I’m hoping to get out tomorrow and would really like to do some casting and drifting. Starting from Catawba what are my best bets? I’ve been away for a month. I could troll east of Kelly’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.
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. 🙂
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. 🙂
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. 🙂
My crew for tomorrow wants to reschedule..so I’ll be back out on Monday.
Stay tuned….
Capt Juls
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. 🙂
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. 🙂
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. 🙂
My crew for tomorrow wants to reschedule..so I’ll be back out on Monday.
Stay tuned….
Capt Juls
Attached Images
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.
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.
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.
7/4 Perch
First perch trip of the year for me. Fished just SW of the Toledo harbor light in 14’ 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.
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
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
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 8-8.5” size range. We had a handful of big perch with the biggest being 11.5”. We were using crappie rigs with emerald shiners. Overall I’d say it was a successful first trip of the year.
Good luck out there!
Draggin’ the Line with John
We fished yesterday 7/1 east of pelee with John and Terry.Was a tough bite for us.The harnesses and spoon harness that had been catching didn’t do much for us and we must have lost 8 fish half way to the boat.The bandits actually were catching the best so we added a couple flicker minnows to our set to catch a few more.The keepers weren’t very big either.Our 14 weighed 27 lbs.Had the bandits at 120-80 and caught a few on J7 on our 2 dipseys on a 3 setting.Had speed between 1.8 to 2.5 but most fish came at around 2.3 mph.Maybe 5 shorts and 2 sheep too.Missed the rain but the flies were driving John crazy.Terry and I had long pants on and we were fine but John refuses to wear long pants and paid the price.
6/30 Casting report
Only had a few hours before work, so I ran out at 6:30 am to the west end of Gull Shoal. Drifted with SSW wind and ran into an active group at 24/25 FOW on the way “up the slope” in a tiny 50-100 yard radius. So I did a few mini-drifts and ended up getting 4 nice Walleye keepers and a bonus Perch. No shorties or dink walleyes. Not much junk. Chartreuse harnesses were the best. Left the fishing grounds after 2 & 1/2 hours and got to work.