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Fishing with the Tebben Family 4/30-5/1/16
Saturday was a humbling day. We started fishing at Round Reef, then trolled Middle Bass to Rattlesnake, checked north of North Bass (too clean and no marks), fished west of West Reef, Green, and Catawba....we zeroed. Uffda!
Brian, Chris, and Ian Tebben flew in from MN for a vacation, and planned on releasing all their fish, but the Fish Gods didn't allow us any on Saturday. Stupid Fish Gods...:(
Yesterday...May 1st....lots of thick fog.
I decided that we were going to go east to fish Kelly's this time. My plan was to start with some perch fishing, and while they were perch'n, I was going to switch my rods over to spinners, so we could run crawlers. But, in my usual fashion...I changed my mind.
I had stopped in at Hi-Way Bait after breakfast, and he had some of DJ's new colors, so I couldn't resist buying a bunch. Needless to say, we started trolling up on Kelly's Shoal with Bandits. We started out at the furthest green can, and trolled along the west side of the shoal, all the way down to the island...we didn't mark anything, or catch anything until we got to the opening between the shoal and the island.
But, they finally got to get a picture with one of our Lake Erie piggy's. I don't know what the color is on this Bandit, because there are no names on the packages, but it has a dark purple back, chartreuse sides, orange belly, black perch stripes, and gold sparkles on it. That first fish came at 55 back. Then, shortly after it was put back out at 55', we caught a smallmouth on it.
We trolled down to the west side of North Bay with no more takers, so I decided to move west a bit. The fog was very thick, so we couldn't go anywhere very fast, and we made our way over to American Eagle Shoal, where I just took a look around, but didn't mark enough to encourage a trolling pass, so we moved over to Starve Island. The marks were very good there, so we set lines and made a pass.
We managed another big walleye there on the same Bandit color at 75 back this time. We passed over a spot in 40' of water that had an incredible amount of marks on the Helix, and I joked that "Pooh Bear" was always saying, "Those are Catfish". So, I said, "Let's put some shiners down there and see what they are".
We pulled lines, set the SpotLock on the Ulterra, and pulled out the perch rods. I caught a white perch first, then Chris caught a catfish. I said, "I guess Pooh Bear was right, those are catfish", and laughed. Then, Brian caught a 28" walleye on his little perch rod, so I said, "Well, I guess that answers that question...there are walleye down there with those catfish".
We didn't catch a lot, but they had fun here this weekend, and plan on coming back again next year. Brian told me, "I think we want to make this an annual trip", and that made me happy. They were a ton of fun to fish with, and a very nice family.
It just seems like I was always going left, when I should have been going right...it was just one of those trips....deep sigh.
Today's trip was rescheduled, due to my customer having to schedule foot surgery, so my next trip will be with the Herting family on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
The forecast looks good for Tomorrow, so I'm sure we'll be heading towards Niagara, Cone, and Little Pickerel to play with the big boats out there.
I just spent another 100.00 on Bandit colors, so we'll try those first, and then switch up to meat if I need to try that.
Stay tuned....
Capt Juls
