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Fishing with Tim and Nick Becker 5/23-5/25/16
I spent the last three mornings fishing with the father and son crew of Tim and Nick Becker from Wisconsin. I was fortunate, in that, they were eager to get up early and get a good head start. On Monday morning, they met me at my house at 5am, and we headed west.
On Sunday night, I talked to another Captain friend of mine, and he was kind enough to give me the heads up on a quick bite west of A Can. So, we went there on Monday morning, and launched at Fenwick at 5:30am. We caught their limit of good eaters using Bandits, fished anywhere from 45-65 back at 1.8-1.9mph. Chrome colors were the best....Blue/Chrome, Green Clown, and IB Frozen were the hottest for us.
I figured it would be a good idea to get them a box of fish before asking them if they would mind if we drove to Huron the next morning to try for some big fish.
I had explained that I had not fished over there yet this season, but was hearing reports of big fish, and lots of them there, so I wanted to get over there and try it. But, I also said it could be a flop, but that we should try it. They were game for it, so we made plans to go there Tuesday morning.
I picked them up at their hotel at 5am, and we drove over to Huron. We were on the water at 5:30 again. Our first stop was over by Sawmill, where they had fished with me last year at this time, so they wanted to check it out, and see if there were fish in that area again....so, we headed west out of the channel.
It was a beautiful morning with light SSW winds, and 56 degrees...(10 degrees warmer than day one), and there were good marks on the Helix screen. My hopes were high that the bite would be good too. Well, we made one pass at Sawmill and only boated on walleye with a Bandit run 65 back.
At about that time, we were hearing Gary Zart (Blue Dolphin Charters) and Gary Carpenter (Sara J Charters) talking on the radio, and it sounded like they were both just setting up over near Vermilion. Blue D. said, "It's loaded here", so we made the decision to leave our marks and go look at their marks. lol
We set up on a 34' contour line and headed east with our trolling pass. Bandits were run at 55/65/and 71...then, we heard Sara J say they caught one on a Bandit 60 back with 2oz. Blue D was running crawlers, so I was pretty much ignoring his info, other than to know what depth his catches were coming from.
We reset our two inside lines, setting them with 2oz snap weights at 30/30, which is similar to Gary's 60 back with a 2oz inline. They immediately started catching fish, so we changed up two more of our 6 lines with the same set up.
Again, chrome Bandits were the hot colors...with the Green Clown out fishing the others by a few fish. The bite seemed to die off around 9am, and we struggled to catch for the last two and a half hours.
We only ended up with 8 walleye over there, but three of them went 27 inches, and the rest were anywhere from 18 to 24 inches, so the guys were happy with the move to Huron for the second day of their trip.
Today...day 3:
I was meeting Tim and Nick at Mazurik's at 5:45, so I had a chance to stop at Big Bopper's for breakfast. I had a hankering for their Steak and Eggs, and it didn't disappoint! I was so hungry! Yummy!!
Anyway....we launched at 6am. My first plan was to head to Lucy's Point, because I had heard there were fish up there now, and there was a wind forecast for some gusty SW winds, so I figured the island would help shelter us a little bit.
But, when we headed out, the lake was calm, and there were no boats out on Scott Point Shoal yet, so I told them, "I just want to make one pass over here, before we head all the way up there. If the fish are here, there's no need to go all the way up there". Thankfully, we started catching immediately, and it was a pretty steady pick right up until around 9am again. Then, it was long periods of time between bites.
Again, Bandits run anywhere from 45-70 back, with the chrome colors working well, and the Khaki stock color catching the most fish. Speed was 1.9-2.0 on an west to east pass and 1.6-1.7 on the east to west pass.
We ended up with 17 fish...it would have been 18, but Nick and I watched his big fish of the day spit the bait about 20 feet behind the boat. No biggie....sometimes the fish needs to get lucky too.
They had to head back to Wisconsin this afternoon, and were happy with their results over the three days, so that made me happy. :)
I'll be fishing with one of my regulars tomorrow, who is bringing his wife along to catch her first walleye. They live in Columbus, so I asked him if they could come up to town tonight, so we could meet at the launch at 5:15. I would like to launch again by 5:30, so we can get some of that early morning bite action going again. I want her to have a great experience.
The weather will be decent...warm, light SSW winds, and no rain until the evening, so my fingers are crossed we can get another good bite in the morning.
Stay tuned....
Capt Juls
