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Joe Conley, who used to fish the same walleye tournaments that I did back in the early 2000s, reached out to book a trip with me, because he didn’t want to pull his boat back here again this month. He was here last month with his own boat, and was able to get out each of the 5 days they were here, and limited each time out, too. 🙂

This time, Joe brought his friend, Mike, who is originally from MN, but now lives in California, because he’s never been to Lake Erie, so this was his first time.

After this two-day blow we just had, with gusty NE winds, the water was going to be muddy in areas. Since there was no satellite pic to see where the dirty water is, it was just a matter of heading out, driving around, and finding clean enough water holding some fish, to fish in.

The obvious direction was to head north, since it was the shoreline that got beaten up in that wind. It wouldn’t be as muddy up there, and that proved to be correct.

We started SE of Kelly Island Shoal in 36′ of water, and trolled to the NE…out to 45 feet of water. There were good marks from 10-40 feet down in the water column. The kind of screen that gets a person excited, because they look like very active fish. However, that wasn’t the case. It was a slow bite and a grind to just get their 12 fish.

Bandits ran behind the Off Shore boards, and the only ones that would catch would be “Buck Fever” (Domka Outdoors Custom) at 63 back, Blue Chrome at 85 back, and “The Big Kahuna” at 93 back….that’s another Domka color.

The Bandits would only catch 4 fish all morning. There were also two pull-backs, but the fish came off. I tried the Bill Lewis PWC Lite with a 2oz snap weight, but it didn’t do anything. I tried the Spro Madeye 120 “Ghost Purple Perch”, which is usually a producer, but it didn’t do anything either.

Most of the fish came on dipsies with Yeck and BadMo Arrow spoons. The “worm-burners” only got their crawlers stolen this time. The bite wasn’t aggressive, so the fish would grab the crawler’s tail and rip it. The last time out, they were engulfing it to the back of their throats.I removed the worm-burners and replaced them with more spoons.

The 2 zero settings were at 30 and 40, and the 2 three settings were at 57 and 82. All of them caught fish.

Speed was 2.3-2.5 on the FishHawk. Water temp on the surface was 58 degrees, and at 18 feet down it was 60 degrees.

We only ended up with their limits and none of mine, but it was still a fun morning to be out there. The weather was beautiful, the lake was pleasant, and the company was entertaining. At one point, Joe called his girlfriend to tell her, “I’ve never had a woman tell me what to do in a boat before”…hahahah That made me giggle.

He confessed he learned a trick or two, and that made me happy! 🙂

Tomorrow, I have Danny and his friend, Mike (I think his name is Mike)…they were rescheduled from last Tuesday, when it was blowing out of the NE, and we cancelled.

We’ll be launching out of Catawba tomorrow.

Stay tuned….

Capt Juls

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Terrible midges and slow bite. Fished the dump straight north out of Hot Waters. First the west and east. Marks were there, just not interested. Ended up with five. Had to troll because no wind.

Fish cop at the launch and said everybody coming in was light

Curious. I am coming up there from 4 hrs away to fish mon and tues. Just found out there has a bunch of wind lately and was curious if anyone had thoughts on water clarity and areas to fish. Thinking around islands or huron area. I’ve never fished huron this time of yr so curious if people do or not. Thanks

Went out of Mazurik today. Didn’t go our until early afternoon. Didn’t get skunked but came close. Water is really dirty and lots of marks
spent 4 hrs fishing and caught 1 walleye Hoping for better fishing tomorrow

Got a 26? boat. Is there a public ramp in Lorain open or even a fee launch? Looks like Hot Waters is closed

Nothing is better than that first hot cup of coffee… sitting out on the back deck in the wee hours of the morning when all is quiet, and the dogs are just sniffing for whoever walked on their grass overnight. There is the occasional animal drama beyond the fence that sends my dogs into a running frenzy, but they don’t bark at that hour for some reason…thankfully!

The weather forecast for the morning was calling for light winds out of the SSW early, then building as mid-morning approached. I was hoping to get our three-person limit before 9am and off the lake before she started blowing.

I picked up Josh and his daughter Kinley from the Whitecaps Motel at 5:30, hit the gas station for ice, and headed over to Mazurik’s to launch. We were in the water by 6am and headed to the area around Starve Island to start. With the wind direction as it was, I figured if it started blowing earlier than predicted, it would be behind us and pushing us to the NE. That would give me a lot of productive water to cover without having to pick up and run back up to a starting point.
That was just a plan, though, and it turned out to be one of those perfect mornings where plan B wasn’t needed.

The wind was less than 10mph, the lake was 1′ or less, and the fish were active.
Kinley loves to fish, and her Dad brought her to Lake Erie to do just that. They are originally from MN, but now live down near Dayton, so fishing is in the blood.
Josh had only used planer boards once before. I gave him a tutorial on how to attach the Off Shore boards, how to release the line from the front clip if a fish didn’t hit it hard enough to do it itself, and let it swing to the center before reeling it in.

Kinley caught on real quick with the dipsies, but was fine with just me and Josh setting the boards lines.

The dipsies caught the most fish this morning. I ran the usual zero and three settings on each side. The zero on the port side was at 30 back, and the three setting was sometimes at 47 and sometimes at 57 back.
The starboard side zero setting was at 40 back, and the three setting was at 61.

Each side ran a “worm-burner” spoon and a Yeck spoon. If you don’t know what a worm-burner is…is a spoon that has a 3-4 inch crawler harness attached to it, so you can run a crawler really fast without it blowing out.

The Yeck spoon is one that I have “DJ Custom Eye Lures” paint a special blue on the belly. The back has copper/red/black/and green on it. They sell it over at Hi-Way Bait…I haven’t seen it anywhere else. However, the ones hanging don’t have the blue on them,
; that’s a custom order you would need to ask them for.
That spoon has been working great for a few weeks now, so I haven’t taken it off yet.

The “Ghost Purple Perch” Spro Madeye120 caught a couple, as did “Buck Fever” (Domka custom) at 97 back. The “Fruit Dots” Bandit caught one at 75 back.
The “WalleyeX Bralwer” didn’t want to attract anyone today, so that was switched out for another “Bandit”, two different ones actually, but neither color would catch a fish, either. I tried “Khaki”, and one that Kinley picked out, which I don’t know the name of.

Speed was 2.3-2.5mph on the FishHawk. The water temp at 18′ down was 57 degrees.

We had our limits by 8:45 and headed in before the wind kicked up. It was kicking up on our ride in, so the timing was perfect.

Both of them said they had a great time and want to come back in the fall to try for some perch, and that makes me happy! They were a lot of fun to fish with, so I’m looking forward to that. Did I ever tell you that I LOVE perch fishing? lol 🙂

Tomorrow looks like I’ll be hiding on the west side of the islands, due to a NE wind forecast. Danny Harris and his friend will be meeting me at Catawba’s ramp in the morning.

I’ve already rescheduled Thursday’s trip due to the big NE blow that’s forecast. They rescheduled for June 1st.

Stay tuned….

Capt Juls

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Out of Harbor’s Edge about 8:30 with my son and our friend John. Ran straight up the middle to just north of east end of American Eagle Shoal. Better looking water but not such good marks. Putted a little more north and got some good marks. Hooks from 15 to 25 feet. Set up with worm harnesses on port and spoons on starboard at 45 to 55 back with 40 jets. Trolled west toward Monument at 1.9 mph and got a quick taker on a Pooh Bear chartreus. Soon got more on Trout and Monkey Puke. Took a real nice one on a Wonder Bread double willow harness, but spoons were out producing. Changed all over spoons and were done by 11:30. As sun came up higher went to 2.5 mph and to 75 back as fish moved down.

My wife and I headed to Venetian marina bout 9:15 with plans to troll in the bay. We always see several boats doing it on our way out to the lake. Thought I had my pier fishing shallow Bandits on the boat but no-go, so out to the lake we went. Didn’t feel like going too far away so we headed towards the dumping grounds that is SE of Kellys. Got out not too far past the Fog horn and checked the sonar. I’m no expert and my equipment doesn’t work on the fast fly so I slow down to idle and check. We were marking some fish so we thought we’d start trolling out to the dump. Got three nice ones on the way there so we turned around once we got there and headed back on the same path. Another 3 back towards cedar point. Did that routine once more and have our (12) limit in almost three hours. Three were in the nice eater category and the other nine were all 24-30″ class. Couldn’t believe it. No throw backs. One sheephead that was at least 10#. No other junk. We couldn’t believe the size we were getting. Best lures were Bandit Buckfever and Blue chrome, nothing else. 28′ to start to 38′ of water by the dump, generally 2.2-2.4mph. Got to thank Juls for teaching my wife and I how to use the Offshore boards a while back.

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I started early this morning. From the channel marker north of south bass with a heading to east of sugar. Crawler harness all day. First line in at 6:00. First fish on at 6:05. Little 16? eater. Then super busy all the way up. Lots of junk. White bass, big farm, cat. Hit a nice 22? in the mix. Tons of marks east of sugar. A lot of boats in the area. Picked up a couple more keepers in that area. Bite was slow after 10:00. Headed to the can off east point of middle bass. Fished north northeast. Best was 40 foot up off the can. Caught a fish about every 5 minutes. Ended up with 16 eyes. Just fished for fun after my limit. They were down deep. Running 2oz snaps back 60-75? at about 2mph. They wouldn?t leave a green, and purple blade alone. I couldn?t get the board set, and one would be on. Nothing huge, just good eaters 17-22?. One of the most fun fishing days I?ve had!