Fishing with Dan and Ed....9/20/2024

Yesterday, I got a text from Dan Ireland. He's a previous customer, from back in May...he and his friend were staying here all week. They bring Dan's little boat over from Missouri.

"Do you have any openings the next couple of days?", he asked.
I replied, "Tomorrow or Sunday...I'm perch'n right now". He said, "Perching is kind of slow for us...we only 6. How about you?" I replied, "We're only at 21...I'm by E Can...northwest of it, actually, between E and D Cans. Were you at?"
He said, "We are just south of D Can..we will take tomorrow, if you're good with that. We want to walleye fish". "Okay, are you staying at the White Caps?" I asked. "Yes", he said. "Okay, cool...I'll pick you two up at 6am".


Later that morning, he was driving his boat down from D can towards us, so I waved him over, and told him to set up right next to us, since he has Spot-Loc on his boat, and didn't need to throw an anchor...(that would disturb our bite).


We only needed 9 more for our 60 fish limit, and it didn't take long to catch them.
Dan and Ed didn't have any Emeralds, so I gave them what I had left of my frozen ones, and two of the crappie rigs that I designed, and make for myself and my customers, and told them to rip the minnows in half, to use. When we left, they slipped right in over where we were sitting, and managed to add to their count and ended up with 52 nice perch, before they ran out of minnows and the bite died. (The bead colors on the rigs we were using were chartreuse or white).


They decided to head back in.


This morning, I picked them up at their motel at 5:45. I had told them 6AM, but they were ready to go, and waiting outside by Dan's truck, when I arrived.


We hit the gas station for ice, then headed towards Huron.


The sky was just starting to get light, when we got to the get ready lanes at the Huron ramp. After chatting a bit with other early morning launchers, we hit the water at 6:45. I only had a clue of where I was going to look first, and that was NE of the Huron Dumping Grounds. The Helix wasn't showing many marks from the mouth of the river, out to 43 feet, but when we hit 43 feet, they showed up.


The bow mount was deployed, as was the baby Merc, and their speed set to 2.5mph on the FishHawk (for those that don't know what that is...its gadget that runs below the surface, to get the undercurrent speed, and temp readings).
We set a course to the north, and marked fish for about 1 1/2 miles, before turning around to go over them again.


The programs that worked this morning were:


Dipsey on the zero setting at 55 back (had two of these out)
Dipsey on the three setting at 80 back
Dipsey on the two setting at 70 back


Bandits behind the Off Shore Boards at 120, 100, and 97 back caught fish.
"IB Infected" (custom color by DJ Custom Eye Lures...Hi Way Bait) Had two of these out, and they both caught one.
"Green Lantern" (Slim Shady Custom) caught one.


The dipsies and spoons far out fished the cranks behind boards, this morning.


We had our 3-person limit by 10:20, and had around 8 throw backs, too. No junk fish today.


They were only good eaters....nothing big, yet.


Dan and Ed had a great morning, they said, and want to go again. Dan was grateful, that I took them to a new launch, instead of back to Vermilion, where I had first taken them...so, they could learn more areas. (I hope they come back, when there are more fish back on the west side, so we can use Mazurik's or Catawba...it's a lot closer to home). ;)


I have another perch trip tomorrow, so my fingers are crossed that we have another successful catch. But, this time, there will be four of us, so we'll need 120 perch to fill our tickets.


Stay tuned....


Capt Juls

this is just my opinion but I'm sending you a great big kudos for giving your helpful reports. in my opinion, you have helped more people catch fish on their own from your detailed reports. if I were in the market for a charter in the area where you fish you would be my first choice, you go above and beyond to help your clients have a good trip.

I started drift fishing when we followed some friends up and our knowledge was what they had told us. we went out of cooly canal and started drifting between the water intake and West Sister Island. we caught our limit most days by noon on many trips. the water cleared and the drift fishing slowed down after a few years so we started trolling with the same spinning gear we used for drift fishing. but a few years later a friend invited me to go out with him on a charter in Geneve Ohio and we caught huge fish and started fishing there. we did take 2 trips out on that charter to learn something about using dipsies. we didn't know anything about them. we were doing all the rigging on the second day. he put the lines out and turned it over to us. after two great days going to school, we were on our own running 3 dipsies per side and 1 downrigger per side. but after 20+ years on the central basin, I'm still learning. but that charter taught us more than we could have learned in 10 years on our own.

I do recommend taking a charter out at least once that fishes the way you want to fish. and be sure the captain knows you're going to school.

keep up the good work!

My son and I fished the same area north of the dump this morning and did well. Dipsys did well with similar setbacks and spoons. We also had spoons with 4 Oz snapweights just ahead of the 6' leader setback 80' from small boards. Nice grade of fish. Color didn't seem to matter much.

Thank you, sherman51...I appreciate the kind words. :)