Fishing with Ken and Doug 4/5/16

I have to admit, I wasn't looking forward to fishing yesterday, because of the muddy lake conditions, and the cold temps in the morning. I'm fighting a stubborn cold right now, and the thought of sitting out there in 30 degree temps was less than appealing. They still wanted to go yesterday, so since it was fishable, we made it happen.

I had advised my crew to stay home, but they came down from Wisconsin anyway. We didn't get out Monday, due to gusty north winds, so Ken and Doug spent the day in Cleveland touring the "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame". They said that was pretty awesome, and enjoyed exploring it.

We met at Bopper's at 8:45 for some breakfast first, because I wasn't going to go out until the winds laid down, which was forecast for around 8am. By the time we
got to Catawba, the lake was still rough looking on the horizon, but was laying down, so we went ahead and launched.

The first order of business was to locate some cleaner water. The lake looked like chocolate milk coming out of the launch, and from my experience the cans would be muddy too.

I had driven the Catawba point before meeting them for breakfast and thought I had spied a strip of cleaner water on the SW corner of South Bass and Green Island, so we headed there first. It must have been an optical illusion, because when we got over there, I couldn't see the cavitation plate on my G2, but we did mark fish on the Helix. We didn't stay there long, and decided to make the run to the north, to check the water clarity up by Niagara.

The water there was better, so we set up to the east of the reef, and headed SW with the waves. We ran Bandits 45-65 back, at 1.3mph, and picked up two 20(ish) inch fish there, and one white bass. Then, I got a Facebook message from someone that was out fishing too, and he told me there was good water clarity on the east side of the islands, which is always the case after a blow, and that they caught a couple nice fish. I was hesitant to run there, because of how early it is, and I didn't think the fish would be in that area for a few more weeks yet, but we made the run anyway.

Once we got there, he messaged me again and said, "We haven't had a bite in an hour now"...lol Just what you want to hear after making a 10 plus mile run to get there. Ha! Anyway, we set up and made a couple passes, because we were marking fish, and the water looked good. We didn't get anything in those two passes, so I wanted to run down to Kelly's, where I had been fishing last week.

Luckily, when we got there, we found that the water clarity was decent enough to set up and give it a shot. This would be the last spot, since we were running out of time. We would pick up three more eater sized walleye before heading back in at 3:45. They had an 8 hour drive back to Wisconsin, and it was getting late.

The water temps had dropped almost 5 degrees from last week and were 40-42 degrees in the spots we fished yesterday.

Color Bandits that worked for us were the Fire Tiger, Anti-Freeze (caught 2), the Purple with the pink head and 3 Chartreuse dots, and the Fruit Dots (black headed wonder bread color...just thought I should use it's proper name.)

They followed me to Bay's Edge, where I dropped their fish off to be cleaned, and said my thank you and good byes. Ken will be coming back in August with his wife for a couple days of Perch fishing, so that makes me happy, and I'm looking forward to that. Did I ever tell you that I LOVE perch fishing? hehehe :)

I'm glad we made the trip, because it ended up being a really nice day on the water, and the company was exceptional! :)

My crew that would have been here today through Saturday didn't make the trip out from South Dakota, so my next trip will not be until Sunday.

So stay tuned....

Capt Juls

Mother nature sure is being fickle with us.
I sure hope she'll relax soon so we can start playing.
I have a date next Tuesday :cool:

Thanks for sharing!

Capt Juls, I charter once a year with Capt.Jerry Playing Hooky. My wife loves that he baits her hook and takes the fish off and all she has to do is fish. Two years ago Capt. Jerry was on vacation so we booked with a recommended boat and it was a disappointment as it seemed he was too busy fishing to do much else. I plan on taking my boat out a couple times this year but I will still charter once a year with the wife. We like to go when you can drift with crawler harness. I have been educated just by reading your posts along with a few others on this site. I did buy a radio, I know not to go out when the wind is out of the north, Respect the lake and always be safe. I just want you to know if Capt. Jerry is not available I will try to schedule with you. Good luck this season to you and all the Captains out there.

Great report. Really nice almost feeling like as a reader, we are there going through the day with ya. This was the week I was making my first trip… and I made the call to stay home. Next week looks possible, and I can't wait. Will be on my own out there as my buddy couldn't get off work…. that sucks, but here I come. Living through your reports is helping feed the dream - thank you for taking all the time.