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Well I will fess up. This post is in the spirit of letting everyone know everybody messes up sometimes. It happens. So I tell myself, lol.

As background, when we came in late Thursday (after dark) there was a nice Skeeter tied up at the ramp. When we pulled Fishing Tiger out there was a couple by their truck and trailer. To make a long story short they had a flat and the jack wouldn’t work and a few other issues. They were from out of state and had been stranded for a couple hours trying to get help. I couldn’t believe no one helped them, even tow trucks wouldn’t come because of the trailer.

I told them I would be right back. We put fishing Tiger in the Den and Captain Christy started teaching our guest how we clean fish. I think there were 18 nice ones that day. I grabbed work lights and a jack and returned to help out. With a few issues we got the tire changed and they were good to go. Nice people, glad to help.

Now back to my OH Sh@#@#t. It seems in the rush to help and being out of our routine we forgot to plug in the boat. Well in the high winds Thursday and yesterday we were working the trolling motor hard. We had an easy 7 in the box first thing yesterday when the trolling motor shut down. When you use Lithium batteries they just stop! And it is worse when you have a Ultera. They don’t stow. We were in some pretty good waves so I had to idle (didn’t want to bend shaft) 2 hours to a sheltered spot behind an island and do the emergency release to raise motor manually. It’s not that bad if you know how, but not to be done in waves.

So our trip was cut short yesterday.

The 7 we caught were on different colors, 80 to 100 back. They are still wanting it fast for this time of year. We trolled at 2 to 2.2.

I’ll be off the water for a few days but will post when we get back out next week.

It has been a great month of fishing for me. We have been fairly successful and have been fishing from Huron to Lorain. The muddy water conditions around the islands have just flat made for not great fishing. We have been out most everyday accept for a few blow days had a few days when the spawn started that where fairly tough fishing but once it was in gear the fish turned on great. I did catch my personal best walleye it was 32” and weighed 14 pounds a true Lake Erie giant. The fish have been very high in the water column and we have been using p10’s and bandit lures. The p10’s have been fantastic this year and have been fantastic producers since the water has stayed so cold so long. We have also had great success with husky jerks this spring there were days that did the work. Here are a few photos of the past month.

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Fished from north bass island to the line to north of Kelly’s all day.. we did grind out a 3 man limit.. all bandits.. silver purple yellow and white worked 40 to 130 back.. Had to work hard for them..

We started where we ended yesterday out near the line north of the bass islands. It was a steady pick. We moved further east closer to Kelly’s so we could troll down wind in the NE rollers.

We found they wanted a little faster speed today. We tried to keep the speed at 1.8 to 2.2 Slower speeds did not produce for us and it was too rough to do much turning. NOTE: all speeds are actual Fishhawk speeds.

We caught 5 on the red headed Bandit, 4 on clown Bandit, 2 on Taco Salad, 2 on a Blue Chrome Bandit I don’t know the name, 4 on Spro Marble Brown, and 2 on a Spro Icy Barbie. Most came on leads 50 to 90 back. We also caught 3 on Gold Super Rogues on the down riggers 17 down.

We had a mix of pre and post spawners. Still mostly all females and in the mid to upper 20 inches. We only had one fish under 20 inches. It took two stout guys to lift the cooler, lol.

Woke up, grabbed a cup of coffee, and looked at the wind forecast for today, trying to figure out where I would take my crew to fish today. The iWindSurf “Live Wind” forecast was showing stronger winds at the islands, than over by Huron and Vermilion, so the decision was made to go launch at Vermilion, this morning.


I left early, so I could go gas up and get ice for the cooler, before picking my crew up from the White Caps Motel at 5:20. They were ready to go when I arrived a few minutes early, so we headed out. I told them my plans, and why, and they liked the idea, so off to Vermilion we went.


We arrived at the launch just as it was getting light out, and there were already several boats there launching, or getting ready to launch. We headed out of the river at 6am, and headed west from there. We didn’t go very far before marking some good fish on the Helix, so we stopped to set up. The Terrova and the baby Merc were deployed, and set to a westerly course.


Speed was surging, due to the NE rollers happening, but I was trying to keep the lure speed at 1.3-1.5 on the Fish Hawk, while the GPS speed was reading 1.8-2.1 at the same time.


Water temp was 46.7 this morning.

We set up with all Bandits behind Off Shore boards, on both sides of the boat, for the first pass. 80, 60, 50, 40 on the port side, and 85, 65, 55, 45 on the starboard side (Longest leads on the outside).
Colors were Khaki, Red Headed Wonder Bread, Buck Fever, and RC Crush on the port side, and Black Headed Wonder Bread, RC Crush, a Hammertime color I don’t know the name of, (not on his site, but was picture in my last report), and Huff Daddy on the starboard side.


We went with the waves, over 25-27 feet of water first, and marked a ton of fish, but only got one small male to bite. Ugh…it was SO slow. It’s frustrating to see so many fish on the screen, when they just don’t want to eat.


I decided to run the trough from East to West, and out to deeper water. “Let’s change the angle of our dangle, and see what happens”, I said.
Fish were marking everywhere, but still hanging lower in the water column. I tried one perch colored Spro on a snap-weight, to get it down to them, but they weren’t interested, and not eating down there.


I switched up the inside Bandit on the port side to a Walleye Nation Creation Reaper in a color I bought from the “Fishing Addiction” website called, “Blue Chrome Zombie”. It was swimming at 40 back for about 10 minutes, before the board slammed back. That was a good sign. When it got hit again, I said, “Let’s change up the entire starboard side with Reapers, and see what happens. They may just want a different profile and action today. We’ll keep three Bandits on the other side, to see what they prefer.


Another BCZ went out, along with two Purple Tigers, and a Black Headed Wonder Bread. The outside board ran at 60 back, the third board at 50, the second board at 45, and the inside at 43. All the Reapers took fish this morning. A long story shorter….Eventually, the fish on the sonar started to rise off the bottom, and come up. Bandits caught three fish and the Reapers took 9 of the 12 fish we caught.
We had three pullbacks that didn’t hook up, too.

We went from 27′ out to 38 feet and turned back around to go west to east. We caught a couple going that way, but it was better going east to west.


It was comical to watch the three of us trying to stand up while running the trough with NE rollers…and, while I have damn good sea legs, I did lose my balance several times. My crew had a much harder time with it, but stayed positive and did a lot of laughing. Thankfully, no one fell or got hurt, so it was worth the effort, because the fish definitely liked that direction better. 🙂


Glen and Joe had a great time just being on the water today, so catching fish was a nice bonus, which makes my job a lot less stressful when the fish are giving me a hard time, but getting them their limit made me very happy.


Tomorrow’s trip has been rescheduled by my customer for later in May, so I’m off tomorrow. I’m still watching Saturday’s weather, and will decide that one tomorrow.


Stay tuned…


Capt Juls

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Planning a trip to Erie soon and wondering what are rough guide lines for wind condition to fish safely with a 18 deep boat. I hear wind direction makes a big difference. Would a 12 mph wind be doable.

It was a tough day for us.
The last blow did not mud things up as much as I feared. But the cold front seemed to hammer our bite.

We fought the wind and ground out a single limit.
All fish came 30 to 60 back. We did not touch a fish deep, the down riggers did not touch a fish all day.

No color seemed to matter. We caught on every color, chartreus, white, chrome, gold, and purple.

The waves made it hard to maintain speed but we worked 1.1 to 2.0 the best we could.

3 of our fish were lightly hooked on the back treble that fell out in the net. We had to really baby the retrieve. Kudos to Capt. Christy that never missed a netting.

I cant seem to mark any fish any faster then 12mph. Currently running the Hummingbird Mega transducer on back of boat. Talk with Juls and she suggested a high speed transducer just was wondering opinions and settings people are running and what speeds you hummingbird guys are getting marks at. I had sensitivity at 13 and contrast around 18 and chart speed at 10.

FYI – the charter boat web cam should be starting tomorrow or Friday. Cam will be on when the boat is out fishing. You can see the weather conditions and the fishing action.

Lake Erie Live Webcam Webcams Web Cam

I have made several trips out in fall and have enjoyed some night trolling to try and avoid the winds during the day. Does this same bite exist in the spring as well? Headed out later this week and see some calm nights but some very windy days. Any recommendations are appreciated.

Good fishing…