Day 1 and 2 Fishing with my Montana Men 4/24 and 4/25, 2017

**Capt Juls** · 04-25-2017, 05:05 PM

Craig Anderson and Scott Duke fished with me last year on this same week. The weather was better last year, and the fishing was much better too. With that said, here's a re-cap from yesterday and today's trips with these two fun guys.

They came out with their friends Jeff and Brian, who are fishing with Capt Dan Woodward for the week.

Day one started with strong NE winds... waves were 1-3's in the south passage in the morning, and even less up in the triangle between the Bass Islands. So, I thought it would be a good idea to take them up there while the winds were still on the lower side. (Winds were expected to increase all morning...and, they did).

Long story short...we did squat up there, and the winds were building, so I thought it would be a good idea to get back to the protected side of Catawba while the getting was good. The waves were 3-5's at 11am when we went through it, so the timing was good.

The water was muddy as we passed the west side Catawba Point, so I just kept going SW until I found some cleaner water, and we set up there. We were trolling Bandits over 17' of water at 25, 35, 40, 45, 50, and 55 back at 1.6mph. The first board to go back caught a nice smallmouth. It wasn't what we were targeting, but after watching the boards do nothing all morning, it was nice to see a board finally go back. Ha!

Then, the next board to go back was a foul hooked white bass.....sigh. It was not going the way I planned. Then, I heard Rick Lacourse's voice in my head say, "They're surfing today". So, I grabbed a rod, and reeled in the board, and reset it at a mere 15' back. As soon as I sat back down, and looked over, that board was being pulled back... hard. "Fish On!"

Scott reeled in a nice 28 inch walleye. She was already spawned out...(water temps are mid 50's now). That one was caught on a Domka Outdoors custom color called Huff Daddy Chrome. With only an hour and a half left to fish, we reset all the baits higher in the water column and ended up catching 4 nice walleye in three passes. It was way too rough to turn and troll back up, so we picked up and ran back up, to reset each time.

There were a couple of boats that came in behind me, so I got on the radio, in case they were monitoring channel 79 and let them know the fish were "surfing", and gave them the distance back. A friend of mine, who happened to be one of those boats, texted me to thank me for the radio info, because he ended up taking two in the one pass he made through there too....woot! woot!.

Day 2:

We launchd at 6:30 this morning out of Catawba, and headed straight back to the spot where we caught them the day before, but the water was dirtier than the day before, so I was less enthusiastic about our chances again. There were less waves this morning, so we only set two lines up as high as the day before, and lowered the other 4 baits in the water column.

Our first one was another nice 28 incher, and was caught on a Green Clown Bandit at 21 back. We only made one pass there this morning, because we were talking with Gary Zart on the radio, who also happened to be catching them at 20 foot back, in a spot not too far from us. So, since the water was dirty where we were, we decided to move over by them and try out luck.

We were trolling over 23' of water and the marks on the Helix were incredible. During our first pass, from and east to west troll, we had a double on, but only one would turn out to be a walleye (27"), and the other was a foul hooked white bass (I've concluded, with so many foul hooked whites that they are a "stupid fish").

That one came on another Green Clown Bandit at 20 back. Then, nothing for the next hour.

So, I decided to go check out the E and D can areas. I marked a few fish, but nothing like we would normally see this time of year. The lack of bait balls on the screen and tons of marks we usually would have has me scratching my head at this point. But, I digress.

Anyway, we made a short pass from D towards Niagara, but it was brutally slow. So we headed to the area between Crib Reef and Toussaint Reef and pointed the bow towards K can.....nothing. I know, I know....had I gone all the way to K can we would have caught small fish there. But, we're after big fish.

So, with an hour and a half left...we headed back to our first spot and ended up catching a healthy 29 inch walleye on a "Taco Salad" Bandit at 25 back.

That would be it for the day, and we headed in.

Sorry to make this a quick ending, but I just looked at the clock and I'm going to be late for a delicious dinner they are making me tonight. Chicken Cordon Blue with a Pistachio / Green Olive pesto Pasta, and roasted asparagus ....MmmmmmMmmmmmGood! Thanks Chef Craig!

Tomorrow will be day three of five, and I think we'll launch out of Mazurik's and hit some new water and scenery. I'll talk to Capt Dan tonight at dinner.

Stay tuned...

Capt Juls

**M.A.D. Eyes** · 04-25-2017, 08:06 PM

Juls, your posts always bring hope to us all! We all have plenty of those days where you just have to grind them out and this post of yours explains it, plain and simple. NEVER GIVE UP!! Which is obviously something that you never do. Haven't had a chance to hit the water yet because of my son's baseball season activities but believe me, I'm ready! Reading your posts keeps me excited. Sure miss the many years of living in PC and helping my father run our charter business. The name Rick Lacoarse strikes many memories as my father knew him very well. Unfortunately my father passed away in 2000 but he taught me so much about that lake that I carry it on to my son as much as I can. Maybe I'll get to shake your hand someday at Mazuriks or catawba. Until then, keep up the fantastic reports and good fishin to you!