Fishing with Gene, Nick, and Brian....5/10/25

Gene Piscitello, his son Nick, and Gene's friend, Brian, drove in from Hudson, OH, this morning. They were to meet me at Mazurik's at 6:15, so we could be launched by 6:30.

Much to the chagrin of my two dogs, I left the house at 5:15, and headed through town, and got some ice at the gas station, before heading to Mazurik's, to set things up before they showed up.

It wasn't too busy yet, but it would be. It's Saturday, and one of the nicer days we have had lately.

The wind was forecast for 10-15 out of the WSW, the skies were clear, and the air temp at 6:30 was 50 degrees.

The water temp had dropped 4 degrees from three days ago, when I was last out, and went from 58 degrees to 54. The NE wind we had on Thursday and Friday blew the colder water in. The sunshine today should help warm it back up again pretty quickly, though.

My crew showed up right on time, and we launched by 6:30. While I was there waiting for them, I decided that we would be running crawler harnesses on the port side, and Bandits on the starboard side.

I had heard that a slow Bandit was still chewable, so I figured why not run both at 1.5mph.

I pointed the Vexus to the NE and went up the east side of Kelly's, but ended up on the north side, due to wave direction, and where I wanted to start...using the waves to our advantage. The water clarity was the perfect "mix" of dirty and clean.

Well, a long story short...it worked. Both sides caught fish this morning, with crawlers taking the early lead. Just when I thought to myself, "Crawlers should be on both sides"...the outside Off Shore board, pulling a "Pooh Bear" Bandit sank back out of line. We left the Bandits running all morning, as they didn't disappoint, from that moment on.

I should mention that the speed was determined by the FishHawk, which was often much lower than the surface speed....ie: SOG 2.0 ....undercurrent speed was 1.4-1.5. We often hit "ribbons" of currents that had the FishHawk going up and down all on its own, without help from the Ulterra, or the baby Merc. It's kind of neat to watch what happens down there.

Colors and leads that worked for the Bandits were:

Pooh Bear at 120 back
Khaki at 97 back
Geneva at 80 back

We tried different colors on the inside board at 57-65 back, but none took a fish.

The BadMo spoon with a pink underside, and different colors on the back took a lot of fish with 2 oz at 40 back.
other leads that worked with 2oz inlines were 20, 25, 30, 35, 45, and 50 back.

It was a fun morning, with the guys learning how to run the Off Shore boards. "I've only run two boards before, not an 8 board spread before", said Gene. But, they listened, and by the time we were done, they had done great! I know they would be able to duplicate what they learned today, on Gene's boat, and run more than two boards.

They all said they had fun, learned a lot, and were happy to finally get this trip in, and that makes me happy!

Gene had been trying for a few years now. Mother Nature had a target on his back, because every time his trip was coming up, she would throw a tantrum and we would have to reschedule. They were supposed to come this past April, too, but we all know how pleasant April was. I'm just glad we were able to put 20 fish in the cooler this morning. I was expecting less, due to the bright moon that was out last night. Thankfully, they are hungry!

Tomorrow, was supposed to be the reschedule of Dave and Danielle's trip, from this past Thursday, when it blew, but it appears from he forecast, that it is going to blow from the NE, again. Since they are my neighbors, we can just check the weather in the morning. Fingers crossed that we can get out, but 15-20 NE isn't fun, so we will reschedule, if that's the case.

Stay tuned....

Capt Juls