5/11 & 12's Fishing Report...
So, sorry I'm late with yesterday's fishing report, but my Niece's husband, Jamie and his best friend, Luke, came down yesterday afternoon. So, instead of being a bad hostess and ignoring them while I wrote this, I chose to put this off for one day. :)
5/11/14:
I fished with Dave Updegraff and his two children, Jack, who's in 7th grade, and Catie, who is in 11th grade. It was a fun morning teaching them how to use the Off shore boards and line counter reels to set the line/baits out. By mid morning they were trolling with more confidence and did a terrific job.
They were able to get 9 lite biting walleye to the boat, and had just as many get off on the way to the boat, just because the fish didn't hook up well.
We were pulling crawler harnesses behind 1oz inline weights and #2 Tadpoles. The 1oz was best at 31-35 back and the #2 Tadpoles were best anywhere between 25-50 back. Blades that had the pink antifreeze or chartreuse under bellies worked best. Speed was 1.3-1.5 mph.
They all had a good time and expressed the fact that they wanted to come back and fish with me again, so that made me feel really good. :)
5/12/14:
Today, Jamie and Luke learned how to troll for walleye for the first time. We stopped for ice at Hi Way Bait, and hit the launch at 7am. We headed for Kelly's Island again, like I had the day before, and taught them how to bait the harnesses and set the lines.
After we caught a few walleye, missed a few, and what seemed like 30 plus white bass and white perch, I noticed that the bag of crawlers I brought wasn't the "full one". (Ugh!) Back to the launch we went, and Jamie and Luke stayed with the boat, while I took the truck and trailer over to the bait shop to pick up 10 dozen more crawlers....sigh. I'm glad they are family and not real customers...lol
We launched again, and headed back to the same spot out by Kelly's and set the lines again. We fished for about an hour, while keeping an eye on the sky, and watching a dark sky roll towards us. I told the guys, "as soon as you see any lightning we are out of here". We could hear thunder way off in the distance, but never saw any lightning. I was concerned, and kept watching my radar app on my phone to keep track of it. The worst of it was staying to the west and heading NE, so we kept fishing.
Then, we spotted the first bolt of lightning, and Mike Justus (Boatnut) radioed me and asked how we were doing. I said, "We have four in the box, but we're heading in. I saw a bolt of lightning and I have two young father's in the boat, and I don't want to chance it". He was in agreement and said that his dog, Roxy, didn't like the thunder either, so he was heading in too.
We were the first to the launch and tied the boat to the courtesy dock, and got off the boat with all our rain gear on. We watched as boat after boat came back in in the pouring rain, thunder and lightning.
It's nice to know we made the right call with great timing!
The radar showed that the storms would pass and it was going to be clearing. So, when it stopped raining and started to clear we headed back out again to the same spot. For some reason that storm turned the walleye on and we boated three more walleye in the first 20 minutes. Then, the whites started in again.
The fish we were catching were all in the 3-4 pound range, and I wanted to get these guys a Lake Erie Pig, so we headed to another spot near Kelly's that had reports of bigger fish. We caught 5 more fish out there, but they were all the same size as we caught earlier. Looking at the sky again, it was determined that we had better head in again.
We got nailed with heavy rain and some hail when we got within a mile and half of shore. Ouch! That stung like the dickens on the face, but we made it in safe and sound. Again, the sky let up as we approached the dock, and we loaded the boat in nicer weather, and headed to the fish cleaners.
The guys caught their limit and the weight went 50 pounds on the fish cleaner's scale. :)
The program today was the exact same program I had going with the Updegraff family yesterday.
So, it was definitely an "Adventure" today, to say the least.
I'm so whooped right now, so I must apologize for the lousy writing. lol
Please forgive me.
