Good day for what it was!

Finally got the boat in this morning. By the time I got the oil changed, lines set up, everything pressure washed, it was 3 pm, but I couldn't resist going out for a little bit. Running out by myself I wasn't going to troll. 24 foot hard top is just to hard to manage everything alone. Nor did I really want to go far that late in the day.

So I got out of the harbor at 3:30 (East Harbor) and just ran off to the West Harbor Reef green can. Tried casting harnesses and just letting a spoon drift, no luck. Being fairly shallow there (10 feet) did some casting with a 5" chartreuse deep diving crankbait. Had one solid hit that missed.

For the heck of it, I popped a jig on the line, 2 oz chartreuse bucktail with a stinger, tipped with a nightcrawler. Maybe a little late for jigging, but given the cold weather I thought why not?

Within 15 minutes I had something big on the line, hooked in 10 feet of water. Took a lot of line off the drag, but pretty quick I got a 29" 9 pound walleye in the boat. Hooked good too, on both the main hook and two of the stinger barbs.

Put out a second line tipped with a gold jig and Gulp shad, and then waited for awhile. Took another 30 minutes, got a hit, again on the chartreuse. Saw a flash of color and thought it was another 'eye, then it jumped. Nice 20" smallmouth. Obviously that one went back. About 5 minutes later, I got a hit on the gold jig. Boated a big sheephead, 25."

3 fish, all 3 fish Ohio size. For about an hour and a half fishing 15 minutes out of the harbor, I'll take that. It's certainly more fun to land big fish on medium weight spinning rods and reels with 8 lb test than on a big trolling rig, I'll say that for sure.

Cutting up the walleye, she was still full of eggs. Bit late for that, but so be it.

Tomorrow I'll probably run out to Kelly's, jig around the reefs and drift and cast in deeper water off the reefs. Pop is coming up for his 71st birthday on Thursday, might try some trolling then.