Fishing with Bill and Ryan Quinn 4/28/15
I had high hopes for today's fishing trip with the Quinn men. They came to town on Saturday night and fished Sunday and Monday in an area I marked on a map for them Sunday morning over coffee and JT's Cafe doughnuts. I told them the program I had been running previously, and they went out and managed a limit each day.
They had a lot of fun, and said it was the best walleye fishing they've experienced...ever. Ryan caught one over 30 that he's having mounted, unless he gets another one that's bigger by the end of the week.
They fish the co angler side of the Pro/Am walleye tournaments...and, they fish Green Bay, Lake Michigan, Winnebago, and many other large bodies of water in Wisconsin and across the country. They are not novice anglers by any means.
Today, I felt like one though... Ugh! It was tough today!
We launched at 8:30 at Mazurik's and headed to where they had been fishing the past couple of days and made a couple passes, before we picked up a small "eater" on a crawler harness behind a bottom bouncer. We trolled on a little further and didn't mark much on the H'Bird, so I decided to make a move up to Lucy's Point, to use the wave direction to our advantage for that area.
We did mark some fish up there, but as we trolled SE from Lucy's the marks got less and less. We picked up and moved again.
This time we moved to the west side of Middle Bass to try one of my favorite spring spots inside the "triangle" between Rattle, Middle, and South Bass. Again, good marks, but no biters....sigh.
Then, we moved out northwest of Green Island. Again, good marks, but no takers. I had gotten a call from one of the Captains that he was out between Rattle and Niagra someplace and said he was getting good marks, and caught one on the Lemon Lime Crush P-10 30/30 with the 1oz. He sent a picture, so I know he wasn't lying. They had a fish that actually bit! lol
So, after trolling a little further, we picked up again and moved out towards Niagra. I didn't have them set lines this time, and we just looked around for some good marks before we wasted what time we had left. We decided it wasn't worth it, and thought we would go back to Kelly's to finish out their time on the NW corner. On the way there, we decided to try a spot near the Sandusky Bay channel, and we set up a trolling pass. We marked good fish, and we did manage to catch a 28 inch walleye. What a skinny fish for that length though. It was either a starving female or a very large male.
So, we ended the trip with only two fish to show for it. But, it wasn't a total flop. We had a great time in the boat, with a lot of laughs, and the weather was really really nice for a change.
We tried Perfect 10's, Husky's, Reef Runners, and crawler harnesses. I didn't have anything left to throw at them today...sigh.
Water temps are rising again and the highest I found was 48 degrees just west of Green. It was 46.5 by Kelly's this morning.
My brownies got great reviews....and, that made me happy. :)
I'll be back on the water tomorrow, in someone else's boat...so, it's not a real trip...I'll be back to guiding on Thursday, so...
Stay tuned...
Capt Juls
