Fishing with Dick and Brad....10/22/2024

Dick and Brad are two of my regulars, that I have been fishing with for many years now. They have their own boats, but like to hire me to get a refresher course, on how to run boards and dipsies, from time to time. So, today, we were going after some walleye.

They drove in from Maumee, and met me at my house at 7:15. We drove to the gas station...filled up, got ice, and my usual...powdered donuts, and headed over to Mazurik's to launch.

My plan was to hit the area around Cedar Point, since I had marked some walleye in that area the last time I was out perch'n. We set up there first, and went for about 20 minutes, with nothing, before I decided that the wind forecast was favorable for a ride out to deeper water to the east. "You guys want to make a run?", I asked. "How far you thinking, Captain?" Dick asked. "From here it's about 12 more miles", I replied. "I'm game", he said. Brad nodded his head in agreement. So, we packed it all up, and took a ride out to the NE.

Once we were in 45 feet of water, and started seeing some good walleye marks on the Helix, we stopped, and I deployed the Terrova and the baby Merc. The course was set, to continue to the NE, at a speed of 2.3mph, on the FishHawk.

The dipsies went out first, and were set as follows (I use the size 1 with ring):
Zero setting....63 back on the port side and 55 back on the starboard side. (Both would eventually be set at 65 back).
Three setting started at 85 back and remained at 85.
The two setting was eventually set to a three setting, and also running at 85 back.

Spoons were the Yeck D-11s, BadMo Arrows, and Scorpions.

Bill Lewis PWC Lites ran on the starboard side with 2 oz snap weights behind the Off Shore boards at 97 and 81 back (weights put on at the 50 mark).
Purple Tiger and Black Headed Wonder Bread both caught fish.

On the port side, we ran two Bandits at 120 back and 90 back. Colors were RC Crush and that white one with the black dot, that I can never remember the name of...I've reported it before. It's a custom color....sorry...some names just don't stick with me. lol
Both of those caught a fish, too, but the spoons did 80% of the work this morning.

While clearing lines, Dick brought a fish in without a net, and ended up getting a hook in his finger, but he was able to push it through, and I cut the tip and barb off, so he could pull it back out. Luckily, it was a PWC bait, so the hooks were smaller than what are used on the Bandits....whew!

We had a pretty steady bite, while trolling to the NE, but when we turned to go back the other way.....nada. So, we turned and went NE again, and started catching again. There was a pretty strong under-current out there today. The FishHawk read 2.2, while the SOG was reading 2.6-2.7mph.

Our biggest fish, came, while I was trying to get out of someone's way, and sped up to 3.5mph, for about 3 minutes. So, don't think you have to stay slower to catch these fish. Do "S-Turns", or just bump your speed up with the bow mount controller every now and then, to see what happens. :)

Dick and Brad said they had a good time, and will be back again next season, and that makes me happy!

I'm off tomorrow....and watching the wind forecast for Thursday and Friday...hoping to get my Friday trip in either Thursday or Friday. Right now, Saturday looks like crap....again.

Stay tuned....

Capt Juls