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I was meeting Melinda, “Mindy”, and her friend Melissa at the Huron ramp at 6:30. I wanted to be launched by 6:45 since sunrise is now 7 a.m., because I like to get a pic of the sunrise out on the water.

I left the house at 5 a.m., and hit the gas station for some gas for the Vexus and some ice for the coolers. Then, hit the highway to Huron. I got there at 5:45, and proceeded to ready the boat. I wanted to get there early, so I had time to clean the boat with a towel and some spray wax, and shine her up. I hadn’t had time to do it yesterday, so I made time this morning.

It was perfect timing…they showed shortly after I was all done. It was 6:15, so they were early, too. The morning was starting out very well…lol
It got even better when I asked a gentleman readying his boat, “Would you be willing to dump us in and park the truck? I have a spare, so you could just lock the keys in the truck. I have two women today that are not comfortable backing me in.” He said, “Sure! Not a problem, just give me a minute”. I didn’t get his name, but I wished I had, so I could thank him here. But if he reads this….he knows who he is.

We were headed straight out of the river to the north. The Garmin was picking up fish along the way, and when the marks were more plentiful, I shut her down. The Ulttera when down and the Baby Merc was deployed. The Ulterra ran on power level 5, and the iPilot kept the boat on a northerly course.

After the FishHawk went down to 18′, and started registering the speed, I adjusted the Baby Merc’s RPMs with the “iTroll” controller to hit a speed of 2.3-2.5 mph.

The dipsies went out first. The zero settings were set to 25 back and 44 back to start. I normally run a three setting on the two outside dipsies, but today I ran a 2 setting at 53 and 65 back. BadMo, Yeck, and Scorpion spoons were used. Green and slivers did best. The orange one and the blue one I normally use didn’t work today, so they didn’t stay out long.

Bill Lewis PWC Lites with 2oz run behind Off Shore boards caught a handful of walleye. The “Purple Tiger” at 50/47 (total of 97′ of line out behind the board) caught 4, and the “Red Tiger” at 50/24 (74 total) caught 1. The rest were caught on the spoons.

Two kitties hit the net. The first one was maybe 2-3 pounds, and the second one was around 8 pounds. I didn’t weigh it, but it was heavy to lift. Melissa achieved her personal best big fish to date, which was only a 22 incher and caught the catfish, too. She had never caught a catfish before, either, so she kept it.

Melinda is a retired people doctor, and helps a farm rescue (I think…or, it’s something like that), and Melissa has her own dog grooming business. These two friends like to get together and do things from time to time. Today, it was fishing. We had tried a few times earlier this season to get out, but it was either Mother Nature being bitchy, or a runaway adventurous dog that stayed out for 6 nights and 7 days. He finally got reunited with Melissa, and all is well again.

The weather was perfect, and it never rained on us at all. The wind was SSE out of Huron, and was really nice for a few hours and then picked up a little as the morning went on. I decided to turn the nose of the Vexus around and go into the waves as we made our way back to shallower water. The Garmin was showing fewer marks over 45′ of water than it did over 35-40′ water.

It just dawned on me that I never looked at the water temperature, so I can’t tell you what it was. I’m sure it’s still in the mid-seventies, though.

It was a grind early, but as the pieces of the puzzle became clearer, we were able to put a program together that gave us 10 nice eaters and one big kitty in the cooler.

Mindy and Melissa both said they had a great time, and want to do it again next spring, and that makes me happy!

I’ve rescheduled tomorrow’s trip to mid-October. It’s going to get hot the next couple of days, and the bite is tough, so I’m okay with that.

I’ll be back out for 4 days next week with three different groups.

Stay tuned….

Capt Juls

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I picked them up from the Fairfield Inn at 6 a.m., and we headed to Hi-Way Bait to see if they had any minnows. They did, but they were Goldies…not Emeralds.

I would watch the Garmin and hit “Mark” as we passed over some good marks, as we headed up to my original destination. So, if that spot was a bust, we could come back to these areas to try.

We found some good marks up by the east side of Middle Island over 39 feet of water. I got everyone set up with rods and baits. They were using the “Fishing Addiction Flies”, and I had on one of my homemade crappie rigs with chartreuse beads. I hadn’t even gotten my minnows in the water yet, and Dan hooked into a real dandy. That got us all excited, and I thought we hit the jackpot. But, just like a nightmare tournament day…where you catch a fish in the first 5 minutes and then nothing…it was like that. lol
It took a little while before any more were caught, but they were caught close enough together to keep us interested and staying there. The fish were moving in and out of the area.

With Spot-Lock, the lines are usually staying vertical over the side, but the undercurrent was strong up there…from the NE to the SW, and had the lines slanting.

Eventually, we would leave that spot and find the school again…set up, and then catch a few, only to have them leave us again. In total, we hit 6 spots. Three up there and three on the way back down (spots that I had marked earlier)

The bites we did have were both super light and aggressive. The light biters snatched a lot of minnows, but the more aggressive ones took a ride with us, or fed a seagull. We didn’t catch a lot of White Perch, so the seagulls were sad. Small perch went back, mostly no worse for the wear.

The fishing was fun, and the company was great! They are very interesting people, and it was a lot of fun getting to know them. They all said they had a great time, and Dan said he wants to come back next spring and do some trolling for Walleye, and that makes me happy.
He has his own boat, but usually does jigging or drift casting from it.

The weather was absolutely beautiful this morning, and a nice day to be on the water….even if the fish didn’t want to cooperate like we wanted them to.

My next trip is with Melinda Phinney and her friend on Monday the 31st. They want to do walleye, so we’ll probably launch at Vermilion to try our luck.

Stay tuned…

Capt Juls

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back soon,
wear the life jacket and an engine cut off!
Be Safe,
Water Dog

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Yesterday, I had texted Rick saying, “You might want to find something else to do tomorrow, it’s going to be rough, and it’s supposed to rain in the morning…I don’t think your wife would like this trip”.
He texted back, asking if we could make the call in the morning…to which I said, “Of course”.

So, I got up at the usual 2 a.m. time, and hit the back deck with some coffee and two happy dogs. The forecast changed. The winds were not from the WNW anymore, but were supposed to blow from the WSW instead. That’s more doable, but it was still going to be rough up where I wanted to go perch’n.

I was to meet them at Mazurik’s at 7:45, so we could be launched by 8:00. I left my house at 6:30 and drove out to Hi-Way Bait to see if they had any minnows. I had stopped out there yesterday when they had some nice shiners, and bought 10 scoops, so I could freeze them. I just want to make sure I have some bait to use when the bait shops are out of minnows.

They had Goldies this morning, so I bought 2 scoops. I had about 4 scoops of frozen shiners along for the ride, too, so we had plenty of bait.

I explained that we could stick close, so we would be more protected from the wind, and probably find some perch there, too. There would be solid 2s and 3s up the middle where I wanted to go, and they agreed.

There were plenty of fish out in front of East Harbor in 19 feet of water, but more scattered. We tried two spots. The first one wasn’t bad, and we caught fish. We put 10 in the box before deciding to move a little bit. I didn’t bring the Ulterra up and just went slow. We went a little further west and found some more good marks on the Garmin, so I hit the Spot-Lock button. Good marks, but fewer bites. “Let’s try down by the lighthouse”, I said.

As we were headed east, some good marks showed up over 26 feet of water out in front of the Lakeside pier. Down went the Ulterra, and the Spot-Lock engaged.

We would spend the rest of our time there. It was a little rough, but Donna was completely fine and caught fish. The highlight fish of the day was Rick’s 13-incher. It had such pretty colors on it, too. There were a lot of little fish thrown back, and we ended up only keeping 27, but Rick and Donna were happy with that.

They both used “Fishing Addiction Flies”, while I used one of my own homemade crappie rigs with charteuse beads.

It was a fun morning with good company and good music. I could hear them both singing along to my 70s Playlist very quietly…lol It was very relaxing.

“Where’s a good place to eat?”, asked Donna. “The Orchard”, I replied. They’re the best in town, and it’s a beautiful place. I also told them I would discount the price, so they could put that towards their anniversary dinner. (Note: I only did that, because we may have only used a whopping 3 gallons of gas today, and I was feeling generous…lol)
I hope they do go there and enjoy a great meal!

Tomorrow’s got a NE wind forecast, and I was scheduled to take two ladies walleye fishing. We are rescheduling that one for August 31st instead. Where I think I need to go for walleye wouldn’t be fun with a 12-15 mph NE wind.

I picked up a 2-day trip for the weekend, and they are game for either perch or walleye, so I’ll wait and see what the forecast is going to do before deciding which species we will target.

Stay tuned….

Capt Juls

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I had texted Laurie to tell her I might be a little late, due to the running around. I got there at 6:20. We loaded up and launched. Laurie, her daughter Jordyn, and their friend Tim were excited and in a really good mood. I heard Jordyn say she only got 3 hours of sleep last night, but she was wide awake now.

The 400 pushed the Vexus at a cruising speed of 25-30 mph. It was a little rough this morning, but not too bad. The east wind pushes against the natural current in the south passage and makes it rougher than other places on the lake.

Once we got to the north side of Kelly’s, I headed towards Gull Island Shoal. I was watching the Garmin as we traveled, and when it marked something good, we stopped. The Ulterra was lowered. When I got the boat to stop completely, with its nose into the wind, I hit the Spot-Lock button… she held perfectly.

I got everyone set up with a rod, some bait, and towels to cover all the carpeting where they were sitting. Perch fishing is very messy, so towels make for an easy clean up. I still have to scrub the boat tomorrow, but it won’t be as bad as it could have been after 3 trips. It’s mostly the floor…it needs a good scrubbing.

Laurie and the young people said they had a great time, and so did I! They are very laid back and have optimistic/positive attitudes. They were a lot of fun to fish with. Laurie has already made plans to come back in October… to do either another perch trip, or…maybe, change it up to walleye. I’ll be looking forward to it.

I was using my own homemade crappie rigs, and they were all using “Fishing Addiction Flies” (also Crappie Rigs). I add the 3rd “Hook On Clip” to the weight at the bottom of the “FA” rig, so that one is lying on the bottom when it’s down below.

The minnows I froze in “Wintergreen Rubbing Alcohol” worked well enough, I guess, because the cooler held 60 fish that weighed 20 pounds at Bay’s Edge Fish Cleaning. They were very happy with the catch today, and that makes me happy!

I’m not scheduled until the 19th and 20th this coming week, so it’s time to clean the boat, clean the house, and weed the gardens. If I get anything for Tuesday, I’ll be sure to post a report.

Stay tuned….

Capt Juls

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