Fishing with Cesar, Courtney, and Ken.... June 11, 2023

I was meeting my crew at Mazurik's this morning at 5:30. Cesar, his wife Courtney, and their friend, Ken, were driving up from the Columbus area, so that's about a two hour drive for them. I'm sure they were tired, and not used to getting up that early.

I decided to leave the house at 4AM and head that way, because I wanted to hit the car wash before hitting the gas station. The seagulls went to town on my truck the day before, and one of them must have had diarrhea. I didn't want to show up with my truck looking like that. lol


After hitting the gas station, I arrived at Mazurik's around 4:30, and took that time to wipe the boat down, since I didn't do it yesterday, when I got home. I decided playing with the dogs was more important....knowing I could do it this morning, while I waited for them.


They showed up at 5:15, and we launched. It was light enough by then to see the lake's surface, for safe driving, but the navigation lights were still required.
The wind was around 10mph out of the south, the sky was mostly cloudy, and the air temp was in the high 60s.


We didn't go directly back to where I was fishing yesterday, north of Kelly's, but started on the SE corner of Kelly's first. After catching sheephead, and a bunch of itty-bittys, we pulled the lines and headed north again.


The set-up was the same as yesterday, with Bandits behind Off Shore boards, and dipsies on the zero and three settings off the back corners.


Yesterday, the cranks did better than the spoons, but today was the opposite. We had to keep checking the dipsies for little fish, though, or we would be dragging them around for a long time, and you can't catch bigger fish, if there's a little fish hanging on the spoon....spinning around.


I did change out a few of the Bandits to the Reef Runner Mag 44s and set them at 50 back...and, they took a few of the nicer fish. Blue/Chrome and Black/Gold were the colors.


The Bandit colors that caught were the Blue Shiner (stock color) at 83 back, Sun Spot (stock) at 90 back, IB Infected (DJ Custom Eye Lures color) at 80 back, and two other colors I don't know the name of or who painted them...both at 90 back.
I looked on the FishUSA site, and DJ's site, and neither is listed there, so I don't know where I got them. I'm guessing I picked them up at a local bait shop here in town....either Fisherman's Wharf, Hi Way Bait, or Fisherman's Central. I don't know....sorry.


Spoon colors were a wide spectrum, but the "Confusion" Yeck spoon, "Red Headed Wonder Bread" Scorpion spoon, and "Blueberry Muffin" Yeck spoon, all did well.


Zero setting was at 31 and 40 back. The three setting was at 43 and 47 back.


Speed was anywhere from 2.0 to 3.0mph GPS and caught fish at all speeds. I mostly kept the Fish Hawk speed at 2.2-2.4mph, though.


"S-Turns" helped us get bites, too. Sometimes, they bit on the fast side, and sometimes they bit on the slow side, so again...speed didn't really matter. If a bait was in front of a hungry fish, it was going to eat it at any speed.


The marks were not in the same area as they were yesterday, either....which is a shame, because the boat traffic was WAY down compared to yesterday, so it would have been nice if the little shits would have stayed put. hehehe Oh well...


We managed to catch their limit, and they had fun, and that's all that matters. Cesar just bought a beautiful 30' boat, and is getting it ready to fish, and wanted a trip to learn a few tips and tricks, while trolling. They did a great job, and I'm confident they will be successful on their own outings.


Tomorrow's crew has been notified of the gusty winds and rain in the forecast for tomorrow, so they are rescheduling to later this summer/fall. Tuesday is a blow day too, and my crew today was initially scheduled for Tuesday, but were able to go today instead, so my next trip isn't until Wednesday.


My dogs will be very happy, that I have two days off, to give them some much needed attention. :)


Stay tuned....


Capt Juls