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I was up on the island all last week but weather and waves were not conducive to fishing from a 16 foot boat until Saturday and Sunday. Launched out of the State Park ramp both days between 8 and 9 am and Saturday was light east winds (with rolling waves from the northeast from prior day) and Sunday was light south wind with almost no waves.
As a footnote, earlier in the month, I got a tip that walleyes were holding off Long Point and in the eastern end of the bay and that tip panned out so this location would factor into the both days of fishing. On Saturday, I trolled from the ramp north to the Gull Island Shoal buoy and only caught shorts and junk fish. Using worm harnesses with 2 and 3 ounce in-line weights trolled at 1.3 to 1.5 mph. When I got to the buoy, I turned east and fished the shallow area (27-30ft) for about 15 minutes and caught 2 keepers. I then turned south and trolled to Long Point and caught several monster sheepheads enroute.
Just before I got to Long Point, something really strange happened. A bird came out of nowhere and started flying around the boat. Upon further inspection, I noticed it was a bat. I was still about a quarter mile or less away from shore so assumed the bat was looking for a place to land. After buzzing me for a couple minutes it flew right into my face and then landed on the boat for about ten seconds then disappeared.
Once I got to Long Point, I set up an east to west troll in about 30-40 feet of water. It was about 11am and there was lots of boats going to the beach and some jet ski traffic in the area so was worried all this activity would kill the fishing. Wrong. On the way to the ramp, I caught 7 walleyes and kept 4 of them for a one man limit.
On Sunday, I thought I would change things up and try Long Point first. I trolled from the ramp to Long Point and caught one keeper. Next, I turned northwest and started a troll to the Gull Island Shoal buoy. Again, very quiet run with only very large sheephead hitting and one more keeper. When I got the buoy, I headed northeast around the eastern edge of the shoal. It is a bit tricky in this area because the depth drops from 50 to 40 then to 30 feet very quickly and you have to constantly adjust your depths to avoid getting stuck. After catching another two large sheepheads, I got a very solid hit and the fish was not fighting(like a sheephead). Brought it to the boat and it was a 24.5 inch walleye. For the next 15 minutes, the walleyes kept biting and I got my limit with more 20 plus inch fish. When I decided to stop fishing and brought my lines in I was still getting hits and had to release these fish. Great two days

With the forecast showing chance of storms over the next several days, it brings up the question: what do you do if you’re out on the lake & get caught in a thunderstorm? I know conventional wisdom says check the radar before leaving the dock but let’s be real, Mother Nature can be very unpredictable. I’ve been fishing the lake regularly since 2018 and am lucky I’ve never been caught in one…but I know it’s bound to happen at some point. I’ve been in a pack of boats fishing before & high tailed it to Canadian water to avoid a line of strong storms but it didn’t seem like most of the other boats cared. Is it not that big of a deal to get caught in a storm? I’d be mostly worried about lightening…

Recently got a new boat this spring and have been doing solid on it this season. There is only one problem, the flush mount rod holders are terrible! I want use my old Tite Lock triple rod holder but don’t want to put holes in the boat. Does anyone know a system that could work as an adapter in between the Tite locks and the flush mounts

Thank you
Aroge187

Launched out of Catawba at 630am and went over between G and H cans. Managed to get 90 perch using goldies on crappie rigs. The smaller ones worked best as they didn’t take anything cut or large. Only one sheepshead and one white perch with minimal bugs which was a plus. We caught 85 of the 90 perch on the side of the boat facing west. We did not have to move all morning. Good grade of fish as well. We were done by 1130. Thanks to all who post and hope this helps.

John and Janet, drove in from Missouri yesterday, and made it to Port Clinton around 3:30pm. John called, and said he had some Bison (a roast and some strip steaks), and some homemade salsa for me, and asked if I would come and pick it up, since the little fridge in their room only had a tiny freezer in it. “I’ll be right over”, I said. Heck yeah, I want that! lol Yum!

It gave me a chance to meet them, before our three day trip started, and I knew then, that we would have a good time. They are really nice people. 🙂


John, who is an avid outdoorsman, and fishes and hunts all over the world, had never perch fished before….so, I didn’t want to disappoint, and felt the pressure to get on some. Having not been perch’n a lot, yet, I was a bit nervous, since I had reports saying some did very well, while many others did not. I didn’t want to be one of the “did nots”, this morning.


We launched out of Mazurik’s at 5:45, and headed towards Green Island. I checked the red buoy on the south side of Starve Island first, because that rock pile can sometimes hold a good school of perch…but, they weren’t there, this morning. So, we kept going until we got to the west side of the Ferry lane, then slowed down to get better sonar readings.


When we hit 29 feet of water, the Helix started marking fish on the bottom, so I put the Terrova in the water, but I wasn’t ready to stop yet. I just wanted it down, so when I did find the right fish, I could stop the boat with the big motor, and hit Spot-Loc on top of them. We found better marks in 28 feet of water, and “anchored up”.


After a quick explanation of how to work the crappie rigs, and bait the hooks with minnows, John and Janet got to work. “A dollar for the first yellow?”, I asked, and John said, “I’m in”….so was Janet. Luckily, John caught the first White Perch, but I caught the first yellow…woot! woot!
The crappie rigs are some that I make myself, and the Emerald Shiners came from Hi Way Bait. They are small, but big enough. I used some that were frozen in Wintergreen Rubbing Alcohol, and they used the fresh ones. Both caught fish.


It wasn’t a fast bite, but it wasn’t super slow either. As Janet would comment on the ride home, “The bite was fast enough to keep a person interested”. I didn’t want to go looking for other fish, and potentially lose a good spot, if the bite got better, so we never moved.


We ended up with 48 of our 90 fish limit, but both of them were more than happy with that count…especially, John, because he was planning on cleaning them all himself. “That’s going to take me a couple hours”, he said. I smiled, and shook my head in agreement.


Our time was running out, when some heavy rain was approaching from the SSW, so we headed in. Just as we got back to the dock, the heavy clouds dumped buckets of water down on us…that was fun…(smirk with an eye-roll inserted here).


They mentioned more than once, how much fun they had, so mission accomplished! I had a good time fishing with them, too…and, am looking forward to the next two days fishing for walleye.


Stay tuned….


Capt Juls

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I was thinking about trying some smaller profile crank baits like Little Rippers or Bill Lewis Precise walleye Crank Lights. I was wondering what other fisherman’s thoughts were on this.

Being pretty new to this, I wanted to see if I could catch walleye in late July. I figured I would have to chase them to the east where they have deeper, cooler water. I was going to go to the weather buoy from Vermillion but looking at the NOAA chart, the weather buoy isn’t any deeper than the near east side of Kelly’s. So I launched at Mazurik with my navigation lights on and started fishing about half way up the east side of Kelly’s in 48 fow. We had 2 bandits, 2 small stinger spoons, and 2 crawler harnesses. I just hoped I had enough snap-weight and enough feet back to get down to the fish. We did mark them regularly over there.
After half an hour, about 8 charters flew past us to the north and east, disappearing into the sunrise.
We trolled north, following a 48′ channel south of Kelly’s Island Shoal that eventually wrapped around the east of the shoal, and then north of it. We reached the north of the shoal after a couple hours. By then, we had caught four walleyes – 14″, 15″ and two 16″. And a couple nice eater-sized tasty drum. Bandits and worms did best. The spoons only got 1 drum and 1 white perch.
Then, north of the shoal, we got an 11″ perch on a bandit. So we quit trolling and started perching there, north of Kelly’s Island Shoal. But we got nothing there on minnows with spreaders, except a drum that was too big to eat, another white perch, and a gobie.
We went back to the south and east of the shoal and trolled some more but got nothing else. So we took a lunch break. At 2:30pm, we tried perching SE of Rattlesnake in 31 fow. We got 8 pretty quick, mostly 9s and 10s. Then we joined a dozen other boats perching north, east, and southeast of Green but only picked up 1 there. Then we called it a day.

So Saturday there were perch, just not so many. I fished with friends around G Can Saturday at 3 different spots.
Crew of 4 caught 34 Perch that went 12# at Sassy Sal cleaning. Had a mix of emeralds and Goldies and frozen and vodka emeralds.
We had a “be in by noon” finish time set so we pulled lines just as the breeze picked up around 11:30. Had a side bet of $5
for whichever side of the boat caught the most Perch. Unfortunately, the port side that i was fishing on only mustered 11
compared to the 23 the guys on the starboard side caught. Need a rematch!

Beautiful day on the lake!!

Woke up at 2am, grabbed a cup of coffee, some dog treats, and headed out to the back deck with the dogs, to check the weather.The air was clean and crisp, the stars were shining, and the temp was a comfortable 65 degrees. The wind was absent, so I checked the iWindSurf app, to see what it was doing, and would be doing this morning.
It showed light winds out of the SSE last night and through the morning hours, so that would help knock down the NE rollers from yesterday’s wind.


Joe and Val are local, so they planned on meeting me at the launch, this morning. I asked them to meet me in Huron, because it was closer to the fish that I was on, Monday, and I had heard the fish were still there, yesterday, so I didn’t want to launch from Mazurik’s if there were still NE rollers out there. I’d rather drive the truck that distance, and launch over there….go out 4 miles, and set lines, than running 13 miles from Mazurik’s. The truck gas is less expensive. 😉


I told them to meet me at 5:45.
At 5am, they passed me on the highway, and I was 45 minutes early! I wanted to add a bead to the 4 dipsey lines, to keep customers from reeling the snap swivel up into the tip, while I waited for them (so they got to watch me do it).
That can cut the guide, which in turn can cut the braid…making one lose an entire dipsey set up.
If I hadn’t thought of it, while I was drifting off to sleep last night, I would have done it yesterday. But, it was still dark out, so we had lots of time to waste.


I was early enough to get the spot under the light, up by the bathrooms, so I could see what I was doing, while cutting lines, adding a bead, and retying. It didn’t take very long, and was done just in time to get the boat launched, before it got busy.


We headed out of the river at 5:45, to a beautiful scenic view of the lighthouse, lit by a morning sky in the background. The Sunrise wasn’t happening for another 35 minutes, so we had time to get to the area near the Huron Dump, before the Sun would show itself. It was beautiful this morning. 🙂


The lake had some residual small NE rollers still, so the ride out was slower than normal, but it wasn’t bad. Once we hit 39 feet of water, we came off plane and started marking fish. The bow mount and the kicker were deployed after the FishHawk was, and synced together… to maintain a speed of 2.3-2.5mph.


Once again, the baby Spro (85s) were set behind Off Shore boards, (because, that’s what I had on the last time out)…with 2oz Guppie weights, and run at 50/75, 50/67, 50/50, and 50/47.
Colors were:
Chrome Perch
Purple Glass Perch
Blue/Chrome
and, one I don’t know the name of, but it’s purplish-perch on its back and has a white belly


The dipsies ran the usual zero settings on the two inside rods, at 50 and 54 back…sporting BadMo Arrow spoons (smaller ones).
The two setting on the starboard side ran at 65 back, and had a Yeck Spoon (D-11)
The three setting on the port side ran at 75 back, and fished a spoon Val picked out. It looks something like Veggies on the back and had a pink belly.


The largest of the fish came on the spoon Val picked, (it may have gone 3 1/2-4 pounds, I think), so she was pretty happy about that. She said it was the biggest walleye she’s ever caught. In fact, she caught the top three best fish in the cooler this morning. lol


We had to go through a ton of itty-bitty walleye, white perch, white bass, and sheephead to get to our 18 fish limit, but we did it. I showed them how important it is to keep checking the dipsies, because if they aren’t doing something, there is probably a little fish on it. It didn’t take long for them to learn how to reset the dipsies, and get them fishing again. Val really liked them, and I know they will fish them more on their boat now, because they both did a great job handling them.


Joe gained plenty of experience with the Off Shore boards, by learning how to set them, and has more confidence now, to use them on their own boat. They have some, they just weren’t sure how best to use them. Now, they do.


Today’s best direction for us was from west to east, or SW to NE…every other direction was mostly junk fish, and a slower bite.


I’m off tomorrow, but then back at it Monday, for a three day trip, with a couple from Missouri (I think). They want to chase Perch and Walleye next week, so I’m really looking forward to the perch’n. Did I ever tell you, that I LOVE perch fishing? heheh


Stay tuned….


Capt Juls

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Was fishing in the maumee river this week and caught two 20 inch walleye. Didn’t expect that as everyone else was catching catfish. How common is it ?