Fishing with Justin, Doug, and Jim...11/3/2024

Justin is someone I met at a launch one morning, a couple of years ago. He is from MN, and has a Vexus DVX22, just like me, so we struck up a conversation, and chatted about the boats, fishing Lake Erie, and other small talk. He said he wanted to hire me, to learn some things, and after a reschedule or two, we finally made it out, this morning.

I picked them up at Bay's Edge Condos, at 5:30, and we headed to Vermilion to launch. It was still dark when we arrived, but by the time I got the boat ready to go, and everyone hit the bathrooms, the sky was lightening enough to head out.


After we got passed the two bridges, I put the antenna up and got the trolling rods out of storage. I had Bill Lewis PWC Lites set up on the starboard side, and they're bigger counterparts on the port side. The Lites would be run with 2 oz snap weights, and all would run behind Off Shore boards.


On some info given to me last night, I headed towards the 31/11 line, to see what we could find. There were good marks there, so we set up with the dipsies first.
The zero settings were run at 50 and 55 to start, and the three settings were set at 75 and 85 back.


The PWC Lites ran at 50/75 (weight on at the 50 mark, and then another 47 feet of line out, before putting the board on)...
50/47, and 50/24.
Colors were Purple Tiger, Barbie, and Huff and Puff.


The PWCs ran at 97, 75, and 57 back.
Colors were BH Wonderbread on White, Barbie, and Sunspot.


Water temp in 43' of water was 58.7 degrees. The Vermilion River was running at 56 degrees.


The FishHawk was set up and the speed was set to 2.3-2.5mph.


Waves were mostly 2 feet or less, but there were enough 3s out there to say it was 1-3s most of the morning.


The wind was out of the ENE at 8-16mph, the sky was mostly clear, and the air temp was 46 degrees.


We made a 5 mile pass to the west and ended it at the 31/16 line, before picking up and heading back to the east, where there were more marks on the electronics.


Capt Gary Carpenter was heard on the radio, saying that they slayed them from the 06 to 08 line...anywhere from the 30 to 33 line, and caught most of their fish on dipsies anywhere from 45-100 back (he didn't say what setting), so we took a ride back over to the 07 line, before turning the boat around to troll with the waves. We only needed another 13 fish to finish out our 4-person limit, and I figured that would happen before we got to our initial starting point from our first pass.


The bite was better to the east, like he said....so, "Thank you, Capt Gary, for the info this morning". I liked when you said, "They will ***** at you, if you give info over the radio, and they will ***** at you, if you don't share info...you can't win". lol So, true. But, I'm thankful you felt like sharing...it was helpful.


We set up again, and had three fish in 5 minutes...then, it was back to just a steady pick until we finished out with 24 in the cooler...three shorts thrown back, and a couple of White Bass that wanted to play, too. I'm guessing though, that if I had gone another mile east, and started back west...the bite would have been faster, like the first 5 minutes was. :)


Justin, his dad Doug, and Justin's friend, Jim, had a great time, and learned a lot. They are staying for the week, and hope to get out fishing on their own, with their new knowledge of running dipsies, but the wind looks iffy the next two days, so we'll see.
I gave them some of the Crappie Rigs that I tie up, so they could try perch fishing around the lee side of Marblehead, during the blow the next couple of days, if the walleye fishing doesn't look promising.


I don't have anything scheduled now until the weekend of the 16th and 17th, so if the weather allows, I may get out to do some perch'n with friends. I need to get some more to take up to the family in Wisco for Christmas.


Stay tuned....


Capt Juls

As always, thanks for sharing

Sorry, I am unfamiliar with the "line" terminology... 31/11 line, 31/16 line, 06 to 08 line, etc. Please explain.

those are the middle numbers on your gps the 31 is the north and the last number is the est west. by middle numbers you dont need the 41 and the 82 only change every like 50 miles or so, so we just say the middle numbers So the 31.5 27.8 would be north 31.5 miles east 27.8 miles. so if you were fishing the 25/25 and some one said i'm killing them at the 30 /30 they would be 5 miles north of you and 5 miles west. hope that helps

That helps completely. Thanks a bunch!