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I took my neighbors Dave and Danielle, and our friend Keith out as a “Thank you” for letting me use his truck this past week to tow the boat for my trips. My truck has an issue that should be fixed Monday morning. Fingers crossed!

Anyway…

We didn’t go to Huron, and launched out of Catawba instead. There was rain in the forecast that would be showing up in about three hours, so we didn’t want to waste any time driving and get that time on the water.

I had gotten a report of a large school of fish near the cans, so we went to check it out. The report was right. We didn’t go far from the launch before I said, “We are marking fish…let’s fish”. So, we got the dipsies and Bill Lewis PWC Lites in the water and started catching right away.

Zero dipsies set at 20 and 25, and the three settings at 40 back started catching right away, so it took a few minutes before we got the cranks out behind the Off Shore boards.

The PWC’s were set at a total of line out at 60 (2), 65, and 74 back. The 2oz snap weights were all put on at the 50 mark. Same colors I’ve been using in Huron…”Purple Tiger”, “Green Tiger”, and Red Tiger”….all caught fish.

We also caught some Sheephead, White Bass, and White Perch, along with some short walleye that we threw back. I was watching the radar the entire time, because the system that was moving in was expanding as it neared the lake, and the colors were going from green (just rain) to orange, yellow, and red (heavy rain). I was watching for lightning strikes on the Radar as it moved in, and when it showed some, I said, “It’s time to head in”.

We had 12 nice eaters in the cooler in about an hour and a half, but had caught a lot more than that with the junk fish and shorts, so it was a fun morning.

A funny tidbit was my favorite pair of pliers disappeared, and I thought they went overboard…we looked everywhere, but they were gone. I could only suspect that someone accidentally sent them overboard when a line that was being reset quickly got tangled in them. I know this can happen, because I did it myself earlier this year on a pair of pliers I didn’t really like. lol
However, out of the 4 pairs I had on the boat, that is the one I used all the time, so it made me sad. I kept saying they went overboard, and Keith kept saying, “I don’t think so, I think I would have heard them go in the water”. I just shook my head.

After we got in, we decided to go to Casa Las Palmas for breakfast, and while were standing at the door waiting to be seated, Keith was digging in his pockets and then pulled out my favorite pair of pliers! He didn’t realize he stuck them in the deep pocket and didn’t feel them until then. Ha! I was so happy! 🙂

We were lucky we got off the water when we did, because it rained hard, and there was some lightning while we were eating breakfast.

It was a fun morning, and it felt good to just go “fun fishing” with friends…everyone had a good time, including me! 🙂

My next trip is scheduled for Wednesday, with a previous customer from years ago, whose dad would drive his twin boys to the launch, and send them off with me to go fishing, and then pick them up when we got back. Unfortunately, their Dad died of COVID a few years ago, and his twin can’t make it, so his Mom is going to go fishing with him this time. They were mid to late teens when I first started taking them, and I fished with them 3 times, I think, so now he’s got to be in his early 20s.
Tuesday is their preferred day to go, but it looks like the NNE wind will still be gusting on Tuesday, and Wednesday looks calm, so if Tuesday’s forecast changes, we will go tomorrow; but if it doesn’t, we will go Wednesday. I’m pretty positive it’s going to be a Wednesday trip, though.

Stay tuned….

Capt Juls

Attached Images

    

Chris contacted me yesterday afternoon, after I got home from fishing, and asked if I still had Friday open, and I told him I did, so we set up a meeting time at Huron for this morning. I asked them to be there between 5 and 5:15a.m.

I was up early again and managed to get the kitchen clean, gardens watered, dogs fed, cat fed, showered, emails returned, and messages answered before walking out the door at 3:45.

I hit the gas station for some ice and headed to Huron. I would be early, but I needed that time to clean the boat a little. It was too hot to do it when I got home yesterday, so I took advantage of the 81-degree temp at 4:30 a.m. to do it.

I only had to do the windshield and get the fish slime off the black 400. Only one side gets the fish slime from the netting process, whereas the other side is just water spots and wipes off easily. Fish slime takes a little more elbow grease to remove it.
The windshield just had some bugs on it from the ride over, so that was easy enough.

Chris and his Dad Jeff showed up at 5:10, and we launched. The ramp was busier than it had been at that time of the morning for the last few days. This morning, there were probably 8-10 boats launching at 5:15.

As we headed out the river, we talked about the program I’m running, and they told me how they hired me, because they wanted to learn to troll. They have only done drift casting with their own boat. It’s not really set up for trolling, so Chris wanted to see how I troll and what gear I use to make my trolling more efficient, so he could take some ideas back and implement them on his own boat.

We didn’t go far before I shut the Black Mama-Jama down and deployed the Ulterra and baby Merc. While the Ulterra kept us on course, I let the kicker warm up, and I put the FishHawk down to 18′. Then, I adjusted the iTroll controller to get the kicker’s speed up to 2.5mph.

We started in 25′ of water, with good marks….Like I have the past several days out, but this time they were mostly White Perch, Sheephead, and White Bass, with a couple of walleye mixed in. The past few days, by the time we were near the south side of the dump, there would be 2 limits in the cooler already. This morning, we had 7. They were kept busy with removing undesirables from the lines and resetting the lines.

I showed them how to use the dipsies and set them out. Short rod on the inside (furthest rod holder to the rear), and the long rod on the outside, and how to get the outside rod set without tangling in the inside rod line.

The inside rods ran dipsies on the zero setting, and the outside rods ran on three settings.
Zero settings started at 25 and 27 back. As the sun rose and we traveled over deeper water, they were lowered to 33 and 41 back.
The three settings started at 40 and 50 back, and then lowered to 64 and 82.

Bill Lewis PWC Lites ran behind the Off Shore boards with 2oz snap-weights…leads were:
50/100, 50/85, 50/80, and 50/75. (Put the weight on at the 50 mark, and then the second number is the total amount of line out, before you put the board on).
Colors used were:
“Purple Tiger” (2 of them)
“Green Tiger”
“Red Tiger”
They all caught fish.

When we got to the top of the Huron Dump, I turned the Vexus east-northeast for a bit, before turning back around to go back over our trail. Sometimes, it’s just a directional issue, and I wanted to see if they would bite better going back the other way.

I got off course, though, when some boats showed up right at the moment my Ulterra remote said, “I’m done. I need new batteries”. I had to quickly change them out, so I could operate the motor. I had a boat heading straight on at me, and I needed to turn to starboard. Luckily, it happened, so the crisis was averted. Whew!
Thankfully, I keep a lot of extra batteries in the boat, and have them handy at all times.
Yes, I know, I could have turned the big motor on to control direction….but, it’s still a panicky/icky feeling when you see something out of your control, and there’s a big boat in front of you. 😉
All is well…

I let Chris and his Dad set lines as I watched and gave instruction when needed, so they could remember how to do it more easily. People only learn when they can actually do it for themselves, and figure it out. Chris and Jeff certainly did that. I wanted them to do everything together, because they fish together, so they also netted each other’s fish, which was funny to watch. The only advice I gave them was, “Use the net like a shovel and not a pool skimmer when you reach for the fish”. After they started doing that, they got the fish in easily. 🙂

After the remote mishap, we were headed from east to west over 38′ of water, and just kept going. We picked a walleye here and there and more junk fish.
The marks on the Garmin were getting fewer… and what looked like bugs coming up were showing on the screen instead. So, I turned the boat north to start a turn to go back. We had trolled maybe a 1/4 mile when one of the planer boards went floating away after it released from the front clip. One of them had not properly secured the line on the Snapper release before letting it out.

We picked up all the dipsies and brought the boards in, then headed back to where it floated away. It was a pretty calm morning, so it was easy to find. I don’t think the wind ever got over 10mph at any time this morning. After picking up the board, I just turned the boat to the east, which was the plan in the first place, so that board floating away right when it did was pretty fortuitous, because we hit a frenzy of bites as soon as we got set up. I wouldn’t have hit that area in my turn if we had kept going.

We set the dipsies out and got the planer boards out, and they suddenly went bonkers.
“Fish on the inside dipsey”, “Fish on the outside board”, “Fish on the inside board opposite side”, Fish on the other board now, too”, “There goes the other dipsey”. lol They thought that was great and were giggling throughout the chaos. We put the last fish in the cooler and headed in. They got their limits this morning, and I reeled in mine too.

It was getting hot out, and I knew it was going to be even hotter when we got back on land. The good news is, there were no bugs out this morning. That would have been miserable, as humid as it was. They would be sticking to every inch of exposed skin…ick.

The water temp out there was 79 degrees on the surface and 18′ down. The water is getting hot now, too.

I’m off tomorrow, but will be fishing with my neighbors Danielle and Dave, and our friend Keith (whose boat we sometimes take instead of mine) on Sunday.

My truck goes into the shop on Monday. Dave has been generously letting me use his truck for the past several trips, so I wouldn’t blow mine up before I can get it fixed. Thanks, Dave! 🙂

Stay tuned…

Capt Juls

Attached Images

  

We fished today, Thursday NE of Kelly’s near old C can.Got an early start to beat the heat.Fished from 6-8am and sorted at 18″ again.Just the two of us fished today so ran 4 dipseys.Had 2 monkey puke spoons,spoon harness and a double Willow harness out.The 3 settings were set from 60-70 and one setting 45-55.First hour the spoons caught equal to worms but second hour the keeper walleye preferred the worms so changed to an extra spoon harness.Speed 2.2-2.5 mph.Nothing big today.Our 12 weighed 30 lbs.Was able to close up the boat before it got too hot,so had another great day.

I had gone to bed earlier than usual and slept until 1 a.m. The dogs and I went out to the back deck to check the weather forecast for the day. The air was thick and muggy, and the air temp was already 81 degrees. The sky was partly cloudy. The wind was less than 10mph out of the SW.

Thankfully, Gary told me he and the boys would meet me early at the Huron ramp. I had told him 5:15, because of how dark it still is at 5am, but they showed up at 4:50, so we waited around and chatted a little before launching.

Matthew is 13 years old, and Milo is 10. Both looked like fishermen to me, so I was looking forward to the morning. Gary is their grandpa, and has his own 22′ boat, but it’s in the shop right now, and he wanted to get the boys out on the water, so he hired me. I’m glad he did, too! Those boys were awesome in the boat!

Matthew played “First Mate” after a quick refresher course on setting dipsies. He’s run them before, but it’s been a little while, and it didn’t take very long for him to start doing it on his own.

Milo, he was watching the rods like a Hawk and was often the first one to the rod. He did great with both the dipsies and the boards. He didn’t set any boards, but his brother did. He did set the dipsies, though. I was really impressed by both of them.
Grandpa takes them fishing a lot. 🙂

We headed out of the Huron River at 5:15 and headed back to the same area I have been fishing the past two weeks….but, it’s expanding. There are fish in close and out by the dump, and deeper, so there’s a lot of water to choose from to catch fish.

We ran the same program I’ve been running over there the past two weeks.

Two dipsies off each back corner… the inside rod is set on zero, and the longer outside rod is set on the three setting. Leads were the zero setting at 25 and 27 back, in shallower water (24-25′). and then dropped to 33 and 47 back over 39′-42′ of water.

The three settings started at 47 and 50 back, then dropped to 64 and 72 back over deeper water.

Speed was 2.5-2.9 on the FishHawk.

We caught fish going from directions south to north, west to east, and north to south. The bite was best very early, and as the sun got higher, the bite slowed down for us, but it was still steady enough to keep it fun.

The Bill Lewis PWC Lites did fantastic behind the Off Shore boards this morning, too. I only ran two boards per side; even though I could have run 4, I wanted to keep it simple for the boys, and it worked out.
I started out with the PWCs on the starboard side and the Flicker Minnow 11s on the port side, but took the Flickers off eventually and replaced them with more PWCs.

The best lead for the PWC Lites was 50/30 and 50/35 with a 2oz snap weight. The best colors were the “Purple Tiger” and “Green Tiger”. I ended up running 3 Purple Tigers and 1 Green Tiger. All of them were catching fish. The larger fish came on the cranks over the spoons, though.

It was a beautiful morning to be on the water. We caught fish and got off the water before it got too hot out.
They all said they had a great time, and that makes me happy!
Spending time with their Grandpa, and doing fun stuff…that’s what it’s all about. Memories made. 🙂

Tomorrow…hmmmm…
Well, at this point in time, I may or may not have a trip tomorrow. I’m waiting at the moment for a decision from them.

If I don’t have a trip, friends want me to go with them, so I’ll be fishing either way. 🙂

Stay tuned….

Capt Juls

Attached Images

     

WSW wind today, set up west of the Huron dump, basically due north of those big white condos at the start of the CP causeway, figuring to drift toward the dump. 35 feet deep to start. drift took us east, and water got gradually deeper.

The fish started hitting at 36-37 foot depth, then slowed at 39 foot, early. We did 3 long drifts hitting the same line, same depth changes, active pod moved a little deeper as sun got higher and temps went up, so 38-39 became the good water depth as it warmed up, and though it was hot, no bugs got to us.

Drifted and cast harnesses. mayfly color (peach beads, silver blade) got a lot of love and chartreuse beads w/copper blades did well too. Fish were in bottom 10 feet of water.

Chris contacted me yesterday afternoon, after I got home from fishing, and asked if I still had Friday open, and I told him I did, so we set up a meeting time at Huron for this morning. I asked them to be there between 5 and 5:15a.m.

I was up early again and managed to get the kitchen clean, gardens watered, dogs fed, cat fed, showered, emails returned, and messages answered before walking out the door at 3:45.

I hit the gas station for some ice and headed to Huron. I would be early, but I needed that time to clean the boat a little. It was too hot to do it when I got home yesterday, so I took advantage of the 81-degree temp at 4:30 a.m. to do it.

I only had to do the windshield and get the fish slime off the black 400. Only one side gets the fish slime from the netting process, whereas the other side is just water spots and wipes off easily. Fish slime takes a little more elbow grease to remove it.
The windshield just had some bugs on it from the ride over, so that was easy enough.

Chris and his Dad Jeff showed up at 5:10, and we launched. The ramp was busier than it had been at that time of the morning for the last few days. This morning, there were probably 8-10 boats launching at 5:15.

As we headed out the river, we talked about the program I’m running, and they told me how they hired me, because they wanted to learn to troll. They have only done drift casting with their own boat. It’s not really set up for trolling, so Chris wanted to see how I troll and what gear I use to make my trolling more efficient, so he could take some ideas back and implement them on his own boat.

We didn’t go far before I shut the Black Mama-Jama down and deployed the Ulterra and baby Merc. While the Ulterra kept us on course, I let the kicker warm up, and I put the FishHawk down to 18′. Then, I adjusted the iTroll controller to get the kicker’s speed up to 2.5mph.

We started in 25′ of water, with good marks….Like I have the past several days out, but this time they were mostly White Perch, Sheephead, and White Bass, with a couple of walleye mixed in. The past few days, by the time we were near the south side of the dump, there would be 2 limits in the cooler already. This morning, we had 7. They were kept busy with removing undesirables from the lines and resetting the lines.

I showed them how to use the dipsies and set them out. Short rod on the inside (furthest rod holder to the rear), and the long rod on the outside, and how to get the outside rod set without tangling in the inside rod line.

The inside rods ran dipsies on the zero setting, and the outside rods ran on three settings.
Zero settings started at 25 and 27 back. As the sun rose and we traveled over deeper water, they were lowered to 33 and 41 back.
The three settings started at 40 and 50 back, and then lowered to 64 and 82.

Bill Lewis PWC Lites ran behind the Off Shore boards with 2oz snap-weights…leads were:
50/100, 50/85, 50/80, and 50/75. (Put the weight on at the 50 mark, and then the second number is the total amount of line out, before you put the board on).
Colors used were:
“Purple Tiger” (2 of them)
“Green Tiger”
“Red Tiger”
They all caught fish.

When we got to the top of the Huron Dump, I turned the Vexus east-northeast for a bit, before turning back around to go back over our trail. Sometimes, it’s just a directional issue, and I wanted to see if they would bite better going back the other way.

I got off course, though, when some boats showed up right at the moment my Ulterra remote said, “I’m done. I need new batteries”. I had to quickly change them out, so I could operate the motor. I had a boat heading straight on at me, and I needed to turn to starboard. Luckily, it happened, so the crisis was averted. Whew!
Thankfully, I keep a lot of extra batteries in the boat, and have them handy at all times.
Yes, I know, I could have turned the big motor on to control direction….but, it’s still a panicky/icky feeling when you see something out of your control, and there’s a big boat in front of you. 😉
All is well…

I let Chris and his Dad set lines as I watched and gave instruction when needed, so they could remember how to do it more easily. People only learn when they can actually do it for themselves, and figure it out. Chris and Jeff certainly did that. I wanted them to do everything together, because they fish together, so they also netted each other’s fish, which was funny to watch. The only advice I gave them was, “Use the net like a shovel and not a pool skimmer when you reach for the fish”. After they started doing that, they got the fish in easily. 🙂

After the remote mishap, we were headed from east to west over 38′ of water, and just kept going. We picked a walleye here and there and more junk fish.
The marks on the Garmin were getting fewer… and what looked like bugs coming up were showing on the screen instead. So, I turned the boat north to start a turn to go back. We had trolled maybe a 1/4 mile when one of the planer boards went floating away after it released from the front clip. One of them had not properly secured the line on the Snapper release before letting it out.

We picked up all the dipsies and brought the boards in, then headed back to where it floated away. It was a pretty calm morning, so it was easy to find. I don’t think the wind ever got over 10mph at any time this morning. After picking up the board, I just turned the boat to the east, which was the plan in the first place, so that board floating away right when it did was pretty fortuitous, because we hit a frenzy of bites as soon as we got set up. I wouldn’t have hit that area in my turn if we had kept going.

We set the dipsies out and got the planer boards out, and they suddenly went bonkers.
“Fish on the inside dipsey”, “Fish on the outside board”, “Fish on the inside board opposite side”, Fish on the other board now, too”, “There goes the other dipsey”. lol They thought that was great and were giggling throughout the chaos. We put the last fish in the cooler and headed in. They got their limits this morning, and I reeled in mine too.

It was getting hot out, and I knew it was going to be even hotter when we got back on land. The good news is, there were no bugs out this morning. That would have been miserable, as humid as it was. They would be sticking to every inch of exposed skin…ick.

The water temp out there was 79 degrees on the surface and 18′ down. The water is getting hot now, too.

I’m off tomorrow, but will be fishing with my neighbors Danielle and Dave, and our friend Keith (whose boat we sometimes take instead of mine) on Sunday.

My truck goes into the shop on Monday. Dave has been generously letting me use his truck for the past several trips, so I wouldn’t blow mine up before I can get it fixed. Thanks, Dave! 🙂

Stay tuned…

Capt Juls

Attached Images

  

We fished today, Thursday NE of Kelly’s near old C can.Got an early start to beat the heat.Fished from 6-8am and sorted at 18″ again.Just the two of us fished today so ran 4 dipseys.Had 2 monkey puke spoons,spoon harness and a double Willow harness out.The 3 settings were set from 60-70 and one setting 45-55.First hour the spoons caught equal to worms but second hour the keeper walleye preferred the worms so changed to an extra spoon harness.Speed 2.2-2.5 mph.Nothing big today.Our 12 weighed 30 lbs.Was able to close up the boat before it got too hot,so had another great day.

I had gone to bed earlier than usual and slept until 1 a.m. The dogs and I went out to the back deck to check the weather forecast for the day. The air was thick and muggy, and the air temp was already 81 degrees. The sky was partly cloudy. The wind was less than 10mph out of the SW.

Thankfully, Gary told me he and the boys would meet me early at the Huron ramp. I had told him 5:15, because of how dark it still is at 5am, but they showed up at 4:50, so we waited around and chatted a little before launching.

Matthew is 13 years old, and Milo is 10. Both looked like fishermen to me, so I was looking forward to the morning. Gary is their grandpa, and has his own 22′ boat, but it’s in the shop right now, and he wanted to get the boys out on the water, so he hired me. I’m glad he did, too! Those boys were awesome in the boat!

Matthew played “First Mate” after a quick refresher course on setting dipsies. He’s run them before, but it’s been a little while, and it didn’t take very long for him to start doing it on his own.

Milo, he was watching the rods like a Hawk and was often the first one to the rod. He did great with both the dipsies and the boards. He didn’t set any boards, but his brother did. He did set the dipsies, though. I was really impressed by both of them.
Grandpa takes them fishing a lot. 🙂

We headed out of the Huron River at 5:15 and headed back to the same area I have been fishing the past two weeks….but, it’s expanding. There are fish in close and out by the dump, and deeper, so there’s a lot of water to choose from to catch fish.

We ran the same program I’ve been running over there the past two weeks.

Two dipsies off each back corner… the inside rod is set on zero, and the longer outside rod is set on the three setting. Leads were the zero setting at 25 and 27 back, in shallower water (24-25′). and then dropped to 33 and 47 back over 39′-42′ of water.

The three settings started at 47 and 50 back, then dropped to 64 and 72 back over deeper water.

Speed was 2.5-2.9 on the FishHawk.

We caught fish going from directions south to north, west to east, and north to south. The bite was best very early, and as the sun got higher, the bite slowed down for us, but it was still steady enough to keep it fun.

The Bill Lewis PWC Lites did fantastic behind the Off Shore boards this morning, too. I only ran two boards per side; even though I could have run 4, I wanted to keep it simple for the boys, and it worked out.
I started out with the PWCs on the starboard side and the Flicker Minnow 11s on the port side, but took the Flickers off eventually and replaced them with more PWCs.

The best lead for the PWC Lites was 50/30 and 50/35 with a 2oz snap weight. The best colors were the “Purple Tiger” and “Green Tiger”. I ended up running 3 Purple Tigers and 1 Green Tiger. All of them were catching fish. The larger fish came on the cranks over the spoons, though.

It was a beautiful morning to be on the water. We caught fish and got off the water before it got too hot out.
They all said they had a great time, and that makes me happy!
Spending time with their Grandpa, and doing fun stuff…that’s what it’s all about. Memories made. 🙂

Tomorrow…hmmmm…
Well, at this point in time, I may or may not have a trip tomorrow. I’m waiting at the moment for a decision from them.

If I don’t have a trip, friends want me to go with them, so I’ll be fishing either way. 🙂

Stay tuned….

Capt Juls

Attached Images

     

WSW wind today, set up west of the Huron dump, basically due north of those big white condos at the start of the CP causeway, figuring to drift toward the dump. 35 feet deep to start. So the drift took us east, and water got gradually deeper.
The fish started hitting at 36-37 foot depth, then slowed at 39 foot, early. We did 3 long drifts hitting the same line, same depth changes, active pod moved a little deeper as sun got higher and temps went up, so 38-39 became the good water depth as it warmed up, and though it was hot, no bugs got to us. 2 man limit by 10:30.
Drifted and cast harnesses. Mayfly color (peach beads, silver blade) got love and chartreuse beads w/copper blades did well too. Fish were in bottom 10 feet of water.

WSW wind today, set up west of the Huron dump, basically due north of those big white condos at the start of the CP causeway, figuring to drift toward the dump. 35 feet deep to start. drift took us east, and water got gradually deeper.

The fish started hitting at 36-37 foot depth, then slowed at 39 foot, early. We did 3 long drifts hitting the same line, same depth changes, active pod moved a little deeper as sun got higher and temps went up, so 38-39 became the good water depth as it warmed up, and though it was hot, no bugs got to us.

Drifted and cast harnesses. mayfly color (peach beads, silver blade) got a lot of love and chartreuse beads w/copper blades did well too. Fish were in bottom 10 feet of water.