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Just wondering if the winners were posted anywhere.

Lake water temperature dropped 4 degrees in 36 hours at the Marblehead CG Station.

Marblehead Station
04/16 6:54 pm Wind Direction WSW Wind Speed 15.0 Gusts 24.1 Water Temp. 51.6
04/17 6:24 pm WSW 11.1 21.0 48.9
04/18 6:42 am W 19.0 26.0 47.7

South Bass Island Station 7am 04/18
Air Temperature (ATMP): 36.7 °F
Wind speed 31kts
Wind Gusts 35kts
Wind Chill 23.0 °F

Saturday dead calm and near 80 degrees. Two days later, Monday, 30 knot winds and 36 degrees. I’ve see a lot of weather changes at the Lake, but this one will stick in my memory. Lake Erie truly can be quite the weather contrast.

Another big blow with the added water temperature drop. What will the walleye do now?

Sat and Sunday did well trolling bandits mainly 45-75 back north of the reef complex. Greens, purples and some chrome blue shined for us. Earlier in the day the deeper rods were more productive. Sat we didn’t get fishing until noonish, and it seemed like 30-55 back shined during the midday timeframe. Opted to run up to Trenton Monday due to the wind forecast, and had a great jig bite in 14-27 fow. Good luck, all!

Bob

With no network in the western basin if I wanted to try and pick up some charter radio chatter what channels do some of the charters use?

I appreciate and info you can help with, thank you.

For all the people out there looking for charters and reading the posts on the wounderful page.
Fishing Booker has the algorithm to be first on the Search page. The convenience of a one stop shop. The captains on the first page give 20 to 30 percent of the trip fee to fishing booker, so they fish for less money then advertised.
If you like a charter go to there web site and book and save money.

We arrived Thursday evening, we had time to go out for a couple of hours so we jigged in front of besse I caught one and my grandson caught one. We started early Friday and jigged in the same area with no luck. We went in for lunch and my wife stayed at camp so it was myself, grandson 11, and my granddaughter 15 she doesn’t like to fish but loves being on the water. Again we caught nothing, my grandson caught a huge drum and it he had a blast getting it in. We went back to camp built a fire and was enjoying the evening, our neighbor came over and told about a spot west of A can that his four person group limited out at. He said sleep in because they had nothing until 9:00 a.m. So we sat on the deck and watch the hundreds of boats go by. We ate and headed out around 7:30. This was the first time we set up to troll, my wife drove the boat and I set the rods we had a variety of color bandits out we set port side at 65, 55, 35 the other side was 60, 50, 40 she held the speed at 2-2.4 and we got our first one at 65 on blue chrome I got it in and had another one on blue chrome at 50 back. I put three blue chrome and one solid chrome, one purple and one orange. blue chrome was on fire, we got one on the orange nothing on purple we ended at 12:30 and had 14 large ones in the boat. we went in ate lunch and stretched out for a while. We headed back to the same spot around 4:30 and set up the same way, we caught another 7 and it started to rain so we called it a day at 7:00, we had a few 28″ and a lot of 26″ers. My grandson was netting one and the handle on the net broke I rapidly grabbed the end of the net and get the fish in the boat. we ended up with a total of 23 fish lost several and have a short net lol. It was a great weekend and I am looking forward to going out with Juls next month to learn more about trolling. My grand children have some great memories to look back on, we had a lot of laughs.

Got on later than we wanted friday due to being stuck at a train track for nearly 2 hours adding to an already 4 hour drive. Put on at mazurik around 10 am. Head to the east side of kellys to the airport amd ran east to 33 foot. The graph was loaded!!! We made our 6 rod spread and picked up a 26 incher immediately. Then nothing forever. We tried everything. I made a move west around the islands. I seen juls loading up. Didn’t know if she was moving or was done so i kept moving and ended up on the south end of bass riggt tight to starve island where we found an super active pod. 5 passes we caught 15 eyes keeping 11 from 22 to 26 inches long.
It was so nice to have conditions to run everywhere fast. Bandits out performed and whites were best for us 75 back.
Saturday on a tip we ran to b can from wildwings. We had a eye on before the first board settled in. We had a load of misses and several lost fish and was stuck at 10 fish forever. The fish seemed to be tied to the b can as we had to keep circling it in order to catch fish. A buddy called and said he found a scho of monsters and had several over 30. So we made a run nearly to the port clinton shorline to the east side of the impact area. We got one 26 there and the sun got hot, and we needed lunch! With weather coming for Sunday we decided not to try to get in a trip ahead of storm or more so to drive home in the pending winds and rain. Saturday bandits again were best but leads from 40 to 60 back.

If you’re looking for a Day 2 report, I didn’t write one…I was too tired, sorry!

I went to bed earlier than usual, last night, because I was whooped. I wanted to get a good night’s sleep before fishing the final day with my ND crew. Clayton and Todd were up early, and ready to go when I showed up at the White Caps Motel at 5:30, to pick them up.

We drove to the Speedway on the other side of town, to gas up and get ice, but they were out of ice. The cashier said, “Home City Ice didn’t deliver, so everyone is out of ice this morning”. We did try two other gas stations, but one wasn’t even open, and the other was indeed out of ice, too. So, we decided to leave the cooler in the truck and use the livewell, instead.

We launched at Catawba at 6:15 and headed north to the line. The wind was light out of the SSE, and the waves were less than a foot for our ride up there, so it was a smooth comfortable ride in the Vexus, at a cruising speed of 48mph. We set up short of where we finished yesterday, and headed towards my waypoints.

We set up with Bandits anywhere from 40-100 back with the following colors:
Buck Fever (3) (purple back with chrome sides and belly…it’s either a Domka or DJ color…I can’t remember)
Chrome Barbie(2)
Freak Show (1) (Hammertime Custom)
One I don’t know the name of, but I think it’s a Hammertime Custom, but I can’t find the color on his site.
RC Crush (1)

Some lure colors got changed out, except the Buck Fever and Chrome Barbies…those two were hot, hot, hot! 65 and 75 back were the best leads, too.

Speed on the GPS was 1.9-2.1mph while the Fish Hawk was showing 1.3-1.4mph, at the same time.

Water temp was 53 degrees.

We caught the first fish before the second line could be set, and then we got a few more Off Shore boards out, and they started going back…we had 5 in the boat before all the lines were set.
S-turns were triggering fish, when it slowed up a bit. Sometimes, it was the fast side and sometimes it was the slow side. So, it was more of a reaction bite. We did have some short strikes, and missed a few too.

When the bite slowed, we headed south and hit an area that was east of Niagara, with no boats around. The water was more stained than where we first started, and the water temp was 55 degrees. We set up there with the same program, since it was over 33 feet of water, just like where we had started in the first spot.

The Terrova was steering us on a northerly pass, while the kicker pushed us at the same speed as previously stated. It wasn’t long, before we caught the first one in that spot…and, then we lost two. We picked up a couple more in that direction, and then turned to go in the opposite direction. The wind had picked up a little, but the waves were still less than two feet.

The fish definitely liked us going the opposite direction, because we were getting a lot of action with doubles and triples happening.

The final tally, was our 18 in the box, and almost just as many released, when I said we needed to head in. I was watching the sky and the weather coming in and figured the wind would be coming in behind the first system. I was right. As we headed in, the wind was getting stronger, and by the time we hit the ramp, the lake was white capping. We timed it right though, because we hit the ramp before anyone else, so we were loaded out with around a dozen boats behind us looking to load out too.

The wind had switched from SSE to SSW, so now the waves were going right into the ramp, which makes it a little nastier when trying to hold a boat at the dock, or pier wall, and getting it on the trailer. I will normally use another ramp if the forecast is calling for a SW wind.

The ND boys had a great time, all three days, and said they will be back again, so that makes me happy!

Mother Nature has decided to throw a tizzy fit again, for the next two days, so I’ll be on shore calibrating two reels that I had to respool, cleaning the boat, walking the dogs, running errands, and cleaning this house…fun times! Ha!

My next trip will be Wednesday, unless the forecast changes. But, right now, it’s showing light NNW winds, so it should be fishable. Fingers crossed!

Stay tuned…

Capt Juls

Attached Images

My son and I spent the morning trolling the line from the monument to the Kellys cell tower. Picked up two limits of great quality eyes. Our best program was bandits 80 back running 2-2.5 sog. Candy Corn was the best color. The fish are putting up a good fight coming in, so it’s go time. The weather was perfect, which made it a wonderful day to be on the lake.

Went out with my son and daughter this morning. Much tougher than yesterday. We worked hard for 3 1/2 hours and ended with 11 nice fish. The surprise was first time fishing for my daughter in 15 years or so and she caught a 26 1/2″ spawned out female. It was her first fish of the day.

We we spent the first couple hours in front of Davis Besse in 11 feet of water and slowly worked our way out to locust reef. There just wasn’t enough wind to move the boat today. Purple 3/4 ounce jigs with nothing on them.