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I didn’t write a report for Day one of Steve, Dave, and Doug’s trip, because we had a late start, and by the time I got home, I only had time to feed the dogs, go to the bank, and make a quick dinner. For those that know me, you know what time I go to bed…for those that don’t know me, I am going to bed when most normal people are sitting down to dinner. I like to get up at 2am, so by the time I have to meet my customers, I am in a good mood, and I’ve already gotten lots of things done before I leave the house. It’s not for everyone, but it works for me. 😉

Anyway…day one, we caught their 3-person limit and a couple of mine. We fished the SE side of Kelly’s with spoons behind dipsies and Bandits behind the Off Shore boards. The spoons outfished the cranks, but the crank fish were still larger on average.

Day 2:

I got up at 1:30, feeling like I slept very well, and was feeling good. While sitting on the back deck with the dogs and my hot cup of coffee, I remembered telling them I would make them some of my brownies today, so after checking all my weather forecast apps, we went back inside.

I whipped up the brownies, and while they baked in the oven, I jumped in the shower and got ready. When I went outside to put stuff in the boat, I saw it….my electrical cord was on the ground. #%@*/! Ugh….I forgot to plug the charger in when we got back late. I said a few words, knowing I was the only one to blame.

Luckily, I have “Miller Tech” lithium batteries in the boat for the Ulterra. They have an app that lets me check the percentage of usage, and it showed there was still 65% left on all three batteries. Whew! If they were still AGMs, I would have been in a panic, knowing the batteries wouldn’t last for a second trip without a charge.

The forecast was calling for wind out of the SW at 10-18mph.
The air temp was 64 degrees at 4:30, and I could see some stars in the sky, so I figured it was clear to partly cloudy. The high today would only reach the mid 70s.

My guys are staying at Camp Perry, which is 2 miles west of my house, so they met me at my house and jumped in my truck for the ride to the launch.
This morning, I thought it would be a good idea to launch out of Huron, because of the wind direction and the location of the area I wanted to fish. It would be closer and not as rough as launching out of Mazurik’s and fishing the east side of Kelly’s.
These friends are in their mid to late 70’s, so I didn’t want them to take a rough boat ride if I could help it.

After stopping at the Speedway on 250 and Rt2 to get ice, we hit the Huron launch a little after 5am.
**Note: If you’re driving in from the west, you need to get off on Rt6 West and go through town, because 6 East is closed.

I got the boat ready and took the Bandits off the port side and attached Flicker Minnow11s instead. I wanted to try a smaller profile to see if the fish preferred those to a Bandit right now.

We didn’t go far out of the river and headed west until I hit 25′ of water. The fish marks were good, so I shut the big Merc off and deployed the Ulterra. The baby Merc and Fish Hawk were also deployed. The FishHawk usually gets set at 18′ down, because that’s far enough to get a good reading of opposite currents.

The target speed was 2.5mph, and the course was set in the direction of the dump.

The wind was still light when we started and was less than 5mph. By the time we would end, it would be blowing at 15mph(ish), and the lake would go from calm to 1-3s a mile out, 2-3s two miles out, and 2-4s on the north side of the dump.

Dipsies ran off the two back corners, as usual. Two on each side. The zero setting started out at 25 and 30 back, and the three settings were initially set to 50 and 60 back. They would be let out as we got over deeper water to what has been working the past two weeks.
The zero settings at 35 and 54, and the three settings at 64 and 72 back.
The Yeck spoons, DJ Custom Eye Lures, paints the bellies blue for me were consistently catching fish. I don’t know the name of the other Yeck color, but it has a pink belly and orange/chart/and pink on the back. It did well, too.

The Off Shore boards on the starboard side pulled Bandits at 100, 90, 80, and 63 back. (I run the long leads on the outside and shorter leads on the inside…it works for me).
Colors were:
“Sunspot” (stock color) 100 back
“Blue Shiner” (stock color) 90 back
“Halographic Natural Shiner” (Slim Shady Custom) 80 back
“Fruit Dots” (stock color) 63 back

The port side ran Flicker Minnow 11s (unassisted) at 115, 90, 80, and 63 back.
Colors were all stock colors:
“Firetail Chrome Candy” (115)
“Firetail Hot Perch” (90)
“Flashy Chartreuse” (80)
“Racy Shad” (63)

All but the Fruit Dots caught one or more fish this morning. Slim Shady’s “Halographic Nat. Shiner” caught the most of all the cranks, though. I need to order another 3 or 4 of those. I only have one in my box, and I really like that one. 🙂

Thankfully, my crew had a day of training before we had the kind of bite we had. And, they knew more about what to do. Dave was helping set dipsies, but they left the board setting to me. They helped net each other’s fish while I was busy resetting lines.

The first pass was from inside to the north side of the dump. We picked everything up and made a run back to the start, so we could make another pass. The first pass had produced 12 keepers and several throwbacks. The second pass gave us the other 12, along with more Sheephead Dave wanted to keep for his traps back home. He called them “Bobcat Bait”.

They caught their 3-person limit, and I reeled in mine, too. We had our 24 by 8:45 this morning, which made my guys very happy. Steve said, “This is the kind of experience we always read about, when people talk about Lake Erie…thanks, Juls”. I smiled, and nodded, and that made me happy! 🙂

They have two more days scheduled with me, and it looks like tomorrow will be the last day, because Thursday’s forecast looks nasty!

We’ll be headed back to Huron in the morning…

Stay tuned….

Capt Juls

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had a great day by west sister yesterday. One of my walleyes had a lamprey eel on it. Never saw that before – anyone else seen this?

Also for the readers from Toledo and West who don’t want to pull all the way over to Mazuriks to fish “the western basin” we went out of the Turtle creek area – Magee East ramp $5. Just west and north of West Sister is the duck bill and anvil formations. First eye on before 2nd rod set. Using fluorescent orange Flatfish and 2 oz Bass Pro shop 2 ounce snaps 50/2 and 20. also running blue fox vibra spin inline spiiners off a tru-trip 30 with a 2″ pinch of night crawler – 90 to 115 let back. These 2 accounted for most fish – bandits nothing, spoons brought in sheeps

Same as last few days. Boats limiting out and back at dock by 10am. Same place – between South Bass / Middle Bass and Kelleys Islands, from the center point up to the Canadian line. Drifting or trolling. Fish are often up high due to Mayfly hatch.

I beat the alarm clock again and got up at 1:45, due to my Golden Retriever pacing the floor, because he wanted me to get up. My alarm is set for 2am. I said to the maniac, “I guess it’s time to get up, eh? Okay, you win…only because it’s only 15 minutes”.

The back deck was calm, dry, and warm. The forecast was calling for sunshine and winds out of the SW at 5-13mph, so I knew it was going to be a good day. I left the house at 4:40 and went to the Whitecaps Motel to pick up my guys, who had a 5am pickup. I wanted a few minutes to wipe down the trailer. I did the boat yesterday, but forgot to do the trailer, so it was bugging me.

I sent a text to Ken to let them know I was there, that I was early, and there was no hurry. They walked out at 4:50 and jumped in the truck. We only had to pick up ice for the fish-cooler and a couple of snacks, so we made a quick stop at the Speedway in town. Apparently, the lights were not turned off last night, so the entire place was covered in a thick layer of Mayflies. While they can be bothersome, it’s always great to see them, because it’s a clear sign of a healthy lake.

We got in the water at Mazurik’s at 5:30, and after the big motor was warmed up to 140 degrees, we set off. The Vexus was pointed to the east, instead of north this time, and we just drove until we got out of the river channel (more wind in the channel). I was marking good fish marks on the Garmin, so we stopped. We set up over 28′ of water, and kept the boat pointing east for our trolling pass.

The Ulterra gets deployed first and set to a power level of 5, with the iPilot taking control. The baby Merc goes next, and is powered up enough to get the FishHawk to read 2.3-2.5mph on its graph. For those reading these reports for the first time, the FishHawk is a probe that runs down below in the undercurrent. It tells me the speed and temp down there. The surface current and the undercurrent are very seldom the same, so it’s good to know how fast your baits are actually swimming down below.

Ken and Jeff were not old gents like I thought they were in my last report, so it was a pleasant surprise to see these two walk up to the truck. I knew they would have no issues standing up in the boat. They told me they wanted to learn, so I showed them how dipsies work, and how the boards work, and then showed them how to set all of them out.

It took a few tries, but they picked it up pretty quick and were setting lines and netting fish in no time.

Dipsies were set out first. You know the settings….a zero and a three on each side of the boat.
The zero settings started out at 28 and 35 when we were over 28′ of water.
The three settings started out at 50 and 72.
Yeck and BadMo Arrow spoons were used.

The dipsies definitely outfished the cranks, but the crank fish were consistently bigger.

As we got out to 43′ of water, the dipsies were adjusted to:
Zero settings were 54 and 47, and the three settings were 64 and 72.

The Off Shore boards pulled Bandits behind them…two on each side.
The port side ran one at 67 and 57 back, early, and then at 97 and 67 as the sun got higher.
The starboard side ran them at 100 and 80.

Colors that caught were:
“Halographic Natural Shad” (Slim Shady Custom)
“Whiskey and Water” (Slim Shady Custom)
“Psycho Killer” (Slim Shady)
“SunSpot” (stock color)

Water temp on the surface was 69.6, and the temp down below was 71.

Ken and Jeff did a great job after getting the hang of it and were running the back of the boat by themselves. I just reeled in my fish, and let them set lines. I believe they will now be able to do the same in their own boats.

They said they had a great time and learned a lot, so that makes me happy! Mission accomplished…:)

I’m off tomorrow, and then I have a 4-day trip starting on Monday. Monday and Tuesday look good, but Wednesday and Thursday are iffy, right now. Hopefully, it changes for the better. My guys are coming all the way from Wyoming, so I want them to get all 4 days in while they are here. Fingers crossed!

Stay tuned….

Capt Juls

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out by g can, plenty of sheep, and some white perch.
Moved to H can and more sheep and one small eye.
returned unharmed and educated.
plenty of mayfly’s floating at both areas.
Well,
not sure when I will be back seems the yellow gold are not here yet, yell out if you get on them!

Water Dog,
Safety first , life jackets!

back soon!

The fishing has been on fire all week! Limit catches for an entire boat in a few hours, drifting or trolling. Between South Bass Island and Kelleys Island, directly between the Islands to north up by the Canadian Border. Mayfly hatch is on, so we’ll see if the great fishing continues through the weekend.

I couldn’t go out on the back deck when I got up this morning, due to a thunderstorm moving through at 1:30am. Even the dogs didn’t want to go out there and went back to bed. I went to the kitchen to whip up a batch of buttermilk biscuits and put some coffee on. By 3:30, the rain had stopped, so I went out and checked the wind situation. It wasn’t blowing, and it was a gentle SW wind.

iWindSurf was showing some orange and red in the forecast, which is gusts to 20-25 out of the SW showing up around 5am….But I figured that was because the thunderstorm was going through, and their app usually shows higher winds when a storm goes through. There wasn’t much wind outside at 3:30, so I figured the app was just being cautious, and it would be fine.

I picked up John, Arnie, and Rick from the Whitecaps Motel at 5am. We drove to the gas station for some ice, then headed to Mazurik’s to launch. There were two boats already in the water at the dock when we arrived, but no one else yet.

The sky was just getting light to the east. The air temp was 68 degrees, and the sky was partly to mostly cloudy. The sunrise wouldn’t be making a big show of it this morning, unfortunately, either. I got the boat ready over by the bathrooms, so it would be a shorter walk for anyone who needed to use it before we left the shore.
I do carry one of those handheld urinals that the hospitals use, in case someone needs to use it out there….a Vexus doesn’t have a bathroom on it. Men get the urinal thingy, and ladies can use the bait well. 🙂

The wind was just picking up as we were launching, but it wasn’t bad.
We went to the north side of Kelly’s to start. After passing over American Eagle Shoal and getting to the deeper side, the Garmin was marking enough fish for me to want to stop over 28′ of water and set up.

The Ulterra and the baby Merc were deployed, and the Ulterra’s iPilot was set to a NNE course (on power 5) while the baby Merc pushed the Vexus along at a speed of 2.3-2.6mph according to the FishHawk.

Water temp on the surface was 67.8 degrees, and at 18′ down it was 69.6 degrees.
The surface of the lake is loaded with the husks of Mayflies, so don’t forget to turn your outside lights off overnight. By the looks of the amount of husks…it’s a BIG HATCH!

The dipsies were set out first. The usual zero and three settings on both sides.
The zero setting on the port side was set to 28 back, and the three setting was set to 50.
On the starboard side, the zero setting was set to 35 back, and the three setting was set to 64.
I started with Yeck, BadMo, and Scorpion spoons, but eventually dialed it in to using the special Yeck spoon color that DJ Custom Eye Lures paints for me, with the blue on the belly. I’ve added a picture of it in the album. I know he’s sold them at Hi Way Bait before, but I don’t know if there are any there right now.

After dialing in the settings…the zeros at 35 and 54 back did best, and the three settings were 64 and 72 back.

Bandits behind the Off Shore boards went out next…3 per side this time, since I had a crew of 3 this time. Yes, I could have run 4 per side plus the 4 dispies, but I wanted to keep it simple since I had two people who don’t fish on the boat, and I was doing all the setup by myself this time. John has been fishing with me before, but it’s been almost 10 years since he has. He likes to fish, but doesn’t get out as much as he would like to. 🙂

Bandit colors that caught today were:
“Halographic Natural Shad” (Slim Shady Custom) 57 back…caught several.
“Psycho Killer” (Slim Shady) at 80 back
SunSpot (stock color) on both sides at 63 and 80 back.
That one color I had run the past several trips, but don’t know who paints it or what the name is….sorry. One of those ran on each side on the outside board at 93 and 97 back. Both caught fish.

The spoons definitely outfished the cranks, but the cranks never had any throwbacks hanging on them.

One spoon had a walleye so small, it wasn’t much bigger than the spoon and was maybe 3 1/2 inches long….sooooo cute! This is your reminder to always check your dipsies from time to time. Had I not checked, he would have been dragging the entire time, and it would have been useless.

The shorts all got the hooks taken out as carefully and gently as possible, and then got a kiss on the boo-boo, and were sent back to grow up.

John, Arnie, and Rick all said they really enjoyed the lake once it laid down and stopped blowing so hard. While it wasn’t bad earlier (2 foot or less), it laid down to 1 foot or less for the last couple of hours.

We all caught our fish and were done by 10am. We packed it up and took a nice leisurely ride back in, so they could enjoy the morning on the water a little bit more. I knew it was going to be hot and humid on land, so I wasn’t in a hurry to get back. It was beautiful out there…perfect weather.

They all said they had a great time, and would be back again someday….and that made me happy! 🙂

I’m off tomorrow, and will need to clean the boat of all the Mayfly carcasses before my two-day trip starting on Friday. Friday’s wind isn’t looking very good, though, so we’ll see if Friday is a go or not.

Stay tuned….

Capt Juls

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First time on Erie was 1987, could see down maybe 2-3 feet. The week of 6/1-5/26 was such a contrast. Great water clarity away from shore and numbers of walleyes beyond belief. For us it’s just crawlers harnesses (fewer hooks to hassle with than cranks) on #1 Tadpoles let out 50-55′, 1.7-2.0mph seemed great.
Thursday 6/4 was superb, limiting for 3 by 11am after an 830am start, no sheep out there for us. 3 day total was 45. For us it is almost always N of Kelleys along the border in the clearer water. Had bought a new Ranger net at Walmart as we lost another earlier in the week. FORGOT to put it in the boat on Thursday so we landed the limits by a quick leader pull over the side, only lost 1.
I cut gills and bleed out always on way back to Mazurik. Love the new cleaning station there, thanks Ohio!
Thanks to Capt Juls for teachcng us 2 years ago on how best to use planer boards. Also used Church stern planers which took 1/3 of tbe fish.
Next June dates alreay set. Thanks Ohio and biologists for keeping this fishery truly world class.

June 1st…..left Indianapolis at 530am. Drove to Port Clinton and launched at Catawba. Started fishing a deep channel between Starve island and Starve reef I wanted to try. Caught a couple but then trolled up east side of south bass. trolled north and south along east side of south bass in 24 to 28 fow. Trolled bandits off planer boards 15 to 20 ft deep. trolled dhj14 with snap weights off the corners of the boat. 30ft snap weight then 30 to 35 ft back. ended up with 11 of our 18 by 6pm. decided to go back and unpack our stuff at our airbnb. 8 of our 11 walleye were between 22-27″ hot colors were sprinkles, fruit dots, chrome blue back.

June 2nd….My group not keen on going out super early, so didn’t launch till about 8am. the wind was blowing pretty good from the north east. Launched out of Mazurik’s and it was a slow bumpy ride in my little 18 footer. Finally made it to west side of Kelly’s. trolled back and forth up west side of Kelly’s Island. Trolled till about 5pm, same setup as the day before. ended up with 13 walleye and a kitty cat. Also caught several goats but threw them back.

June 3rd……NE wind so launched a Catawba decided to troll west side of south bass. As soon as we started putting lines out, we couldn’t even get all lines set and started catching fish. The only problem is they were all goats and one cat fish. Caught several farm animals, finally got all lines out. Trolled up the west side of south bass and caught a couple of walleye. Decided to troll across the passage north of south bass towards middle bass. finally was getting across passage almost to middle bass and caught 3 right away. By the time we got them in I had to turn because we were getting shallow by shore. Curved back out to depth and headed down shore of middle bass so I decided to circle back to the spot where we caught 3 quick ones. Got close to that spot, and bam!, caught a couple more! So that was the plan, I just kept trolling back and forth over the hot spot. We stuck to that plan and got our limit around 450pm

June 4rd…. Had SW wind today so wanted to try Huron. Launched at Huron around 8 traveled over to the dump and then trolled east. trolled east and west till about 12:30 only caught 7, not much wind, bugs were terrible. Only plus was we hooked into a big walleye and was able to land it. 30″er. At 12:30 it had been an hour since last fish so we decided to quit and go try some where else……loaded up took a short break then went to Catawba and launched. Ran to east side of south bass and trolled there for a little while and picked up 2 or 3. picked up lines and decided to go over to middle bass and see if the group feeders we found the day before were still there. Got to SW of middle bass and started trolling. Fish were still there and hungry. We finished out our limit….and the last one of our limit was another 30″er.

June 5th …..Launched at Catawba, ran to the hot spot at middle bass. had lines in by 9am, had our 3 man limit by 12:30. Bandits behind boards, 10 to 17 ft deep, 25 to 33 fow. Best colors chrome blue back, sprinkles, fruit dots, and candy corn. chrome and blue and chrome and purple worked pretty good all day.

Didn’t go out Saturday the 6th because of high winds and storms. drove home Sunday. I had 2 other buddies with there own boats, they launched out of wild wings. Each boat had 2 people, they killed them all week, along the Canada border north of west sister. They pulled cranks 20ft deep.

I left the house at 4:15am, because I had to do an island pickup for my customers, Gary and Rick, this morning. The plan was to get ice and then head over to Mazurik’s to launch. Since I had to do it alone this time, I wanted to do it while it was quiet there. But, thankfully, at 4:45, three guys from Wisconsin showed up in the get-ready lanes, and one said he would be happy to dump me in when I asked.Thank you, nice man, whoever you were…I appreciated your help! 🙂

I sat out front until 5:10 and let the motor warm up. The air temp was 68 degrees, the wind was light out of the SW, and the sky was mostly clear. Then the sky was lightening up enough to let me see the surface of the water. I don’t like to drive in the dark when stuff can be floating out there. I didn’t have to meet them until 6am, so I had a lot of time to just take it slow on my way over there, so I did a whopping speed of 25mph.

It was kind of neat…being my birthday today, it felt almost spiritual, or maybe it was that fact that I was thinking of my Dad on the ride out there (he passed in 2022). It’s kind of creepy driving out there in the dark, all alone, but I felt my Dad was with me, so it wasn’t as scary anymore.

I arrived at Put-in-Bay at 5:30 and pulled up to the wall by “The Boardwalk” restaurant. It was easy, since no one else was parked on the wall. The guys showed up right on time, and off we went.

The plan was to head back over to where I left off yesterday, on the east-northeast side of Kelly’s, about 3-4 miles off the island. We trolled over 43-45′ of water on a SW to NE path, at 2.5mph on the FishHawk. At some point, we turned and went from the NE back to the SW. Then, we went from east to west, on a troll back towards the island. Fish were caught in all directions.

The program was slightly different than the past two days…

Dipsies on the zero and three settings on both back corners. The zero settings run on the inside rod (furthest back) and the three settings run on the outside rod just behind the inside rod….for newbies, that keeps the lines from tangling.
Zero is straight down, and the 1, 2, 3 settings on the back of the dipsey determine how far apart they will be from the zero setting, out to the sides.

Zero settings were 54 back on the port side, and 58 back on the starboard side. One ran a BadMo Arrow spoon, and the other ran a Yeck spoon. That Yeck with the blue belly…the one DJ paints for me is still killin it. The BadMo I most often use is silver on the underside and forest green and black on the back.

The three settings were set at 83 on the starboard side, and 72 on the port side…the port side ran a Scorpion spoon, and the starboard side had another green-and-black BadMo Arrow spoon.

Bandits ran behind the Off Shore boards, and once again “Psycho Killer” took the first fish at 80 back. The rest of the cranks (3 of them) that caught some this morning would be that one I talked about two days ago…I left a pic in the comments on that dated 6/3/26. I don’t know who paints it, or what its name might be. 80, 85, and 100 back were the leads.

The dipsies caught the most fish, but the cranks caught the bigger fish this morning. We didn’t catch any sheep this time, but we did get a nice, healthy kitty cat that went back. We caugt several short fish that got a kiss before being sent back to grow bigger, too.

We had our three-person limit by 10am, and after dropping them off at the island again, it was 11am by the time I loaded the boat out. I didn’t have to do that alone either, there was a pontoon boat that came in the same time I did, and one of the young men offered to help when I said, “You want to make an easy 20 bucks? Just hold my boat while I go get the truck” (I didn’t want to tie it off) He approached with a smile and said he would do it. 🙂

My guys had a great time, and Rick, who has his own boat here on Lake Erie, said he learned a lot….and that makes me happy! Gary kept us laughing all morning with his one-liners, too!

My two-day trip for tomorrow and Sunday has been moved to June 11/12, due to iffy weather tomorrow, and my customer’s decision to move it to next week, so I’m off for the next 4 days. My dogs will be very happy about that.

I’ll be back out Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday…

Stay tuned…

Capt Juls

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