Shortened Perch Trip today...only two hours
My crew of John Schmittroth and his gal, Betty, had scheduled a later start time this morning when he booked the trip, which was a good thing since we had rain showers this morning.
I was up at my usual time of 3:30, because sleeping in just doesn't seem to work for me. at 5am I loaded the dogs in the car and drove through a downpour over to Hi Way Bait to get some shiners, because I wasn't sure if they would run out later this morning and I wanted to make sure that I had some for today's trip.
I picked my customers up at their hotel at 9am and they followed me out to Mazurik's, where we launched at 9:30. They wanted a 4 hour trip. So, to give them more fishing time, I decided with an east wind that it would be best to fish the south passage. We set up just a mile or so NE of the launch and started fishing.
Betty has never perch fished before, and needed help learning how to use a spinning reel, feeling the bottom, setting the hook, etc. She had a bite as soon as it hit bottom, but she didn't feel it. The entire tip of the rod was vibrating with the tell tale sign, so I knew this would be challenging for her.
I cut her shiners in half and showed her how to bait the hooks, which she did on her own after that. When I thought she was getting the hang of it, then I started fishing too.
John caught the first perch and threw it down the "Catch Counter" chute to start it off...and, we started adding them at a slow pick in between the white perch bites. We had many seagulls entertaining us while waiting for me to bonk a white perch on the head and feed them. I even had the seagulls taking the white perch out of my hand. (I'm waiting on the pictures John took of that and will post in my photo album as soon as I have them). John was teasing a seagull with a perch he caught that was still on his line outside the boat and the seagull snatched it! Ha! That was funny!
Betty put her rod down, because she was getting nauseous from not looking up enough, and told us to keep fishing. As the day went on she started feeling a little better, but John decided to cut the trip short to only two hours, so she could go back in. They had a fun weekend, and were ready to go back home to Michigan anyway. So, we packed it up with 22 perch in the cooler and headed in.
I drove over to Bay's Edge to drop off their fish for them, so they could hit RT2 easily after they picked up their fish.
Despite the shortened trip, it was a very fun morning.
Tomorrow's trip has been rescheduled to next Monday. It's one of my favorite regulars and I know he likes better conditions, so hopefully, next Monday will be a better wind direction, and no rain for his trip. :)
Tuesday is another 4 hour perch trip, but I think we'll be launching out of Catawba and heading north to the west of the islands this time.
Stay tuned....
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