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Fishing with Scott and Mark… July 10, 2023

Scott Smith, and his friend, Mark Delagarza, met me at Mazurik’s at 5:30, this morning. We launched shortly after their arrival, and headed up to the Canadian line, to see if we could find some fish. The Helix lit up with good marks, so we started setting lines.

Both, had fished with dipsies and Off Shore boards before, so little instruction was needed…just a refresher course, since it had been a while since they use different releases on their boards, than I do. I run the OR-18 (Snapper release) on the front and the OR-16 (red release with the pin in the center of it). They use the OR-19 on the front, so they can trip it, and release the front one.
They caught onto the dipsey program pretty quickly, and were very adept at not tangling any lines. ๐Ÿ™‚


We ran Bandits behind the Off Shore boards, three on the starboard side and two on the port side, and two dipsies off each corner.


Bandit colors that did well were the Blue Shiner (Original one..not the foil one with the same name), Chrome Barbie, and one I can’t remember the name of, but it’s perch colored without stripes, and has a black “Shad dot” on it. “Green Shad”, maybe? I don’t know. Sometimes, I can remember the name, and sometimes it eludes me. lol


Anyway, we were trolling over 39 feet of water and had the Bandits set at 120, 85, and 65 on the starboard side, and 81 and 70 on the port side. Each one caught a fish, but the Blue Shiner was running on both sides of the boat, and caught 4 or 5 between them at 65 and 70 back. Chrome Barbie caught 2 at 81 and 85 back and the Green Shad caught one at 120 back.


Speed was 2.2 on the Fish Hawk and 2.3-2.5 on the GPS.


Dipsies ran on the usual zero and three settings….zero at 40 and 50. The three setting started out at 47 and 65, but both would be dropped to 70, eventually, and would catch their fair share of fish, too.


The grade of fish was pretty darn good for the island area, this time of year, so we were all happy to see that. We had a good number of young fish, too, that were carefully removed from the hook, and sent back with a kiss, and a wish, for them to survive, and grow up, to be big fish. ๐Ÿ™‚


We had their two-man limit in an hour and a half, and then I reeled in 4 of my 6, when the bite slowed way down. I asked, “Do you want to grind it out for the last two walleye? Or, do you want to go try and find some perch?” They decided to go perch’n instead. Long story short…three spots (very good marks in all three spots)…all we caught were three perch, and a half dozen sheephead. It was a bust. But, it was relaxing, and there was good music and conversation, and the guys enjoyed themselves anyway.


I have a three day trip starting tomorrow with a father and son team. I’m not sure if I’ll get back up there tomorrow, due to the gusty SW winds in the forecast, but we’ll see what it looks like in the morning. Wednesday and Thursday’s winds look much better.


Stay tuned….


Capt Juls

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Conquest July 5th

Maylfies, high blue skies, variable winds, sparce reports and no recent voyages dimmed the prognosis conveyed to an anxious rooky walleye fisherman on respite from two young boys he has been raising alone. At 6:15 the 250 maneuvered the familiar route past numerous limp ” Old Glorys’ ” through West Harbor. An immediate right out the channels mouth traversed us south of casters on a glassy Middle Harbor Reef an open hazy horizon drew us past a now silent vacationland until boats were spotted initiating and educated 90* turn north in search of marks that the fisherman in the distance had most likely visited recently. 7 miles off mainland, 4 miles east of Kellys’ Dipseys dialed to 2 back 55-65 fallowed by spoons, boarded 40 Trus’ released to 45-65fashioned the same, unassisted Bandits behind boards back 90-100 all deployed at 2.6 mph. Just enough breeze aided the 4 stroke Whaler north unassisted North past drifters and trollers corralling assumed eaters as immediate action perused and the occasional net was flagged indicating success. 4 miles of line checking, real time training produced seven keepers as many juniors and a hand full of other beasts. The track was duplicated three times after brief runs south through the delicious morning air to cull the trips quota releasing as many shorts with few junk to enabling the crew to meet a predetermined noon reunion of pool craving kids with their new walleye enthusiast dad. MadMo Roys’ spoons, Blueberry Muffin stingers, Blue Chrome & Redhead Wonderbread Bandits with few swaps were best at original settings.
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Casting from Catawba?

Iโ€™m hoping to get out tomorrow and would really like to do some casting and drifting. Starting from Catawba what are my best bets? Iโ€™ve been away for a month. I could troll east of Kellyโ€™s but would like to give casting a shot. Thanks!
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Fishing with Carol and Hugh Gaylord… July 8, 2023

Sorry, I didn’t get any pictures today….my bad.

Carol and Hugh, who live in the Toledo area, drove to my house this morning, to meet me at 5AM. Since the sunrise wasn’t until 6:06AM today, we were a little early, so we took the long way into town, instead of using the hi-way. We hit the Speedway for gas, and ice, before heading over to Catawba to launch.

There must be a bass tournament today, because the Speedway was lined up with them at 5:15.


We launched by 5:45, and headed a little west, to start the morning. Neither Hugh nor Carol, have ever used Off Shore inline planers, or dipsies before. Hugh had limited mobility, so he was unable to do any of the setting up, but he was helpful with the handing off of the net. ๐Ÿ™‚


I explained everything to Carol, as I set up the Reef Runner Mag 44’s behind the Off Shore boards on the port side….set at 25 and 35 back, over shallower water, and, then, to 50 and 42 feet back, over the deeper water.
Flicker Minnow 11s ran on the starboard side, at 30 and 50 back over the shallower water, and then taken off, to be replaced with two more Mag 44s at 60 and 50 back, over the deeper water.
The port side ran the blue/chrome and the black/gold 44s. The starboard side ran the blue/chrome and Purple Glass Perch 44s. All four caught fish this morning.


Two dipsies ran off each corner, with the inside rods set at zero, and the outside rods set on the 3 setting. Scorpion and Yeck spoons were on three rods, and a gold/black Ripplin Redfin ran on the fourth.


The zero settings were running at 25 and 27 back, in the shallower water (16-18 feet), but lowered to 30 and 35 when we were over deeper water (27-30 feet)
The three settings were running at 45 and 55 back (Ripplin on the 55), at all times…meaning the depth of water didn’t matter for the three settings….they remained the same. All the setups caught fish.


Speed was 2.2 on the Fish Hawk and 2.3-2.4 on the GPS.


Water temp, west of Catawba, was 75 degrees at 15 feet down (Fish Hawk). I don’t remember looking at the Helix for the surface temp…sorry.


We put 10 eater walleye in the cooler and tossed back a bunch of small walleye, sheephead, white perch, and two big catfish. One was around 5 pounds and the other was every bit of 10 pounds, if not more.


I had been watching my radar app.. (RadarScope-Pro version), to see how long we could stay fishing. The app was showing some lightning strikes in the system that was moving in, so I wanted to make sure we didn’t get stuck at a busy ramp, when everyone else would decide it was time to go in, so we picked up and headed in. We were able to load out, prep the boat for the road, and load up the truck, right before it started raining. As we drove out the park, a lot of boats were headed to the dock. So, it was the right move at the right time. ๐Ÿ™‚


We were headed to “Port Clinton Fish Cleaning”, when I realized that I handed the cooler down to Carol, but I didn’t tell her to put it in the back of the truck, because I would do it when I climbed down. But, as I was walking down the steps on the front of the boat, Carol said, “How do you like those “EZEESteps”? And, I got distracted, and told her what I thought of them……I’m pretty sure you can guess what happened next…I forgot to load the cooler into the truck. AAAaarrrrgghh!


The sick feeling hit me when we were almost downtown, and I knew I hadn’t put the cooler in the back of the truck, and I know Carol hadn’t, either. OMG! It’s sitting in the parking lot at Catawba.
“Someone is going to take it”, I thought. “It’s an expensive cooler, and has 10 nice walleye in it, someone will surely take it”.
I thought it would be long gone, when we got back there.
To my relief, as we pulled into the lot…there it was. Sitting there, all alone….waiting. Whew!! I didn’t want to have to buy them fish to take home, and I certainly didn’t want to have to buy a new 120qt cooler! So, thank you, to everyone that walked right on by it…I appreciate it. ๐Ÿ™‚


My crew for tomorrow wants to reschedule..so I’ll be back out on Monday.


Stay tuned….


Capt Juls

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7/6 report

Went out in the afternoon to look for fish for upcoming guests. We moved them to Monday and Tuesday due to the erratic winds this weekend (they are new to boats and fishing).

There are good numbers of fish north of Kelley’s but the nets are still out there and nets and downriggers don’t mix. So I started looking/watching the Solix as I headed South East toward Cedar Point. Marks here and there until I found a nice pod over some contour changes, not significant so it could be a coincidence. It was a large school over 40 ft of water.

We set up 3 Bandits on boards 115, 105, and 95. And Scorpion spoons on the riggers 25 to 35 down. The verry first board going out did not get half way out before it stopped and headed back with a solid 22 incher. We fished this pod for 2 hours and I don’t think we had 6 rods working at any time. Sizes ranged from 27 to 6 inches, but mostly solid keepers. We released the little guys of course but also 3 fish over 25. We kept 12, 20 inchers for a fish fry. We had 2 other heavy hook ups that pulled coming in. No trash, yooo hooo.

Best Bandit color was Catacomb by far, it caught non stop. We ended up running two of them. No other color produced much but we didn’t have time to try many. Notably Sunspot which has been good, did not take a fish. We only ran Nascar and Chicken Wing Scorpion spoons on the Riggers, both caught non stop. As expected the Bandits caught the bigger fish but the spoons consistently caught keepers also. Speed was 2.2 to 2.8 and didn’t seem to matter. Water temps were in the low 70s.

We did have to dodge a thunderstorm, thanks to radar we could work around it.

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7/5 Drifting-Casting

Had a great morning the day after the fireworks. We made the trek from East Harbor to west side of Middle Bass and Sugar Island.
Mayfly color beads w/silver blade and chartreuse with gold blade harnesses worked best. 2 of us got 9 Walleye total, w/ 8 keepers and one throwback, and not too much junk at all. 2 sheep, 2 cats. Zero white bass.
They were good sized fish, with a couple going over 20 inches and one big dog, 27″. Early fish were shallow, 14-19 FOW and last two were deeper at 25-27. Wind died at 10:30-11 AM, so we packed it in.
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7/4 Perch

First perch trip of the year for me. Fished just SW of the Toledo harbor light in 14โ€™ fow. Slow but steady pick, 40 between 2 guys. Nice grade of fish, 13lbs at the cleaners. Had 3 legit jumbos, 12-13 inches. 7-1130. Had a nice breakfast of 7 or 8 knats. The bugs were bad out there! Good start of the season.
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July 3

Fished straight north of the amusement park in 45 foot of water. Trolled east with a lot of marks. The wife and I managed 9 keepers, 10 shorts, 10 sheep, and 2 white bass. One white bass graced us with eating a spoon and bandit. That was a lot of fun. 2.6-2.8 was best, the dispseys produced best at 30 feet down. Dirty white boy won the sheep head tournament, but caught the biggest keepers, so it stayed out. Monkey puke produced well too. Trolling east and south produced fish. We did hit swarms of midges, I think that’s what they were.

M. Miley

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6/3 casting report

Went out solo this morning and got a limit of walleye in 1 1/2 hours in 14 feet of water north of crane creek. I found that if I stayed just a little shallower, I didn’t catch as many undesirables.

I also caught a 28″ catfish which is the biggest I’ve ever caught.

I fished with white and fluorescent green beads and a gold Colorado blade on a harness with a half ounce sinker on a six count

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7/2 Perch Report

We went on our first perching trip of the year to the green buoy off of Catawba. It was pretty rough out there in the morning and we were the only boat out there until the winds died down. We ended with 50 perch, most of them being in the 8-8.5โ€ size range. We had a handful of big perch with the biggest being 11.5โ€. We were using crappie rigs with emerald shiners. Overall Iโ€™d say it was a successful first trip of the year.

Good luck out there!