If you’ve been reading my fishing reports over the past 15 years, you already know the morning routine…grab a cup of coffee, a couple of dog treats, and take the dogs out on the back deck to check the morning’s forecast.
I knew there was a chance of showers for the morning, but the thunderstorms were predicted to show up by mid to late afternoon today. RadarScope was showing some sprinkles scattered throughout NW Ohio and over to Illinois. My plan was to launch at Huron this morning, so when looking at the radar image, it looked like everything would miss that area…I was relieved.
The wind forecast was perfect. Light winds out of the SE…the lake would be 1 foot or less where I wanted to fish. The sky was cloudy, so the full(ish) moon wasn’t able to shine on the lake overnight, and maybe those night-feeding walleye would be hungrier this morning. The air temp was 74 degrees.
Bill’s wife Lana had called me and set up this trip for them. Initially, it was supposed to be herself, Bill, and their son (either Bennett or Brock, I don’t know which one), but yesterday she said that their other son would be taking her place in the boat. So, I had Bill, Brock, and Bennett this morning.
I picked them up from the Whitecaps Motel at 5:00. We headed to the gas station for some ice for the coolers, then hit the highway. We were Huron bound. We arrived at the launch at 5:40, and I got the boat ready to launch. The Vexus was headed out the river at 5:50a.m. It was still pretty dark, and there was no one else there launching at the time, which surprised me since it was a Saturday, and it was going to be a nice day.
I knew the lake would be calm enough to take a comfortable ride up towards Lorain from Huron. I didn’t want to use Vermilion’s launch, because I thought it might get busy, and it’s a very tight launch site. Huron’s is so much better, so we went out of Huron. I was right; the ride was fun, and it was easy. Even though we could have gone fast, I didn’t want to because, first and foremost, the big 400 drinks more gas the faster it goes. I kept it at 30-35 mph on the way up, because if a big log shows up…I would have time to see it and react.
We went about 13 miles before stopping over some fish the Garmin was marking. “This looks like a good place to start”, I said. I deployed the Ulterra, which always gets approval from my customers who have never seen one deploy on its own before, and the Baby Merc. The Ulterra was set on a course towards the Lorain Dump. We were SSW of the bottom of it and over a good contour on the map.
Our water depth where we started was 46′. You’ll be able to see the line I was on if you enlarge the Garmin screen behind Bennett in his big fish pic. 😉
We made one long pass towards the dump, turned and headed a bit north for a bit, then turned the boat completely around to head back over the same fish we had just gone over. The bite became faster going that way than going the other direction. We had their 3-person limit in the cooler by 9:15. My 6 were in the cooler by 9:45.
None of them have ever fished with linecounter reels, dipsies, or planer boards before, but were excited to learn it. I showed them how everything works, how to set dipsies, attach the snap-weights and Off Shore boards, and explained the must-do’s for each.
Dipsies HAVE to go down with the “Clicker” (tension) ON. The reason being, if it’s free-spooled, it will dive too fast, and the leader will get wrapped around the dipsey, making it useless.
For the snap-weight, the line must be behind the pin in the center of the OR-16 (red clip), so it doesn’t come off the line until you take it off.
The Snapper release on the back of the Off Shore board must be secured with the pin pointing down in front of the release (not back and pointing up), because once the front arm is released from the main line, the board swings around and is only secured to the line by the Snapper release. If the release is attached wrong, there is a chance that the line could come out of it… and then we would have to reel everything back in and go chase a board. That’s never fun.
The guys did a great job today and had a fun time. This was their first time catching walleye. The teeth were a subject of conversation a few times this morning.
Brock was promoted to “First Mate” since he caught on quite easily, and between the two of us, we could keep enough lines in the water to keep the catching going.
Bennett had the lucky touch and caught the two biggest fish…a 25 1/2 and 27 inch walleye, so he was happy.
What worked…
Dipseis…early on, I had the port side zero setting at 28 back. The starboard side was set at 50 back. The “28 back”, on an Orange Yeck spoon, caught the 27-incher that Bennett reeled in. Eventually, the port side was set to 50, and the starboard side was set to 60 back.
The three setting on the port side ran at 70-75 back, and the starboard side ran at 80-85 back. BadMo, Yeck, and Scorpion spoons were used. I don’t think color really matters over there right now. If it wiggles and passes by them, they will eat it.
Ran the same Bill Lewis PWC Lite program I ran yesterday. 2 oz snap-weights at 50/47 (97 total line out), 50/25 on the port side. On the starboard side, they ran 50/43 and 50/30.
Speed was 2.5 mph on the FishHawk.
The bite was better today than it was up by the Weather Buoy yesterday. The fish weren’t tight to the bottom like yesterday, either, so that helped. The quality of fish was better than I expected…and that made me happy!
My perch trip for tomorrow has been rescheduled to Tuesday, due to a forecast of gusty NE winds.
The dogs will be happy…:)
Stay tuned….
Capt Juls
