Category: Uncategorized

Went out with my wife yesterday for a little fishing. We started just south of A can where we marked a lot of fish. Fished there for 20 minutes and caught nothing. We pulled anchor and moved a few hundred yards west with similar results. Pulled anchor again and moved a quarter mile west and tried again with similar results. Each time we stopped, we were marking quite a few fish close to the bottom but didn’t catch anything to keep. Did get a couple dinks.

Moved to about a half mile northwest of B can where I fished Saturday. There were not as many fish on the sonar but thought we would try. We stayed there for an hour and a half and caught 9 or 10 keepers and about the same amount of dinks.

Went out with a buddy and his brother and a friend. We were a half mile west of B can. We ended up with 50 and probably threw back another hundred shorts. Fished for 4 hours. Had a mix of shiners and other assorted minnows from Bite Me Bait. There were a lot of pin minnows in the mix. Those little minnows are hard to keep on the hook.

The fish we kept were decent. Probably half were over 9 inches.

Heading down from Michigan for first trip of the year (daughters travel softball is intense so trips and time and very limited.) lol. Any action going on down there? We will be trolling bandits spoons pretty much everything! Will be fishing Sunday. Thank for any advice! Will give back advice after trip!

What batteries are you using and do you like them?

Background: The lead acid batteries that came with my used boat wouldn’t hold a charge so I replaced them with a pair of 100 Ah LiFePO4 batteries. One is from Ampere Time and the other is from Li Time, which as far as I can tell is the same company.

They worked great for a year but now the Ampere Time is malfunctioning. My NOCO charger starts to charge it, but after a minute, it goes dark as if it isn’t even connected to a battery. Then it goes back to charging for another minute. Back and forth. Eventually it shows a full charge. The NOCO charges the other battery steadily with no disruption.

Switching batteries to the other NOCO circuit shows the problem is in the battery, not the charger.

With the batteries wired in series, I get 24 volts to power the Minn Kota and it works fine for a few hours. But then the Minn Kota dies and won’t come back on until I recharge. When the batteries were new, they ran the Minn Kota for 12+ hours. Judging by the charging time of the good one – the Li Time – I think the bad one – Ampere Time – is just shutting off before it is depleted.

The older of the two batteries is less than 3 years old with maybe 50 charges in its life. Still supposed to be covered by the warranty. Emails to Ampere Time Support have gone unanswered so it looks like the warranty will not be honored. So I’m looking for a better brand and will appreciate your input.

Went out of Huron on the 16th, every boat in front of me on the river headed for deep water as soon as they cleared the lighthouse. I headed NE out of the river and stopped to check marks at half a mile out, 32 ft of water, fish were stacked so we started trolling NE, running blue chrome and black chrome bandits 110 feet back on outside boards, inside boards we ran bandits 85 ft back. We also ran dipseys at the corners on 1 setting 40 ft back with monkey puke spoons. Everything hit, 3 man limit in 2.5 hours. Of the 18 keepers 16 of them were 23 inches or better. We were the only boat fishing in that area. I will be heading back out on the 23rd. Also we were trolling at 2.2 mph, they liked it slow that day.

Well it’s our final day, Got everything packed and left the house by 8. Different wind today so plan was to launch at Avon and travel east along the shore for wind break then turn and head north till we reached deep water. Took us about 40 min to get out to 65 fow. Setup and headed north toward the border. Same setup as before bandits behind boards Dhj12 on the corners and spoons over the side. Did better netting today, never missed a fish. Had 1 line break but the fish was floating on top with the crank bait stuck to him so we were able to circle around and net him….lol. Trolled from 10 to 2pm caught 4 man limit. Started in 65 fow and ended in 72 fow. The deeper we got the more fish we marked. marked fish from 25 ft to 50 ft. caught all of ours 30 to 45 ft deep. Looked like there might have been a thermocline right around 50ft with a lot of fish lingering there but we caught all our fish above that. Went back to ramp, cleaned fish and headed back to Indy.

Last night at Huron cleaning station talked to a guy that had limited out. He launched out of vermillion but said he had to go deep. He went all the way to the border. SO today we had a new plan. We launched out of Avon ramp cause it was closest to deep water. We ran out straight north out to 65 fow and started trolling north east. Same setup, bandits behind boards with 3oz weights Dhj12 off the corners and spoons over the side. Caught a few here and there but the deeper we got the hungrier the fish got. Had some issue with getting fish in the boat, lost 3 at the net and another 4 came off on the way to the boat. As we were trolling out deeper I noticed my trolling motor was not steering the boat like it was earlier. tried bumping up the speed but to no avail. Figured out how to turn kicker and big motor in order to control boat. Had a big tangle with 3 or 4 lines so we pulled them all in and I big motored back southwest so we could setup and troll with the waves again for better boat control. Set back up and started trolling for about another 1 1/2 hours, caught a few more eye then had another big tangle. It had been another very hot day and we had just ran out of cold drinks in the cooler. It was 4 pm and we been at it since about 830 am, so we decided to head in so we could cool down, hydrate and figure out problem with trolling motor. We still ended up with 19 and if we would have landed the ones we lost we would have limited it out so all n all pretty good day. Tomorrow supposed to have showers, and I have some boat issues to look into so not sure how tomorrow will go. Thursday taking kids to Cedar Point, so if I don’t make it out tomorrow I’ll definitely be out Friday before we head home.