Having lost or broken a few “cheap” minnow bucket lids over the years, I figured out how to make to make a suitable replacement. I found a used 1″ x 12″ pine board, flipped the Styrofoam bucket upside down on the 1 x 12, and traced a pencil outline around the outside. Then, I carefully cut around the line with my jigsaw (approximately 10.5″ diameter). Next I screwed on a drawer pull knob on the center of the lid. The wood lid will stay in place, if you put the minnow bucket in a 5 gallon plastic bucket, and is heavy enough to not blow out while boating. Add’l improvements can be made by routering the inside edge 1/8 to 1/4″(approximately 8.75″ diameter), sanding the wood, and varnishing it with a suitable exterior varnish.
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Perch Fishing 9/22/24
We were fishing southeast of “G” can today in 21 fow. The bait we had found was 50/50 Lake Erie shiners and goldies. Cut bait worked the best for us today. Using spreaders with no bing and crappie rigs. Technique was slack line on the bottom and slow slow bring it up. We caught our 3 man limit (90) and had 27 lbs live weight at the cleaners.
Great day on Mother Erie
Great day on Mother Erie
Fishing with Robbi and Carson….9/22/2024
Robbi and his boy Carson came up from KY to fish with me, on a recommendation from a previous customer, who is friends with him. They wanted to fish for walleye, so we were headed to Huron, this morning.
I picked them up from their motel at 6am, and headed into town for the usual order of ice and powdered donuts, and off we went.
The air temp was 61 degrees, the wind calm, and the sky was clear. It was just starting to lighten in the east, so by the time we launched, idled up the river, and hit the lake, we didn’t need the navigation lights on anymore.
I wanted to try inside, before heading back out to where I was two days ago, and made one pass to the west, and then one pass to the east…we caught 4 fish. But, the floating grass was bad, and it was making me crazy, so I said, “Let’s finish this pass, and then we’ll head out there…(pointing to the north, with an out-stretched arm). Let’s see if those fish are still out there…there’s no grass out there”.
Luckily for us, they were, but they were a better size grade than two days ago. I think today’s cooler probably doubled the weight of Friday’s cooler.
Carson had never caught a walleye, but is a very good little angler. He’s joined the Bass Team at his school, and has his first tournament next weekend. Robbi, knows what he’s doing in the boat, too, so it was a very pleasant and easy day for me.
They had never used dipsies before, but it didn’t take long for them to get used to retrieving and setting the lines on their own. The dipsey program was kept simple…
Two inside rods were run on the zero setting, and the two outside rods were on the 3 setting. Zero, at 55, and the 3 setting at 90 was our best leads.
Bandits ran behind the Off Shore boards at 115 and 100 back, with no weights, and caught two of the bigger fish on the 115 lead, with a “Green Lantern” (Slim Shady Custom). I changed out the two bandits on the port side with more Green Lanterns, but those were the only two fish that would be caught on cranks this morning. The rest were steady-hitting the spoons.
Color didn’t seem to matter too much.
Speed was 2.5 on the FishHawk.
We kept circling on a 1/2 mile area, over 43 feet of water, straight out of Huron, and had fun with some wet toothy critters for a few hours.
Robbi and Carson said they had a lot of fun, and learned a lot. We all caught our limits, and headed back in. I took a slow ride in, because it was just one of those end of summer days, you don’t want to forget. The lake was perfect for running, the weather warm, and the company… better than par. 🙂
I am not scheduled until next weekend, but I may have a trip this Thursday, I don’t know yet.
Stay tuned….
Capt Juls
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Shiners?
Why do shiners come and go at bait stores? Full moon, too rough to go out to get them. Not in the area. Go to the local bait store and get what you can. Have had decent results with Goldie’s.
Perch
Two of us got 60 perch by the buoy off of Catawba State Park. We used emerald shiners and shad with crappie rigs. The perch didn’t seem to prefer one bait over the other but the bite was better when we cut them in half.
Hope this helps and good luck!
Perch fishing 9-20
Went out today of anchor point marina. 5 guys fished little cedar point 19ft of water and managed 75 perch. Fished from 8am to 1pm. Tough bite. Used pin heads and chubs which they didn’t touch. Old timers used there spreaders I used the new perch rigs with the rooster tails. Didn’t matter. They both produced bout the same. Slow. Anyways mixed bag 22lbs at the cleaners.
Good luck hope the perching gets better. And the bait.
Good luck hope the perching gets better. And the bait.
9/20 Perch
Wife and I went out this morning. Fished a little less than a mile south of B can. We were a little east of the big pack of boats. Fished just over 3 hours and got 33 decent fish. Most were between 8 1/2 and 9 1/2. A few white perch. Two of them were around 4 inches long. Smallest I’ve ever seen.
Fishing with Dan and Ed….9/20/2024
Yesterday, I got a text from Dan Ireland. He’s a previous customer, from back in May…he and his friend were staying here all week. They bring Dan’s little boat over from Missouri.
“Do you have any openings the next couple of days?”, he asked.
I replied, “Tomorrow or Sunday…I’m perch’n right now”. He said, “Perching is kind of slow for us…we only 6. How about you?” I replied, “We’re only at 21…I’m by E Can…northwest of it, actually, between E and D Cans. Were you at?”
He said, “We are just south of D Can..we will take tomorrow, if you’re good with that. We want to walleye fish”. “Okay, are you staying at the White Caps?” I asked. “Yes”, he said. “Okay, cool…I’ll pick you two up at 6am”.
Later that morning, he was driving his boat down from D can towards us, so I waved him over, and told him to set up right next to us, since he has Spot-Loc on his boat, and didn’t need to throw an anchor…(that would disturb our bite).
We only needed 9 more for our 60 fish limit, and it didn’t take long to catch them.
Dan and Ed didn’t have any Emeralds, so I gave them what I had left of my frozen ones, and two of the crappie rigs that I designed, and make for myself and my customers, and told them to rip the minnows in half, to use. When we left, they slipped right in over where we were sitting, and managed to add to their count and ended up with 52 nice perch, before they ran out of minnows and the bite died. (The bead colors on the rigs we were using were chartreuse or white).
They decided to head back in.
This morning, I picked them up at their motel at 5:45. I had told them 6AM, but they were ready to go, and waiting outside by Dan’s truck, when I arrived.
We hit the gas station for ice, then headed towards Huron.
The sky was just starting to get light, when we got to the get ready lanes at the Huron ramp. After chatting a bit with other early morning launchers, we hit the water at 6:45. I only had a clue of where I was going to look first, and that was NE of the Huron Dumping Grounds. The Helix wasn’t showing many marks from the mouth of the river, out to 43 feet, but when we hit 43 feet, they showed up.
The bow mount was deployed, as was the baby Merc, and their speed set to 2.5mph on the FishHawk (for those that don’t know what that is…its gadget that runs below the surface, to get the undercurrent speed, and temp readings).
We set a course to the north, and marked fish for about 1 1/2 miles, before turning around to go over them again.
The programs that worked this morning were:
Dipsey on the zero setting at 55 back (had two of these out)
Dipsey on the three setting at 80 back
Dipsey on the two setting at 70 back
Bandits behind the Off Shore Boards at 120, 100, and 97 back caught fish.
“IB Infected” (custom color by DJ Custom Eye Lures…Hi Way Bait) Had two of these out, and they both caught one.
“Green Lantern” (Slim Shady Custom) caught one.
The dipsies and spoons far out fished the cranks behind boards, this morning.
We had our 3-person limit by 10:20, and had around 8 throw backs, too. No junk fish today.
They were only good eaters….nothing big, yet.
Dan and Ed had a great morning, they said, and want to go again. Dan was grateful, that I took them to a new launch, instead of back to Vermilion, where I had first taken them…so, they could learn more areas. (I hope they come back, when there are more fish back on the west side, so we can use Mazurik’s or Catawba…it’s a lot closer to home). 😉
I have another perch trip tomorrow, so my fingers are crossed that we have another successful catch. But, this time, there will be four of us, so we’ll need 120 perch to fill our tickets.
Stay tuned….
Capt Juls
“Do you have any openings the next couple of days?”, he asked.
I replied, “Tomorrow or Sunday…I’m perch’n right now”. He said, “Perching is kind of slow for us…we only 6. How about you?” I replied, “We’re only at 21…I’m by E Can…northwest of it, actually, between E and D Cans. Were you at?”
He said, “We are just south of D Can..we will take tomorrow, if you’re good with that. We want to walleye fish”. “Okay, are you staying at the White Caps?” I asked. “Yes”, he said. “Okay, cool…I’ll pick you two up at 6am”.
Later that morning, he was driving his boat down from D can towards us, so I waved him over, and told him to set up right next to us, since he has Spot-Loc on his boat, and didn’t need to throw an anchor…(that would disturb our bite).
We only needed 9 more for our 60 fish limit, and it didn’t take long to catch them.
Dan and Ed didn’t have any Emeralds, so I gave them what I had left of my frozen ones, and two of the crappie rigs that I designed, and make for myself and my customers, and told them to rip the minnows in half, to use. When we left, they slipped right in over where we were sitting, and managed to add to their count and ended up with 52 nice perch, before they ran out of minnows and the bite died. (The bead colors on the rigs we were using were chartreuse or white).
They decided to head back in.
This morning, I picked them up at their motel at 5:45. I had told them 6AM, but they were ready to go, and waiting outside by Dan’s truck, when I arrived.
We hit the gas station for ice, then headed towards Huron.
The sky was just starting to get light, when we got to the get ready lanes at the Huron ramp. After chatting a bit with other early morning launchers, we hit the water at 6:45. I only had a clue of where I was going to look first, and that was NE of the Huron Dumping Grounds. The Helix wasn’t showing many marks from the mouth of the river, out to 43 feet, but when we hit 43 feet, they showed up.
The bow mount was deployed, as was the baby Merc, and their speed set to 2.5mph on the FishHawk (for those that don’t know what that is…its gadget that runs below the surface, to get the undercurrent speed, and temp readings).
We set a course to the north, and marked fish for about 1 1/2 miles, before turning around to go over them again.
The programs that worked this morning were:
Dipsey on the zero setting at 55 back (had two of these out)
Dipsey on the three setting at 80 back
Dipsey on the two setting at 70 back
Bandits behind the Off Shore Boards at 120, 100, and 97 back caught fish.
“IB Infected” (custom color by DJ Custom Eye Lures…Hi Way Bait) Had two of these out, and they both caught one.
“Green Lantern” (Slim Shady Custom) caught one.
The dipsies and spoons far out fished the cranks behind boards, this morning.
We had our 3-person limit by 10:20, and had around 8 throw backs, too. No junk fish today.
They were only good eaters….nothing big, yet.
Dan and Ed had a great morning, they said, and want to go again. Dan was grateful, that I took them to a new launch, instead of back to Vermilion, where I had first taken them…so, they could learn more areas. (I hope they come back, when there are more fish back on the west side, so we can use Mazurik’s or Catawba…it’s a lot closer to home). 😉
I have another perch trip tomorrow, so my fingers are crossed that we have another successful catch. But, this time, there will be four of us, so we’ll need 120 perch to fill our tickets.
Stay tuned….
Capt Juls
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Manual vs electric fillet knives
Avid perch fisherman here, families choice on the perch, but considering moving to an electric fillet knife. Is it worth my money or do I stick with my manual knives ?? I do all my own cleaning so what is everyone’s opinion ?
09/14-15 Yellow Perch
Had two buddies out on Friday morning, different boats. One caught a limit near Camp Perry range F Can (north east side of range), the other fished nearby and caught 7. Looks like finding active fish was real hit-or-miss.