Fishing with Jeff and Mike 7/19/15

Hey! I get to start this blog off differently tonight. Instead of my usual, "I picked my customers up at their hotel at...", I get to say, my customers sent me a text this morning at 5:05 that said, "We're out in front of the Best Western". As I blinked the sleep out of my eyes, I was washed over with the overwhelming feeling of failure. I let my guys down. I was LATE!!!

I had been dreaming, and the song that is my alarm was playing in the background of my dream. I was now wide awake at 5:05. It was two hours past my normal get up time, so my morning routine was now out the window.

Luckily, the boat was ready to go last night, and all I had to do was throw some clothes on, brush my teeth, and grab a few things off the counter.
I still managed to pick them up at 5:30, but I was out of sorts without my coffee and my routine. I didn't even have time to check the weather...sigh.

All I knew of the weather was that a big storm was headed this way out of Illinois, and along with it would be, big winds and damaging hail. It was expected in early afternoon. I knew I wouldn't have access to my phone app radar up in Canadian water, so I was a bit apprehensive of being so far from home if a monster storm was coming.

We stopped at Big Bopper's for breakfast, and was able to wake up a bit more. After breakfast, we hit Mazurik's and were launching by 7am. We headed up to the "Wagon Wheel" on the west side of Pelee Island, and made a pass through an area I was working a few days ago. I wasn't marking as many fish as the previous trip over there, but we did manage to catch three eyes before making a decision to move.

We ran up over the top, and took the lee side down to Mill Point, (on the southeast side of the island), where we set in on the southwest side of the point. We made a pass over the point and headed to the three humps to the northeast of it.
Two fish came off the point, before we fell off the other side. We didn't get another fish as we went over the three humps. My guess is they were probably inside to the east of Mill Point, but I didn't go there to find out.

It was now going on 11am, so without knowing the status of that storm, I decided it would be a better idea to move down to the US side of the line, where Pooh Bear, ReelSport, and many other charters were working. They didn't talk about a very good bite though, so we only made a small pass in and around that area, and caught one little 16 incher, before moving over to the west side of Gull Island Shoal.

We set in at the very top of the shoal and worked the edge in about 25-29 foot of water. We caught two more good eaters there, and for the second time this year, I screwed up my net job. A long story shortened...I wasn't in the right position to net, and with my over-reach I caught the hooks of the lure before the fish was in the net, and while trying to readjust in order to scoop the fish, it squirmed and set itself free. It would have been the largest fish of the day...other than some giant sheephead...and, was about 25-26 inches from what I saw of her. I apologized, but they didn't seem to really that it didn't make it in the boat. (They thought it was a sheephead coming in the entire time...thus, the reason I was not in the normal netting position.. D'oh!)

We were running Bandits from 75-90 back with another one 70/70 with a 2 ounce snapweight ( for those of you who don't know what 70/70 is....let 70 feet of line out...add the snapweight...let out another 70 feet of line, and put the Off Shore board on).

We came back in an hour early, so we were only out for 7 hours today, because the sky was changing and I didn't want to get caught out in a storm (if there was indeed a storm coming). I tried to contact two friends on shore that had radar, but neither one responded in a timely fashion, so we decided to head in. The fish weren't on fire, so it wasn't a hard decision to make.

We are going to make tomorrow a longer day, and give it another shot. I have the same crew again tomorrow...thank goodness....they are so easy to fish with, and very pleasant to hang out with in a boat! They are avid fishermen from Minnesota, and already know how to run planer boards...woot! woot!

Anyway, we got on shore only to have my weather radar app tell me that that big storm had gone south of us. The clouds we saw building were just the outer edges and were not a threat.

The plan tomorrow is to run cranks again, but I'm going to set a few lines out with some "Worm-Burners" and see what happens..

Stay tuned....

Capt Juls

Nice pig Jul's! lol.

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Originally Posted by Bggeary

Nice pig Jul's! lol.

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lol...they wanted a picture of it before I threw it back...;)

Better watch em, looks like a set-up to me. :p Nice fish in the area south of the border but grass is getting bad closer to kellys. Mike

Saw your rig at big boppers when we went by headed to Mazuriks. We went north of the border to the west side of Peelee, but my companion for the day was not enjoying the 4' roll we had out there. You were right, not near the number of marks there that there were last week.

hey do you have a clip on your net to hold it back while netting fish? if you put a clip on it that holds the net from going past the front edge while netting the fish then releases when the fish is netted.

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Originally Posted by penalty box

hey do you have a clip on your net to hold it back while netting fish? if you put a clip on it that holds the net from going past the front edge while netting the fish then releases when the fish is netted.

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Yeah, it's called "My finger"! ;)
I wouldn't trust a clip to work as well as my finger does.

I wasn't in my usual position to net the fish, because they kept saying it was a sheephead. I had to reach further than my reach was able, from where I was standing in the boat, and that's why the hooks ended up in the net first on that fish. Nothing more than a "my bad" moment.

anyone that hasn't messed up a netting job is a liar, we have all done it. Your boat sits real close to the water, easier to hold the net with your hand. My big boat the only option is a clip to hold the net.

I have a two piece magnet, 1/2 on the net and 1/2 on the handle.

Nice report Captain. When you fish the Wagon Wheel, do you troll over it, or all around it, or look for marks to determine what to do at that time? The same question goes for Mill Point. We fish all around the island but focus on Lighthouse Point and Sheridan Point where our Pelee Club is located. Did you get a chance to see the Club when you went across the top of the island. Good fishing! Peleewalleyeguy.

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Originally Posted by penalty box

anyone that hasn't messed up a netting job is a liar, we have all done it. Your boat sits real close to the water, easier to hold the net with your hand. My big boat the only option is a clip to hold the net.

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How do you trigger the clip, to release it, so the net drops when you want it to?

the weight of the fish releases the clip.

[QUOTE=Capt Juls;49194][COLOR=#000000][FONT=Comic Sans MS][B] "We were running Bandits from 75-90 back with another one 70/70 with a 2 ounce snapweight ( for those of you who don't know what 70/70 is....let 70 feet of line out...add the snapweight...let out another 70 feet of line, and put the Off Shore board on)."

Juls,

Do you have a formula for calculating the depth when using drop weights?

We ran cranks earlier this year in the spring at 25/25 and 30/30 as yourself and several others were doing. We had success, but really didnt know what depths our lures were at. We were just emulating the programs of others.

I would like to be able to know how to calculate my running depths when adding drop weights. Typically we are pulling Jets or Tru-Trips with spoons or harnesses so this is not an issue. However when we need to add additional depth to a crank, this is when we are lost.

Thanks so much for your wonderful reports. I know I have gained a lot of knowledge from reading them, and Im sure others have as well. I really appreciate the amount of time and detail you put into them. Please keep up the great work.

Matt

Hi Matt,
To be honest, not really...lol

There is a chart from Precision Trolling showing the Off Shore Tackle Pro Weight system at different speeds using the 50/50 method.

And, I have also been told, for example, that a 1oz weight will give you an extra foot for every 10 feet of line you let out. So, if you use a 1oz weight at 50/50, it's going to give your lure an extra 5 feet of depth from it's normal running depth. Speed is a big factor in the equation though...and, the chart shows the info at different speeds.

Basically, I just try stuff to get it close to where I think it should be running, and then if it catches a fish, I duplicate it. If it catches three fish, then I start changing up the other baits to match it. :)

Juls, I do the same thing and when the bite slows down I start a variation of speeds to find a different column of water where there's active fish. I replicate that even pulling meat with harnesses and implement lots of subtle turns and weaves creating different actions when the bit slows down. I couldn't believe the algae plumes off the wheel last Saturday. It was a week since I had been there and limited out the previous 3 times in clear water. I got there late only caught a few fish because of some tardy individuals that had me on edge after a 2 hr. delay only to get there and fish for about an hour and see thunderheads forming to the west and threats on the radio of 15-25 sw winds slated to build up behind them bangers. I said, this is a wrap fellas, get them lines in! I got caught in a very violent storm 2 years ago, the first and hopefully my last ever, after 35 years of being on that lake.That gains a lot of weather respect and you never wanna put your people in peril on that Lake under any circumstance.
I should have learned that tardiness earns you a spot on the mainland when it comes to fishing and I myself should have thrown in the towel that day.

FYI, Those thunderheads dissipated after that 20 mile run back, figures!!! Basically mirrored on how my day went...lol

I use Scotty Netminder releases very easy. Used to use the yellow offshore clip but smaller fish on occasion would not release the net from clip.