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Fishing with John, Jim, and John Ison 6/9/16
Picked up my crew from their hotel at 6:30, and headed to Big Bopper's for breakfast, before launching at Mazurik's at 7:30.
We headed up between the islands, because the satellite picture from the day before showed that there was still clean water there. The water west of the islands (at least as far as you could see from shore) was very muddy from the three day NW blow we had.
We started out trolling Bandits on a west to east troll up on the line by Middle Island. As we trolled east, we picked up a couple walleye on the Blue/Chrome color at 65 back....speed was 2.0-2.2mph. We kept trolling east past middle island, and found ourselves all alone with no one close to us, and hit a nice little pod of fish. At this time, I decided to take the Bandits off and put the crawler harnesses on.
The Helix was all cluttered up with what I would guess was a Mayfly hatch going on. There had been a bunch in the parking lot at their hotel, which is right on the lake, and it looks like there are more coming up from the depths,.
I figured my root beer colored beads with a gold hammered colorado blade would mimic the bug nicely. I chose the #5 Colorado blade over the larger # 6, because the water temps had cooled 4 degrees since last Saturday.
I normally, like to slow down and downsize, after a cold front passes through. We were running the harnesses with 1oz inline weights at 41 back, and behind #1 Tadpoles at 25 and 27' back....at 1.0-1.2mph
It didn't take long before we were picking away at them, but it was still a slow bite. My friend, Capt Kevin Swartz, was working an area about a mile west of me, and doing much better, so we picked up and moved over there. We finished out the 6 hours, and my crew asked to add another hour, so we could pick up a few more fish.
In total, we went 12 for 16, not including the 4 throw backs, 2 catfish, 3 sheepshead, 2 white perch, and the 1 white bass. Woot! Woot!
My guys had a good time, learned how to run Off Shore planer boards, and were setting lines like seasoned trollers by the end of their trip. The weather today was perfect, and they were able to relax and have a good time.
They stated that they had never had such a nice charter in all their years coming to fish the lake, so that made me very happy. :)
I'll be out tomorrow with another crew, running the crawler harnesses again. I suspect we'll have the same bite we had today. Thankfully, the winds will be down again tomorrow with a forecast of 5mph out of the South.
Stay tuned....
Capt Juls
