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Well, I hate to even post this one, but a good day fishing, but not a good day catching, is worth reporting, too. My Wisco crew was very laid back, and fun to fish with today.

We left Mazurik’s at 6:30 and headed north. When we set up, the sun was just coming up over the horizon. The wind was out of the SW at around 13mph, with gusts to 20. Waves were 1-3s. Water temp was 44.3 degrees on the east of Ballast Island. We set a course to the NE at a speed of 1.3-1.6mph, on the Fish Hawk. Speed on the GPS was 1.7-2.0mph.


Marks on the sonar were good closer to Ballast, but as we ventured further out away from the islands, and towards the Canadian line, the marks were few and far between.


We set up with Bandits on both sides first, but after a dismal start, we changed up the port side to WNC Reapers. The blue chrome with groovy stripes on it took one at 57 back. Then, nothing. We decided to move closer to Kelly’s north side.


We set up again with the Bandits on the starboard side at 100, 70, 60, 50, and 40 back behind the Off Shore boards, and the Reapers set at 97, 77, 67, 57, and 47.


Fish came on the Reaper at 97, 67, and 57 back closer to Kelly’s. The Bandits only caught a plastic bag today.


We made one more move, after that pass from west to east, and when we hit the east side of the island, we moved back to the NW corner of it. This time, I decided to try the 38-40′ of water contour lines, headed north, towards Gull Island Shoal.


We changed out the Reapers to Flicker Minnow 11s, and caught a walleye at 67 back on the purple chrome/foil color. Nothing more on that pass up to the shoal and across the bottom of it, headed east.


We had good marks everywhere in that area, so it’s just a matter of time before they become hungry and active again. I hate this time of the spawn, when they are recovering…deep sigh.


We changed up colors so often, I can’t remember what caught, and what we had out. We ended up with 6 fish though, and that’s it. Not a great day of catching, but it was a great day fishing. My Wisco crew is a lot of fun, and very patient, so they made my job less stressful on a tough day.


We will try again tomorrow, but this time headed out of Catawba, and headed to the west side of the islands. The satellite picture is looking better and better every day, the water temps are coming up, the air temps are going up, the full moon is diminishing, and the winds are going to lay down a little bit again. The bite is sure to get hot here pretty soon.


Yes, some people are in the right spot at the right time, and will do very well, and catch their limits….but, for the rest of us that are over fish that do not want to participate, this blog is for them.
Keep the faith, and never give up. Don’t lose your confidence, which I know can happen. Right now, I feel like I have forgotten how to fish! But, we’re just in the right spot at the wrong time, so just keep plugging away. The lake is huge, and there is no way to cover it all, so just remember, the easy days are just around the corner.


But, this Monday, and Tuesday are going to blow again….and, Monday is a big cold front, again. Wednesday is a NW wind forecast, making for rough seas. Welcome to Lake Erie…be smart and be safe.


Tomorrow, I have the same crew, and we will try our best…that’s all we can do.


Stay tuned….


Capt Juls

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Good Morning All,
Bringing the boat up today and Staying on Port Clinton. Looking for good starting point to begin the hunt! I can trailer to anywhere on the lake. Don’t want your honey hole (LOL) just a decent starting point. Thank you all in advance for any help.

Tight Lines,
Tom

any updates on the cleaning house at Mazurik park?

With the weather and water changing so much now, my reports don’t mean much but thought I would share anyway We struggled with 2-4 footers in my 18 foot boat and had chocolate milk water most of our trip. Went out of 3 launches and put in a lot of miles. Best two spots were straight out of Huron(west of where Coho was getting them) on day 3 and around North Bass on day 1. Two days were really only half days due to weather.

Cool part is that we did get about a 5# steelhead out of Huron in 47 FOW.

Thanks Coho for sharing info. Hope we can do it again. I’ll be out there 4-5 more times and hopefully soon.

We took yesterdays idea of letting the water warm to the extreme today. We did not leave the dock until 3:00 this afternoon. We ran out to where we were catching yesterday North West of Kellys. No luck, the water had cleared too much and we were not marking. We made one pass but did not touch a fish. We pulled the spread and went looking for stained water.

We found some good stained water further west just off North Bass in 37 ft of water at about 4:30. We had our limit by 7:00 and headed back to Mazurek’s.

We had to pick up our speed today and were trolling at 1.7. S turns did not work today so we straight lined it.

Best bait today was once again Red Headed Bandit at 75 back naked. Second was an old favorite from the past, Kaki Brown that took 3 fish at 55 back naked. We only took 2 today on the Blue Chrome Super rogue at 17 down, but once again they were big fish.

Today was the first day we picked up some post spawners. The pre spawners were still 3 to 1 over post spawners.

It was a beautiful afternoon/evening on the lake and we had 12 really nice fish.

I will be off the water until next week so good luck to all and I hope to back next week.

I have a friend, newly retired, who just wants to catch fish. I took her and her husband out on Erie for walleye last year but she gets very sea sick. We later went into East Harbor and got some small bass. She was happy.

Do you have suggestions for calm water spots? Blue Gill, Crappie, Bass. It doesn’t matter. Just want to catch fish.

I can be discreet. If you give me good tips we won’t “ruin” your “secret hole”.

Catch and release is OK with us.

I used to like Rest Haven but the bite there has gotten tough. Or so I have heard. They took out the dam at Fremont so the white bass are not stacked up there anymore.

If you don’t want to post publicly, email me at ToussaintsWorth@gmail.com

Thank you, in advance.

Wife and I went out this morning. Started a half mile north of turtle creek. Picked up a couple but too many boats. Moved to a quarter mile southwest of locust reef and finished two limits there. We fished about 3 hours. All fish were caught on purple hair jigs 3/4 ounce. Water is 45 degrees there and clean enough.

I tried posting 2 very long threads from my phone and computer and it did not allow me to for 4/6-4/8. Tough fishing. If anyone wants details text me at 607-857-4628. Fished out of Catawba then Mazurik’s then Huron. Other folks here are lot better than me anyway, just thought I would share. We boated 10 and dropped maybe 6. very rough and very muddy water.

Water and forecastes look great now and many were doing well jigging the reefs when the troling was not good.

We fished North West of Kellys out near the line.

With the full moon we decided to go out for the afternoon bite. Sometimes with a full moon the morning bite is slow but they turn on later in the day. Besides it doesn’t hurt to let the sun warm the water also. So we went out after lunch and fished until 5:00 for a limit of quality eyes.

Our speed was 1.3 to 1.5. Like others reported we had to be doing S turns to trigger bites. They would hit on inside and outside. They could be following and the turn was needed to trigger them, just guessing. Surface temp was 44.7 20 ft down it was 43.2.

The clear winner for baits was the red headed bandit, this is a white bait and we caught the largest number on it. White was the key. We also caught several on the red head and chartreuse head wonder bread bandits. The only non white bandit we caught on was Taco Salad for one fish.

Our 3 biggest fish came on a Blue Chrome Supper Rogue, fished 20 down.

All our fish were pre spawn females. And big. We had one fish Ohio. We caught one and Captain Christy said you think you should measure that it looks small. I said its an easy 17 inches, it turned out to be 19 inches. It just looked small, lol. We finished with one 18″ and one 19″ the rest were all well into their 20s (25 to 28).

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