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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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So I didn?t get to the island until late morning. I had a few things to do before I could head out. I started at about 1:00pm. Not a whole lot of marks near the green can at Lucy?s point. No wind to speak of, so I could troll in any direction. I decided to run from the can towards the white building by the north bass marina. Marks were low, so I had the harnesses near the bottom. 2oz snaps back 50, 60, 70 in 30-32 fow at 2.5 ish mph. It was slow until about 2:00. I had 2 decent fish in the box. I started getting hit when I got further in the channel between the islands. At 3:00 it lit up. I just trolled big circles between the islands. At one point I had all three board hooked up. Everything was 19-22?. I didn?t sort at all. Kept the first 6 then fun fished another 8 in less than an hour till I ran out of worms.

This morning I started early. First line in by 6:00. Same everything as yesterday. Didn?t even get a board on the first line before the rod was bouncing. I was done by 8:00. Fish were a little smaller today. 17-21?. I just took my 6, and went in.

marks were light in this area both days. I pretty much was by myself yesterday. Today not another boat within 1 mile of me. Normal bite yesterday. Today they were hitting hard with both hooks down their throat. I was just flipping em today. Not even netting as they were not coming off. Tore up a couple harnesses as I couldn?t even find the second hook.

We were going to go out of Lorain but then I saw that Juls did well north of Kelly’s yesterday. So we went out of Mazurik before sunrise and headed north, up the east side of Kelly’s.

But my Humminbird wouldn’t power up. I didn’t want to run into Kelly’s Island Shoal, so we stopped well south of it and put lines in the water, using Juls’ specs from Wednesday. We had Bandits – including a pink and yellow one – that we ran unassisted between 67 and 97 back. And we had spoons on Tru-trip divers at 33 and 41. At least the Minn Kota would tell me my speed, which I set at 2.4 mph s.o.g.

There was a big pack of boats to our north but I wasn’t going up there without knowing my depth. So we just trolled midway up Kelly’s while I looked at the wiring. Eventually I found that a ground wire inside the breaker box had come off its connector. I plugged it in and everything came back on. We trolled our way toward the pack. I counted 106 boats in the general area.

We were in about 44′ of water and marked small fish regularly – nice big ones on occasion. We started catching once we got up due east of the Shoal.

However, they weren’t exactly jumping in the boat. And the bugs were bad. For a while, a breeze provided some relief, and we were preoccupied with catching the occasional walleye. But then it became very still. The bite shut down. The bugs were unbearable. The sun was baking us. I think we had 8 out of our 18 in the box at 11AM but we were ready to call it a day.

We didn’t. We tried several colors of cranks and spoons, several depths, speeds between 2.1 and 2.8, trolling in every direction. Most of what we tried caught at least one but they were far and few between. A blue and chrome reef runner was our star, catching 5 or 6.

Eventually we replaced the spoons with crawler harnesses. I put on a 4oz weight at 30 and then went another 30-60 after that. We caught a few more, but it was a slog.

We had been heading SSE for a long time. By 2PM, we needed 5 more walleyes but we hadn’t caught one in over an hour. There were only a few boats left out there by then. We decided to quit for real this time – but then we got one on a crawler. So we switched all lines to crawlers with that same program. The breeze returned, but it was now easterly. We started marking more fish. We were maybe 3 miles SE of K.I.S.

They really liked the crawler harnesses with 4oz weights there. In under an hour, we got our last 5, plus one lost on the way in, plus we caught a 19^th walleye when we pulled up to go home (which we tossed back of course). It was a great way to end a long day. Total count was 18 keepers, 1 short, 1 lost, 1 returned. Most of them were 19 to 21 inches. Plus we had two keeper cats.
Another banner day on the Lake.

When I got up at 1:45, I knew it was going to be nice out on the back deck. The wind forecast for the day was going to be less than 10mph out of the north. The air temperature was going to be in the low 60s in the AM, but rising to 75 by noon. I knew the sky was clear, because the moonlight was shining off the tin roof on the shed. I grabbed a cup of coffee, a couple of dog treats, and headed out the back door, so I could check all the forecast apps to make sure nothing had changed overnight. Nothing did….the expectation was for a beautiful morning on the water.

Today, I would be fishing with Danny Harris, from last week’s report, and his friend Boyd, who came all the way from Utah to try Lake Erie.


I picked them up from the “Whitecaps Motel”, and we headed to the Speedway on the other side of town, to gas up, get some ice, and a few snacks. To my disappointment, they were closed. I was able to gas the boat, but the store was closed. A sign stating, “Due to staffing issues, we will have new hours”. They were supposed to be open at 5am, but at 5:05, the doors were still locked, and no one could be seen inside. (They were probably in back getting the breakfast sandwiches made for the display).

We left there and hit the gas station by RT2 and State Rd, to get the ice and other snacks, and then took the back roads over to Mazurik’s. We arrived at 5:30 and got the boat ready. We were headed out by 5:45. I decided to go back to the area north of Kelly’s that I fished with my last crew and start there.

The Ulterra and baby Merc were deployed after the FishHawk was sent down, and set to an ENE direction, at a speed of 2.3-2.5mph (FH speed). We started over 44′ of water.

Danny can’t stand in the boat, due to physical issues at the moment, and this was Boyd’s first time on Lake Erie. He doesn’t do much fishing, so I said I would set all the lines and they could just reel in their fish…they were good with that decision. 🙂

The dipsies went out first…running Yeck and Badmo Arrow spoons:
Zero settings at 27 on the port side and 35 on the starboard side.
Three settings at 55 on the port side and 72 on the starboard side.

Eventually, the zero settings were 33 on the port side and 41 on the starboard side…and caught fish.

The three setting at 72 was getting a lot of action, so the port side was set to 72 also.

Three Bandits and one Spro 120 Madeye ran behind the Off Shore boards. I started out with the port side at 115 and 80 back, and 130 and 67 on the starboard side. The 80 and 67 caught, so the two deeper ones were both brought up higher and set at 97 back…they started catching.

Colors were:
“Psycho Killer” (Slim Shady Custom)
“Whiskey and Water” (Slim Shady)
“Slick Purple Bengal” (stock Spro color)
And, a custom color I don’t know the name of or who painted it. I checked all the sites and can’t find it….sorry. That one, I put out after about an hour and a half, and it took a fish before it could get lined up. Then, it took another shortly after being set out again. I will have it out in the morning again. Might even have two out. lol
I added a couple pics of it here…

We went through a lot of fish, with several throwbacks and keepers we threw back, along with a few Sheephead, and had our 18 in the cooler by 9am.

Danny and Boyd had a good time and will be with me again tomorrow. I marked some good fish on the way back to the ramp, so I’ll be starting there in the morning. If they are walleye, they will be nice ones. If not, they will be big Sheephead. But, since there is going to be a south wind in the morning, I’ll start from the south and work my way back up to the line. Fingers crossed!

Stay tuned….

Capt Juls

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Heading out of West Harbor on Catawba this week for a quick evening trip. Any suggestions around the area between South Bass & Kelleys (Starve Island Reef, Scott Point Shoal, American Eagle Shoal, etc.) We’ll be casting/drifting harnesses since not setup for trolling. Thanks!

Years ago I caught some walleye around the intake the water is still a bit muddy but can you still catch walleye around that area in 20ft of water or do you have to go out further towards west sister? Trolling bottom bouncers and warm harness or casting deries

The charter fishing boat live streaming web camera will be offline until I get the new equipment installed. That is tentatively scheduled for later this week / weekend. Once the new equipment is installed, tested, and the system is back up and running correctly, I will make a post here.

WB

Since this is a two-day report in one, I’ll keep the story short for both and it will still be long enough. Ha!

Day 1:
Picked the guys up at the Whitecaps Motel at 5am, stopped to get ice, and then headed to Mazurik’s to launch. We were headed north of Kelly’s, up to the line, at 5:45. When we got up there, the Garmin wasn’t marking very much, so I decided to try the north side of North Bass Island. The Garmin was marking a few more fish than before, so I stopped over 34′ of water.

Down went the Ulterra, and the baby Merc was started. The troll would be from east to west on the outside of West Reef, but south of the Canadian line at 2.3-2.5mph on the FishHawk.

Since we had 4 people on the boat, we could run 12 lines. 4 Off Shore boards ran on each side with Bandits in tow. Two dipsies ran off each corner in back, too.

The dipsies ran a “Worm-Burner” and a spoon on each side. The inside rods ran on the zero settings, and the outside rods ran the three settings.
The zero settings started at 25 and 27 back, and the three settings ran at 37 and 50 back.
BadMo Arrow spoons, Yeck Y11 spoons, and Worm-Burners all caught fish.

Bandit colors were:
Psycho Killer (Slim Shady Custom)
Green Lantern (Slim Shady Custom)
Blue Shiner (stock color)
Fruit Dots (stock)
Khaki (stock)
IB Infected (DJ Custom Eye Lures)
Pooh Bear (Domka Outdoors)
Buck Fever (Domka Outdoors)

Bandits were running anywhere from 117 to 57 back.

After passing the NW side of the reef, I saw the water getting dirtier, we turned and went from west to east over the same fish, but they didn’t really like that direction, and we only caught two or three going that way. As the sun got higher the bite slowed down for us, so we decided to move down towards Kelly’s. At that time we had two of their three limits in the cooler.

I decided to try going shallower in North Bay to see if there were any hiding up in there, like they are know to do from time to time. There were a lot of boats 1/2-1 mile off the outside of North Bay, but no one was in there, so we slid in and set up over 21′ of water. We started on the west side of the bay, and worked our way around to the east side of it. We didn’t catch any until we got to the east side of it…near those two humps just inside the bay. We now had 14 fish and needed two more in the next 45 minutes, before we ran out of time.

We trolled out of the bay and to the east…through the cut between the island and the shoal, and caught a few more in the cut. We needed one more fish to finish out their limit….had it on, and lost it at the back of the boat, so they only had 17.
We had thrown several shorts back and one that was 15 inches. I don’t keep them unless they are 15 1/2″, and only if the customer wants to keep it. (15 1/2″ because they shrink when they get on ice, and I don’t want one shrinking under 15 inches from the cold…that would cost ME a ticket!

They said they enjoyed the morning, learned a lot, and had a great time, and that makes me happy!

That night, the forecast was showing much stronger winds from the north for the next morning, and calm winds for Friday (today), so after discussing it with my guys, they decided to fish Friday instead of the next day.

Of course, it wasn’t the same forecast when I got up the next morning, and we could have fished, but they had made plans for the day, and were still good with going the next day.

That brings us to this morning….Day 2:

Initially, my plan was to drive over to Lorain (55 minutes from my house), and launch at Hot Waters, but that changed. I was given good reports from the island area, and decided to nix the two hour round trip that would go through miles of construction on RT 2, and stay closer to home. My guys were good with that decision.

Mick didn’t make the trip this morning, due to feeling sick, and stayed back, while Mark and Jeff headed to the truck. Same routine…hit the gas station for ice, and then head to the launch. This time, we used Catawba. At 5:30 we were on our way north to the west side of the islands.

As we approached the west side of Green the Garmin screen was showing a decent amount of fish over 31′ of water, so we set up there.
This time, we could only run 9 lines, so I only set up 8, to keep it simple. Two Off Shore boards on each side and two dipsies on each side.

Dipsies: zero setting at 27 and 30 back
Three settings at 50 and 60 back

Slim Shady’s “Psycho Killer” Bandit took the first three at 80 back on the port side, so I put another one out on the starboard side at 80 back, too, but it didn’t pull any….so weird.

Other colors that eventually worked were:
SunSpot at 50/45 w/2oz (stock)
Blue Shiner (stock) 107 back
Marvin (Domka, I think?) 97 back
And a “Slick Purple Bengel” Flicker Minnow 11 at 95 back

We worked from Green to the east side of Rattlesnake…the north side of Rattle to West Reef, and then back down in front of the west side of the islands….back to Green. We marked fish, but they weren’t that interested and most that did hit were not aggressively hitting, and were barely hooked.

We only ended with their two limits today, and I was kicking myself for not going all the way to Lorain this morning. But, I really had higher expectations for the area we fished this morning. Oh well….another wrong decision to put in the books. The road construction was my biggest deterrent in that travel plan.

We worked hard for them this morning (changed a lot of bait colors), and it was a grind to get the 12 we did (plus 4 throwbacks that went back). The day ended with a big sheephead that took both of them reeling it in. Jeff handed it off to Mark, who eventually got it in.
While they fought its roley-poley body in, I started pulling the dipsies, because it was time to head in, and that way I could cut the baby Merc off, and slow the boat down, so they could get it in the boat easier.

They both said they had a good time, and enjoyed the beautiful weather. There were no bugs out there today, either…yay!

I just received a text from Mick, who stayed on shore today, stating he was feeling much better…thanked me for everything and said, “See you next year”, and that makes me happy! 🙂

I’m off the next two days, an will be back at it on Monday with Steve Jeziorski and his friends. Right now, the forecast for Monday looks really nice. Fingers crossed!

Stay tuned…

Capt Juls

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Fished 8:30 – 2pm.
Sunny and no wind in the morning, dead calm, light in the afternoon.
Started between South Bass and Kelleys Islands in the pack. Moved around the north side and then the NE side of Kelleys.
Started with drift fishing then switched to trolling (not set up well for trolling).
One Sheephead caught.

Only saw occasional walleye caught on other boats. It appeared to be a slow day for most.
Talked to guy at fish cleaning table in marina. He fished the same area between the islands and got his limit trolling off the bottom, but it took him 6 hours.

Big blow on Thursday followed by diminishing winds overnight with clear skies and a near full moon and the big insect hatch all probably attributed to the slow day.

Planning a trip next Thursday. Any signs of the bugs being goine then