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Launched out of hot waters at 6am and headed NW to 40′ of water. Trolled straight north about 7 miles. Caught 12 keepers using bandits set at 60′ back unassisted, 50/30 w/2 oz snap weight, and 50/45 w/2 oz snap weight on each side. We turned around and made the same path again and got 12 more. Carrot top took 75% of the fish with sprinkles and blue shiner taking the rest. Nice grade of fish today with 2 fish O’s one of which was 31″. Speed was between 1.9-2.3. Beautiful sunrise this morning as well!

Harold, and his son, Jim, drove over from Iowa to fish with me, again. They had a good time last year, and I did, too. This past two days were even more fun than last year, even though the fish didn’t cooperate as well as they did last year, on this same weekend.

Wanting to stay away from crowded areas, I opted to take a ride to an area up on the line, west of the islands. The wind forecast was calling for winds less than 3 mph for the morning, but that wasn’t the case, early on. We launched out of Catawba at 5:30, even though there was a SW wind pushing waves into the docks…something I prefer not to do…and headed north, up to the line.


There were a lot of good fish marks, but there was also a huge Mayfly hatch emerging from the bottom, and halfway up the water column. My hopes for a great bite, diminished…knowing, I should probably pull out the crawler harnesses, and slow down. But, we ran cranks behind Off Shore boards, and spoons on dipsies for the first three hours. We caught a couple keepers, some sheephead, and a handful of shorts, before I decided it was going to be best to move to a new area, with less food for them to gorge on, and try crawlers.


We moved down in-between Lucy’s and Gull, and started marking fish, so we set up. The harnesses were all weighted with 2oz inline weights, and set between 40 and 80 back, at a speed of 1.6-1.7 on the FishHawk. We started to pick up fish at a faster rate than running the cranks and spoons, so my guys were happy with that. We only caught 7 keepers yesterday, and maybe if I hadn’t waited so long to make the decision to switch up presentations, and area, we probably would have limited. Who knows…
The bite seemed to get better around the time we had to head in.


We got back to the launch to find that my Vexus Trailer’s tire had a roofing nail in the sidewall, and would have to be replaced. Jim was kind enough to remove the tire and put the spare on for me (Thanks, Jim!)
I took it over to Wieland’s Auto and Marine. While Jim was changing the tire, I called Matt and told him what happened, and he said, “I think I have a tire that size in the shop”. I drove over, and he had one….whew!
Matt put the new tire on in about 10 minutes, and now that tire is the spare tire. (Thanks, Matt!)


When I got home yesterday, my routine involves plugging in the boat batteries… and, to make a long story short…I forgot to plug them in overnight. I sent a text to Jim and told him what happened, and that it would be a later start this morning.
They were fine with that, because they could sleep in, and get a breakfast, before meeting me.


Alfie, my dog, was happy that it was a late start, because he got to go for a walk…and, smell stuff, before I left for the day.
By 7:30, the charger read 50% on the trolling motor batteries. That would be enough, if I kept the power level on the Terrova at 4, instead of 5, and didn’t do any speed bursts with it.


We launched out of Mazurik’s at 8am. The wind was around 8-10mph out of the SE, so the waves on the east side of Kelly’s were 2 foot or less.


Water temp was 66.8 degrees.

We set up with the same program as yesterday, and pulled a keeper in the first 15 minutes, but it would be a while before the next one would come. The fish marks were tight to the bottom, but every so often they would be low to mid-column, and we would catch one here and one there. It wasn’t a fast bite, but it was consistent enough to keep everyone interested and enjoying the day. The highlight of the day was when Jim caught a nice 28″ fish, and was all smiles. 🙂


Luckily, there were no hiccups in my routine today…the boat is plugged in, gassed up, and ready to go again. But, tomorrow’s trip has been rescheduled to next Sunday, because he’s a “Fair weather fisherman”, and tomorrow morning is calling for showers and scattered thunderstorms, most of the morning. But, I didn’t water my garden, so it will probably miss us now. 😉


I’ll be back out next week….starting on Monday.


Stay tuned….


Capt Juls

Attached Images

It was my first time fishing the islands. We headed north out of Mazurik until we hit 30′ or so. If you haven’t seen Mazurik, it is awesome! Bathrooms with sinks, cleaning station that is all lit up even at 4:30am when no one is around. Nice docks and ramps and parking. I hope it’s free because I didn’t see anywhere to pay.

Anyway, we marked a few fish there between Kelly’s and S. Bass so we put down our lines and trolled north. We were the first ones on the water this morning. Had all 6 lines in before 5am. Could barely see our planer boards. I was excited to get that early start for once. I figured walleye would be jumping onto our lines in the twilight. Not so much.

There were solid marks on the screen, suspended like they were hungry. But they were far and few between, especially compared to what we marked a week ago over by B can. We really didn’t know where to go in this area. As the dawn began to break, some other boats came. The charters all passed by us, going to Middle Island, but we just kept trolling where we started. We were trolling north, though. Eventually, a few boats started fishing around us, figuring we must be there for a reason. No, not really. Sorry, guys!

After a couple hours, we eventually reached the heard of 35 boats up around the Canadian border. We marked fish up there more frequently but they weren’t biting. We had 4 bandits out, and two crawler harnesses. 1 oz weights on the harnesses but bandits unassisted. Tried depths of 70 to 120 back. Tried every color combination, adding more chrome as the sun got higher in the sky. We tried speeds between 1.7 and 2.4. Over the course of the morning we graphed hundreds of solid, suspended fish but they weren’t hungry. I’m sure everyone else limited out by 9am but not us. We called it a day in mid afternoon with only 4 keepers.

I always use swivel snaps on my crankbaits to try to keep twist out of the line. My buddy likes to use what they call a crankbait clip which does not have a swivel. Is there one that’s better than the other or is it just personal preference?

Going to try SE of G can, with some shiners, spreaders and no bling. Thursday and Friday is looking good, will bring some crawlers to do some drifting if the gold will not get it on.

Gut pile reports coming soon too.

Be safe,
Water Dog

Fished Sun-Thurs this past week, unfortunately a snafu with our reservation caused us to leave Friday rather than Saturday but still a great week. We’re generally later than most getting out, so everything here was probably not wetting a line until at least 8:30. Group of 7 all trolling 40 Tru-Trips with spoons all week.

Started off Sunday around Starve just off the North and East edges in 22-23′, and out boat of 3 had our 18 in around 2 hours. The other 2 boats took a bit longer, but managed to get theirs as well so a full 7 man limit for the day.

Monday started in the same place, but it was a bit slow for our liking so we headed around 3/4 mile West of the NW Corner of Kellys in 28-29′ and found a good pocket of fish. Had to sort through some shorts, but again all 3 boats managed to limit before Noon.

Tuesday based on some intel from another group staying at the same motel, we switched it up and ran out of Catabwa up between D & E cans. Large group of boats but they were fairly spread out, and once again all 3 boats had a limit within around 3 hours.

Wednesday had some pretty good SW winds so back to Mazurik and headed back to Starve. Longest day of the week, we just slow picked but finished up around 2:30-3:00 continuing to move in a Southerly direction to try and manage the waves. One boat with a couple of older guys with back and/or hip problems decided to call it quits early after 2 fish, so ended up 10 short that day.

Thursday, last day, and we headed back to the Starve area. Very slow pick there, so I decided to do some searching. We found a spot NW of Kellys in 33-37′ of water and pretty much immediately started hitting doubles. Took us maybe 45 minutes to an hour for out boat, and a quick call to the other 2 got them over there and they were all finished by Noon.

Overall, another great week on the water. Other than a minor issue one day having a plug foul in my 9.9 kicker, no major issues. We’ll be back same time next year!

We fished west of Kelly’s Thursday, Friday and Saturday.Got quick 2,3 and 4 man limits.Our 54 fish weighed 116lbs at cleaners.Did some sorting when had needed fewer fish.Still not much junk and a bunch of aggressive fish around 15-17″.Ran 6 lines all 3 days.Ran 4 bandits on inlines and dipseys with J7s.Had the bandits at 80 with green/cranberry color two of the days but didn’t work on Friday.Had blue chrome bandits at 60 catching better fish Thursday and Friday.Had the two dipseys #3 @ 35-50 depending on the depth.Biggest was 26″ fish yesterday on the dipsey.Dr John had a treble bury in his hand yesterday.Told him not to put hand into net.Always use the grippers to get the fish out first then get the hook out with pliers.Two of the hooks were in and couldn’t be pushed thru.His son,a dentist also, had his emergency kit with him luckily.He numbed up his hand with lidocaine and handed John a scalpel and John cut the hooks out.He even said had no pain last night.Speed was around 2.1-2.3 mph.Was trolling Thursday parallel with another boat about 100yds away when a charter with big boards was headed toward us.Instead of headed to either side of us he decided to troll between us.I had to scramble to reel in my outside and inside boards to clear his big boards then watch his board barely clear my dipseys.I yelled and he yelled back.Didnt get the name on the boat.Must have been a rookie charter.

I have an 80# thrust Terrova for a little 16′ aluminum mod-v. It’s powered by two 100 ah lifepo4s in series to get 24 volts. I troll but I only go out if wind is under 10 knots. It seems to work fine for an hour or so but then starts shutting down. I do notice that autopilot usually keeps the motor speed on about 8, which seems excessive for such a small boat.
So I would like to know if this is normal.
What are you all running as far as thrust? What batteries do you have? How long can you troll?

My brother and I went west of the lighthouse to about 40 fow and had lines in the water around 4:15. Ran the corner rods with tru trips and stinger scorpion spoons (purple uv flash)60′ back and could hardly keep them in the water.
First 3 fish were 20″ keepers, then the shorts showed up to the party. Finally got the other rods set after 1/2 hour or so. Ran a combo of bandits, deep hit sticks, flickers off of big boards. Everything caught, but the spoons were the big producers. Limited out in little under 2 hours. Most were the typical 17″ to 22″… good eaters. Probably caught 40 shorts. Lots of fish out there, and the flies were brutal, but what a blast. Tight lines.

Fished today 5/25. Caught limit for 3 plus many throwbacks.. silver gold harness between Kelly’s and north bass island