Fishing with Rick and Donna....8/19/2026

Rick and Donna are on a road trip for their 41st anniversary next week. Camping their way to NY, Vermont, and someplace else, (I can't remember), and stopped to camp at East Harbor State Park on their way east. Rick contacted me last weekend to see if I was free today to take himself and his wife Donna out perch fishing. Rick had mentioned that Donna was prone to seasickness, so if it was going to be too rough, we would just cancel.

Yesterday, I had texted Rick saying, "You might want to find something else to do tomorrow, it's going to be rough, and it's supposed to rain in the morning...I don't think your wife would like this trip".
He texted back, asking if we could make the call in the morning...to which I said, "Of course".

So, I got up at the usual 2 a.m. time, and hit the back deck with some coffee and two happy dogs. The forecast changed. The winds were not from the WNW anymore, but were supposed to blow from the WSW instead. That's more doable, but it was still going to be rough up where I wanted to go perch'n.

I was to meet them at Mazurik's at 7:45, so we could be launched by 8:00. I left my house at 6:30 and drove out to Hi-Way Bait to see if they had any minnows. I had stopped out there yesterday when they had some nice shiners, and bought 10 scoops, so I could freeze them. I just want to make sure I have some bait to use when the bait shops are out of minnows.

They had Goldies this morning, so I bought 2 scoops. I had about 4 scoops of frozen shiners along for the ride, too, so we had plenty of bait.

I explained that we could stick close, so we would be more protected from the wind, and probably find some perch there, too. There would be solid 2s and 3s up the middle where I wanted to go, and they agreed.

There were plenty of fish out in front of East Harbor in 19 feet of water, but more scattered. We tried two spots. The first one wasn't bad, and we caught fish. We put 10 in the box before deciding to move a little bit. I didn't bring the Ulterra up and just went slow. We went a little further west and found some more good marks on the Garmin, so I hit the Spot-Lock button. Good marks, but fewer bites. "Let's try down by the lighthouse", I said.

As we were headed east, some good marks showed up over 26 feet of water out in front of the Lakeside pier. Down went the Ulterra, and the Spot-Lock engaged.

We would spend the rest of our time there. It was a little rough, but Donna was completely fine and caught fish. The highlight fish of the day was Rick's 13-incher. It had such pretty colors on it, too. There were a lot of little fish thrown back, and we ended up only keeping 27, but Rick and Donna were happy with that.

They both used "Fishing Addiction Flies", while I used one of my own homemade crappie rigs with charteuse beads.

It was a fun morning with good company and good music. I could hear them both singing along to my 70s Playlist very quietly...lol It was very relaxing.

"Where's a good place to eat?", asked Donna. "The Orchard", I replied. They're the best in town, and it's a beautiful place. I also told them I would discount the price, so they could put that towards their anniversary dinner. (Note: I only did that, because we may have only used a whopping 3 gallons of gas today, and I was feeling generous...lol)
I hope they do go there and enjoy a great meal!

Tomorrow's got a NE wind forecast, and I was scheduled to take two ladies walleye fishing. We are rescheduling that one for August 31st instead. Where I think I need to go for walleye wouldn't be fun with a 12-15 mph NE wind.

I picked up a 2-day trip for the weekend, and they are game for either perch or walleye, so I'll wait and see what the forecast is going to do before deciding which species we will target.

Stay tuned....

Capt Juls