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All done for the season unless I make it back for a charter with some friends or something so it will be river and reservoir fishing until next spring!

Thanks for all the guidance on here this season!! LOVE this forum and how helpful everyone is for a weekend warrior that between wife, house, kids, etc. only gets out about 1/5 of how much i would like lol

Good luck in the brawl and packing freezers with perch to everyone!!

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I hadn’t been walleye fishing for close to a month, I think, because I’ve been doing perch trips, so I was looking forward to it. The wind forecast was calling for 10-15 out of the SSW, with the wind picking up to 15 mph later in the morning.

My last time out perch’n I had marked a lot of walleye looking marks off the Marblehead lighthouse, so I thought I would start looking there. We launched at 7am and headed east. The marks were no longer where they were three days ago, so we kept going east towards Huron.

It was still pretty dark out, so we took our time. I was amazed at how few marks there were from Cedar Point all the way to the Huron Dump for this time of year, so we kept going until we were at the dump. I was zig-zagging from 34′ of water out to 40’….looking. Nothing impressed me enough to stop, so we headed north from the east side of the dump.

I explained that the further north we went, that when it would get windy later, that the lake would get rougher, but that if it got too rough, we would head back and try for some perch near the launch. (I had marked some good schools right outside of Mazurik’s as we left).

After marking some walleye, I decided to just set up and keep heading north, and hope we hit better marks.
Air temp was 64 degrees…water temp was also 64 degrees.
Speed on the FishHawk was 2-0 to 2.4 mph.

The setup was two dipsies off each corner. The zero settings were at 33 and 45 to start, and the two settings were at 60 and 65 to start. Eventually, the zero settings were catching at 47 and 50, and the three settings caught at 75 and 80 back.

The Off Shore boards ran two Bandits on the starboard side and two PWC lites with 20oz snap weights on the port side. The PWCs were set at 50/50 and 40/40….the Bandits were 100 and 65 back.

Bandit colors started with Red Headed and Black Headed Wonderbread, but were changed out to the “Slim Shady” “Fermi” (painted version) and set to 107 back, and Slim’s “Green Lantern”. The Fermi took a nice fish, so I changed out the PWC lites to Bandits and put another Fermi on that side at 107 back, and that one took a nice fish, too. Those were the only two crankbait fish; the others came on the Scorpion, Stinger, and Yeck spoons.

The two settings at 75 and 80 back caught better than the zero settings did.

In the beginning, we went for quite a while with nothing to show for it, so I said, “Let’s change the angle of our dangle, because last night’s wind and this morning’s are opposite, so the currents are probably a little screwy this morning. I turned the Vexus to the NW, and kept the waves on the port corner. I didn’t want to go in a more westerly direction, to keep the ride a little smoother, since they were having a little trouble keeping their balance in the boat.

The wind had started picking up, but it was still 2′ or less out there, so we kept going. Then, the bite started, and we finally put fish in the cooler. Carrie caught her first walleye and was having fun. We only caught 8 out there before we decided it was getting a little rough for them, and decided to take a ride back to try for some perch near shore, where it was calmer.

Since Mike was interested in buying a new boat, I let him “Test Ride” the Vexus on the way back in. He and Carrie were both impressed with the boat and the ride, so chances are good they might buy one to replace the old bass boat.

They had a fun time and got to relax and enjoy the calm waters while perching (we put 6 in the cooler and threw back twice as many) before we loaded out. They are really nice and down-to-earth people, close to my age, so it was a very enjoyable experience for me, too, and that makes me happy!

My trip for this morning (Tuesday) has been rescheduled to the spring, due to the wind forecast of 18-28mph out of the SW. I did, however, get a call right before I went to bed last night from a grandfather who wanted to take his 22-year-old grandson fishing this week. Originally, he was looking at Friday, but it’s supposed to blow on Friday, so I asked if Wednesday was a possibility for them. He said it was, so we will be headed out of Huron’s launch at 7am tomorrow.

Stay tuned….

Capt Juls

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Fish seemed finicky, had to keep the spreader
Moving for them to even show interest.

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We hit the gas station for some ice for the coolers and hit the highway. 40 minutes later we were in Vermilion. We were the only ones at the ramp, so launching was fast and easy. We idled out of the river while this couple from Nebraska marveled at the beautiful houses and boats lining the river. Lisa kept saying, “When I hit the Powerball we can do this”.

The plan was to head to Lorain from Vermilion and hope to run into some good marks to set up on. I stopped once when the screen was full, but I didn’t think they were the right fish, or even the right flavor of fish, so we moved further north… about halfway between Vermilion and Lorain.
The Garmin was marking fish the entire way, but they looked better in this area.

The Ulterra and Baby Merc were deployed and worked in unison to steer us to the NNE at a FishHawk speed of 2.3-2.5 mph. The marks were thick, along with thick schools of forage showing up like big blobs on the screen. The fish were feeding on the schools of minnows or bugs (whatever they were), so the competition would be tough.

The Dipsies went out first. The zero settings were set to 35 and 40 to start, and the two settings were set to 60 and 70 back. BadMo, Yeck, and Scorpion spoons were used. Blue/Silver would be the dominant color for the morning.

Since Walter and Lisa fished with me earlier in the week, they already had been trained and knew the routine. Walter was happy to take over checking and setting lines, and I was confident in his abilities that I didn’t need to interfere by nagging him with instructions. I only explained that we were probably going to have to keep checking the lines for itty-bitties that would be hard to see when they are just hanging there.

After the first 5 itty-bitties, the two setting at 60 back on the port side went back aggressively a few times, and Lisa jumped up to get it. Walter was always there to help his 5-foot-tall wife get the rod out of the rod holder, turn off the clicker, and pop the mechanism on the dipsey before handing her the rod. I thought at first it was probably a big sheephead, due to her struggling to reel it in, but it wasn’t acting like a sheephead.

To all of our surprise, it was a 28 1/4″ 8-pound walleye. Luckily, it had almost swallowed the spoon, so the one little hook wasn’t going to let go, and Walter landed Lisa’s big fish in the net. I didn’t realize I had been holding my breath as they were trying to net it until it was in the boat, and I let out a deep sigh. lol

Lisa was so excited to have caught it, and said, “This just made my entire week!” It was only 7:30, so we had all morning to try and catch more like that. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. We caught a lot of fish, but mostly small eyes, white bass, white perch, and sheephead. We would only catch a total of 5 keepers all morning. The best leads were the zero at 45 and 50 back, and the two setting at 60 and 84 back.

One of those keepers was caught on a fast turn, when we had to get out of a ship’s way. We were only two miles out when it came out of the mouth of the river, so it wouldn’t have taken long for the ship to run us over, had we stayed on the same line without noticing them. Good thing I keep my head on a swivel most of the time. Whew!

They both said they had a great two days fishing with me, even though we didn’t limit, and would like to come back again…and that makes me happy!

I had two older men this morning (9/11) that I picked up from the Whitecaps…did the usual stops and hit Catawba. Launched the boat, and the power steering in the steering wheel was making a liquid, squishy-washy sound that wouldn’t stop, so the trip was canceled. I wasn’t going to risk the power steering going out when I’m miles out. They understood and told me to hold their deposit for another time.
We went and grabbed breakfast and had a good chat before taking them back to the Motel.

I don’t know when my next trip is, because I don’t have anything scheduled until the 25th right now. Next week is out, because I have too many vehicle appts to get both my car and truck fixed…and now, I have to get the boat down to Fisherman’s Central to have the line bled, or whatever they need to do to fix this power steering issue. It’s never ending…deep sigh.

Stay tuned….

Capt Juls

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