As of 1:30 workers were gone and everything looked open.
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Advice on Trolling from a 30 Footer?
Moving up this season from a 23′ center console outboard to a 30′ twin inboard cruiser. Wife wanted more creature comforts. SeaRay Amberjack 290 to be exact.
I had success trolling the center console boat on the big engine with trolling bags and autopilot, down to about 1.5mph on the GPS. Not sure what to expect with the new boat at 3x the weight and 3x the horsepower. I have purchased the Amish Outfitters large bags as a first guess.
Appreciate input from any of you guys that have been trolling with a similar setup.
Thanks,
Are we still jigging?
Good evening… I have a men’s conference in 10 days just southeast of Cleveland. I will probably take my boat along and on the way home stop in the Crane Creek area and fish for walleyes. Is jigging still productive? I have not seen much regarding jigging recently and was curious. Thanks…
4/26
Another 2 man limit today. Same area and speeds and leads but the colors changed. As suspected with all the sun the chromes were hot. Fish were scattered out more than the last 2 days. Lots of boats! Found them South and East of the pack but still straight West of North Bass basically. 34-36 FOW.
Fishing Day 3 with Ed, Dennis, and Jay 4/26/2023
Sorry for no report yesterday, I wasn’t feeling well after a day in the cold, and some bad food from a local restaurant. I’m feeling better today, though, so all is well. 🙂
This morning, I left the house at 4:40, to go gas up the boat and truck on the other side of town, and get some ice for the cooler, before driving back to the White Caps Motel, to pick up my crew at 5:15.
They were up and ready to go when I got there, so we packed up their belongings in the back of the truck and hit the road. We were headed to Vermilion, this time, to see if those bigger fish wanted to play with us today.
We launched at 6:15 and headed NNE out of the river to 40 feet of water, where we found really good marks on the sonar, and set up.
Bandits behind Off Shore boards were set at 80, 70, 60, and 50 on the port side and 85, 75, 65, and 45 on the starboard side. The color spectrum was all over the place with my usual Red Headed WB, Humble Bee w/Blk stripes, Buck Fever, Pooh Bear, some chartreuse and black one with black dots…and a couple others I can’t remember the names of, but they all caught fish.
Speed was 1.8-2.1 on the GPS and 1.4-1.5 on the Fish Hawk on a E to W trolling pass.
Water temp was 47.3 degrees.
The Red Headed Wonder Bread was once again the hotter color for us, so that one, for sure, is always going out on any given day….until it doesn’t work anymore.
Fish were caught on the port side numbers more than the starboard side, so I switched up the lures on the starboard side to Reapers, and picked up a few fish on the blue/chrome/orange belly with funky stripes at 35, 60 and 70 back. We would end up leaving two of that color on, on those leads, but put more Bandits back out, on that side.
We marked a ton of fish today, but didn’t get the bites one would expect with marks like that on the screen. There were a lot of boats over there, too, so being able to keep on an angle that was working was hard to do. We did move out of the pack, once it grew around us, so we didn’t have to deal with it, and we did better.
As time was drawing down, we lost our two last fish, with one line tangle in the mix, that ended up getting sucked into my kicker’s prop, so that was good timing, if it had to happen. We picked everything up and headed in, with 14 in the cooler. Kicker is fine…no damage to the seal.
It was a much nicer day, than the previous day, with the sun shining, calmer winds, and warmer temps. It’s still chilly out there, and I’m so looking forward to the warm days when we don’t have to be all bundled up, and I can go barefoot again.
Come on, Mother Nature…what do you say? Can you straighten up your act, soon, please? Thank you!
Ed, Dennis, and Jay are going to get one more day in before it blows again on Friday, so we will be launching out of Catawba, since Mazurik’s is closed again tomorrow for pavement repair work, as they finish up the new facilities there.
Stay tuned….
Capt Juls
This morning, I left the house at 4:40, to go gas up the boat and truck on the other side of town, and get some ice for the cooler, before driving back to the White Caps Motel, to pick up my crew at 5:15.
They were up and ready to go when I got there, so we packed up their belongings in the back of the truck and hit the road. We were headed to Vermilion, this time, to see if those bigger fish wanted to play with us today.
We launched at 6:15 and headed NNE out of the river to 40 feet of water, where we found really good marks on the sonar, and set up.
Bandits behind Off Shore boards were set at 80, 70, 60, and 50 on the port side and 85, 75, 65, and 45 on the starboard side. The color spectrum was all over the place with my usual Red Headed WB, Humble Bee w/Blk stripes, Buck Fever, Pooh Bear, some chartreuse and black one with black dots…and a couple others I can’t remember the names of, but they all caught fish.
Speed was 1.8-2.1 on the GPS and 1.4-1.5 on the Fish Hawk on a E to W trolling pass.
Water temp was 47.3 degrees.
The Red Headed Wonder Bread was once again the hotter color for us, so that one, for sure, is always going out on any given day….until it doesn’t work anymore.
Fish were caught on the port side numbers more than the starboard side, so I switched up the lures on the starboard side to Reapers, and picked up a few fish on the blue/chrome/orange belly with funky stripes at 35, 60 and 70 back. We would end up leaving two of that color on, on those leads, but put more Bandits back out, on that side.
We marked a ton of fish today, but didn’t get the bites one would expect with marks like that on the screen. There were a lot of boats over there, too, so being able to keep on an angle that was working was hard to do. We did move out of the pack, once it grew around us, so we didn’t have to deal with it, and we did better.
As time was drawing down, we lost our two last fish, with one line tangle in the mix, that ended up getting sucked into my kicker’s prop, so that was good timing, if it had to happen. We picked everything up and headed in, with 14 in the cooler. Kicker is fine…no damage to the seal.
It was a much nicer day, than the previous day, with the sun shining, calmer winds, and warmer temps. It’s still chilly out there, and I’m so looking forward to the warm days when we don’t have to be all bundled up, and I can go barefoot again.
Come on, Mother Nature…what do you say? Can you straighten up your act, soon, please? Thank you!
Ed, Dennis, and Jay are going to get one more day in before it blows again on Friday, so we will be launching out of Catawba, since Mazurik’s is closed again tomorrow for pavement repair work, as they finish up the new facilities there.
Stay tuned….
Capt Juls
Attached Images
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Casting weapons and weight fwd spinners
When can we expect successful casting for walleye to start up this year?
Mazurik Launch
FYI, Mazurik launch is closed today (Wed 4-26) and tomorrow (Thurs) for parking lot sealing work.
4/24 & 4/25
Other than Juls and Tiger I haven’t seen much here lately and because of the wind lately I certainly understand! Catawba was pretty empty the last 2 days. Long story short, it was a bit rough Monday and of course rainy yesterday. My Dad who is 76 and I smacked them good up around North Bass in 34-36 FOW. Many colors worked but the best have had a little chartreuse in them. Purple has been good too. Speed 1.6-1.9. Bandits at 25 to 100 back with about 75 being most active.
One thing to note is that being an idiot yesterday and forgetting my offshores in my truck, I ran back in from North Bass. Being concerned with the pending rain I checked the water just west of Green Island. It looked decent and is clearing up. We got 6 there and then popped back up to North Bass for another relatively quick 6.
Great fish with many 4-6 pounds and nothing under 20.
Tight lines….
What to do with walleye leftovers are cleaning
Wanna hear some ideas of what u guys do with leftover scraps after cleaning. We stay in campground in port Clinton and always struggle with this? Not allowed to put in dumpster at campground.
4/22 report
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.