’s the one I loaded out in. It was nasty, so I had to hit the car wash on the way home. It would take too many towels to clean it in the parking lot, and then I would have to clean the towels, too. No thanks! Car wash it was….

They said they had a great time, and would like to book another trip next season, and that makes me happy!

I’m off tomorrow and Wednesday right now…but, I’m available for a trip on Wednesday July 2nd, if anyone is interested. The wind forecast for Wednesday is showing 6-9mph out of the NW, which isn’t bad at all, and no precipitation until late afternoon.

My next trip will be Thursday July 3rd. I never book anything for the 4th, because I don’t like being on the lake during the 4th of July, so I’ll be back out on the 5th for another trip after that.

Stay tuned….

Capt Juls

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I would like to give steelhead fishing a try. I know spoons catch them, but what depth would you try? Is it even worth trying this time of year? If so what part of the lake should I try?