Perch'n with Guy Dodd and CJ 9/15/14
This blog is a day late, since I got home so late in the afternoon yesterday, and was too whooped to even eat dinner. lol
My clients were Guy Dodd and his buddy CJ. The original plan was to meet at Mazurik's at 6:45 for an 8 hour perch and walleye combo trip, but that was interrupted when the bait shop didn't have any shiners yet.
The minnow guy was running behind. So, I called Guy and CJ, who were already at the ramp and had them meet me at Big Boppers for breakfast. After they showed up, they said they had already eaten, but said I could. I didn't want to eat, because that messes up my trained bladder...lol So, we left.
We headed back to Hi Way Bait to wait for the minnow man to show up. Eventually, Dwight (the owner) got tired of waiting for him with a store full of minnow customers, so he packed up two tubs in the trunk of his car and headed off to the minnow boat to pick up some until the minnow truck could get to his place to deliver them. Thanks for going the extra mile for your customers Dwight...:)
Anyway, we hit the launch an hour later than planned and hit the water at 8am. I decided that we would start with perch fishing, since the walleye bite was spotty around the islands, and I thought it would be better to get a cooler full of perch first and then spend any time left to try and find some walleye. It's always easier fishing for an elusive fish when you have fish in the cooler already, right?
Well, we headed to the NE corner of Gull and set up. The first two fish caught were nice yellows, so we thought we found a good spot. It wasn't a fast bite by any means, and the boats around us were struggling, but we were still doing a little better than them, so we decided to be patient. It was still early, and it's been my experience that the bite picks up later in the morning, so we stayed put. As I suspected it would, the bite started to pick up around 10:30.
There was also a system that was showing up on the weather radar that seemed to be moving in fast around 12pm (I think?). And, since the winds were stronger than they were predicting, I figured this system was moving so fast due to more wind associated with it, and I didn't want to be caught in something out there that would throw the lake into a frenzy. So, to play to the side of safety, I suggested we move to another spot closer to home in case it did get too rough.
Well, to make a long story short....we made a long run around Kelly's and found that the system was only rain, and no additional wind...sigh. Oh well, they agreed it was better to be safe than sorry, and instead of fishing inside, I took them all the way back around the island to the north side. We headed to my numbers from a few weeks ago, and set up near some other boats that were fishing the same area. We caught two perch there, and a ton of whites and sheep, so I said, "Let's go back to the first spot"....and, we did. In hindsight we should have never left there and wasted an hour running around, because that ate up the walleye time.
However, I did catch one walleye while perch fishing, so technically they took home both species yesterday. lol
We ended up with only 71 perch, but figuring it was probably a 20:1 ratio of junk fish to a keeper perch (8-11's) we kept busy baiting hooks and jerking fish.
I decided to make up the lost time making that useless run and kept them out an extra hour....on the way in, we stopped by North Bay and made one last ditch effort and made a trolling pass with some DHJ's and a couple crawler harnesses, because Pooh Bear said he had just pulled three walleye in that area. We didn't get a pull back, so I told them it was time to go in. After 9 hours...I had to pee. lol I had too many clothes, and rain gear on, to do the deed out in the boat and our time was up anyway. They were cool with that.
These two gentlemen were really fun to fish with (CJ has a contagious giggle and seemed to be giggling all day long. I don't think I have laughed and smiled for as many hours as I did yesterday) and I'm pretty sure they had a good time too. They want to come back in the spring to fish with me again for the big walleye bite we have, so I'm looking forward to that. :)
I'm off today....boat cleaning day...and dog entertainment day, but will be back on the water for another perch trip tomorrow (Wednesday) with a group of fellas that bid on a trip donated by Jim Gammons for a charity event thrown by the Pet Harbor Safe Sanctuary in PC. Weather is looking perfect and it should be another good time on the lake.
Stay tuned...
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