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Heading up this weekend with a coworker and we are gonna try to get into some ‘eyes. Just the two of us bouncing around drift fishing (25’ rinker not ideal for trolling but we will 2 line troll if needed).

Wondering if anyone wants to get a group text going so we can work together on spots. Did that in early May with some guys and it was great working together and seeing the results!

Just PM me your number and I will start a thread tomorrow or Friday.

Got to Mazurik about 4:30 and headed out before sun-up to try and do some fish locating for the day. Went north until I was maybe a mile and a half NNW of Kelley’s and started marking some fish in 45 to 50 FOW. Started trolling cranks (bandits and a PWC) in a ENE direction. Managed to get a few eater size higher in the water column, but wasn’t seeing the good marks like I wanted to, so I headed a bit east to the Kelley’s shoal area. That area definitely produced the best for me. It was shallower, 30 to 38 FOW, where I started getting better marks, with a lot of the marks at 18 to 22 feet down. Best sets were 40 and 80 back. The bigger walleye came at 80 back, both on Khaki-Brown back bandit. The other 2 lures that produced well were blue/chrome Reef runner and a Sexy Chrome PWC. Speed was 1.9 to 2.2. It was a gorgeous day on the water, started with a SW breeze and more overcast and then really calmed down around 10 with the sun coming out a bit more and by noon a breeze started picking up from the NW. Had my limit before 10 then just fished for fun for a few hours. Best fish was a healthy 27.5 incher weighing in at just under 7 lbs. Also caught quite a few sheep and another 10 pound channel cat.

Left Catawba at 8 yesterday morning and set up West of Kelly’s. Started with 2 dipseys on #2 with spoons and a long line with a 44 Magnum. After an hour with only a few shorts, I put on a single blade worm harness and picked up a couple of keepers. Switch the other lines over to crawlers and continued to catch nice eaters the rest of the day. Even stopped the boat, and with little wind, caught a few more casting. Probably landed 20 keepers all day. Headed home with my 6 eaters at 2.

Gassed up the 25 Boston Whaler in west harbor and was set up at the boarder corner at Gull Is. at 8:30. Pulled with and through a large pack of boats for an hour with few marks, few dropped fish and one short. Trolled west out of pack with two boarded Bandits, two boarded Jet 40s with Stingers and two big Dipsies with Stingers. Constant checking and adjustments produced two-man limit, 12 shorts, 7 dropped, 3 junk and one lost spoon. Best producers: Jets 35-45 Blueberry Muffin, Dipsies 45 and Chrome Blue Bandits 85.

Went out solo at 7am from east harbor. Played around by mouse island reef for 30 minutes and got 1 12 inch perch on a weapon but only sheephead otherwise. Headed north to a point about halfway between the north end of Kelly’s and the monument. Lots of Mark’s but only caught undersized ones. I saw some boats up at the border and went up there. Nada. Saw a few trollers get a few eaters but it was dead. Headed back toward Kelly’s about a mile out and just for giggles tied a reef runner on. If you don’t know… they are similar to an erie dearie but haven’t been made in 20 years but are all over flea markets and yard sales. Picked up 1 eater 17 inch fish on that and half a dozen more perch all about 11 inches plus a few more short fish.

I did see casters get a few and I thought about trolling but I have a fairly big boat that needs 2 bags out to slow to trolling speed and I just didn’t feel like rigging all of it up today for just me. It’s a lot of stuff to put in the water and mind solo.

I see lots of reports of guys getting the odd big perch this year and I was on a school of them. Wish I had had minnows.

Still 7 jumbo perch and one eye isn’t anything to cry over and I had fun.

This morning, I left a little earlier than I did yesterday, to go pick up my crew, because I wanted to put some new spoons away that I bought yesterday afternoon, but didn’t get around to taking them out of the packaging and putting them away. So, I pull in, put the baits away, and there is my crew, all ready to go, even though I was earlier than yesterday. lol Gotta love Wisco Boyz! 🙂

We hit the gas station for the usual, and headed out to Marblehead to launch. We hit the water at 5:20 and headed north. The weather was very nice. Calm winds from the west, partly cloudy/hazy sky, and a temp of around 70. I never looked at the air temp, actually, but I was wearing pants made of thin material and flip-flops, and I wasn’t cold, so it wasn’t below 65, or I would have been chilly.


Water temp, up on the line, was 64.9 degrees, this morning.


We set up over 35 feet of water and worked our way out to 40 feet. The cranks did much better today, than they did yesterday, and we were catching with Bandits behind Off Shore boards at 90 back and 50/42 (total: 92) with a 2oz snap-weight.
“Sun Spot” (stock)
“IB Infected” (DJ Custom Eye Lures)
“Green Clown” (Stock)
and a color I do not know the name of, or who painted it…sorry!


During a trolling pass from east to west, against the current, Sun Spot was running at 90 back, on the outside board, on the starboard side, and suddenly went flying back.
It was JP’s turn to reel a fish in, so he grabbed the rod, and pointed it to the port side of the boat, (which forces the planer board to stay back as it comes in, rather than coming straight to the boat, where it would have a chance to tangle with the inside lines). “I need to tighten the drag,” he said. I said, “Let me check it, first”. I tested the drag, and tightened it a little bit. I said, “That’s a big fish, you can’t tighten the drag too much, or you could break the line, and lose it. Just take your time..it will get here.”


He took his time, and it did get to the back of the boat, where Chris (or, was it Dave?) netted it for him. Luckily, it was hooked really well in the big fat/bone part of the upper lip, and wasn’t going to come off easily, because he got it up by the motor, and Chris (or, was it Dave? lol) couldn’t get the net in there, to net it. It was doing a lot of flipping around in that corner, and that’s when I saw the size of the fish…OMG..WOW!!
I had to turn around, so I didn’t have to watch that fiasco, and crossed my fingers that it would get in the net.


It did…and, high-fives and whoop/whoops were had by all! A measurement on the “Judge Ruler” showed us the tail just touching the line at the 30 inch mark. The scale read 9.28 pounds, though. I explained to them, that if that fish had been caught with a belly full of eggs, it would have easily gone 11 pounds.


Chris and Dave explained to JP, that this was a fish of a lifetime, and that people fish for a life time, and never catch one that size. He was very happy. He’s going to get a replica made of it, to remember this trip. I asked him to send me a picture of it, when it was done, and he said he would. 🙂


The dipsies kept us busy with mostly little baby walleye, but every now and then a nice eater would show up, and take the spoon offerings. Yeck, and BadMo Arrow spoons were the ticket for us today.
Zero setting at 35 and 40 back
Three setting at 45 and 55 back


Speed was all over the place this morning, and we caught fish on the slow side of turns, which I’m guessing was probably 1.8-1.9mph, and going faster… up to 2.7mph GPS which was 2.5mph on the Fish Hawk.


We had fish early, and then when the fleet of charter boats showed up, it slowed way down. We had two limits by the time they showed up though, so we only needed 6 more for their limit, and it was only 8am….we had time.


Unfortunately, we ran out of time, when they needed to get off the water an hour early to head back to Wisconsin. We managed their limits, and I reeled in a couple of mine, too. Today’s grade of fish was a little better than yesterday’s, so they were very happy with the results.


They had fun, learned a lot, and caught a lot of fish, and said they would be back again, and that makes me happy! 🙂


Tomorrow, I am fishing with a customer that I had scheduled for Tuesday, but since Tuesday is supposed to blow, he took advantage of the nice weather tomorrow, and the fact that I had tomorrow open.


Stay tuned….


Capt Juls

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After watching wind reports, decided to try Friday afternoon for a few hours. Got on the water about 1:00 pm, and headed west of Kellies. Set up about 1 mile south of red buoy in 24 ft. water and headed North. Started with 4 rods, all bandits 40, 50, 60, and 70 ft. back, covering color spectrum to see which worked best. Seemed anything with blue caught most of the fish ( blue chrome, daydream ). Settled in at 70 and 80 ft. back unassisted, added blue and silver Scorpion spoon on dipsey set # 1 setting , 30’ back and finished afternoon with 12 nice eaters. Lost 4 reeling in closer to boat, and only caught 1 sheepshead. Caught bonus small mouth at the end.of trip.

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For us with smaller boats that can’t make the run to the Island areas….is anyone catching anything near the intake- lighthouse area or within 5 miles off shore ?? Thanks in advance for any help you can give !!

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