Fishing with Mike, Trayton, and "Pops" 6/21/17

I left the house at 4:30 this morning, so I could stop and get ice, and gas up, before hitting Mazurik's by 5am. Well, when I was half way through town I realized that I had forgotten my 10 dozen crawlers, sitting on my kitchen table...ugh. I made a quick stop at Hi Way Bait, who open at 5am now...thankfully, and bought 10 more dozen, so I didn't have to drive all the way home to get them. The air conditioning was on, so I figured they would last until I got home to put them back in the fridge.

The arrangement was to meet my crew at Mazurik's at 5:30am this morning, but a little after 5am, Mike sent a text saying, "We're at Bopper's if you care to join us". But, since I was already getting the boat ready, I said, "I'm at the ramp getting things ready, take your time and enjoy!" And, continued to get things situated to my liking.

Mike sent me another text asking me if they could bring me some breakfast, so I took him up on that offer and asked for a sausage and cheddar cheese bagel. Thanks Mike! That hit the spot. :)

So, by now most of you know that the Canadians passed a new law that says that we Americans no longer will have to call in to fish the border waters when we cross over, as long as we don't touch land, or anchor.

I did call this morning, because I figured like everything else, the workers would be the last to know, and would ticket me if I tried to do that the day after the law initially passed. We called in and got out authorization number. She also stated, when asked, that the law was not in effect yet, and we would still need to call until it was. She didn't know when that would be. (Sorry, I have no other info, as she didn't have any answers to my other questions).

It was a beautiful morning with partly cloudy skies, an air temp of 60 degrees, and a light wind, less than 10mph, out of the WNW.

We headed up to the east side of Pelee for the morning, and set up in 32-35' of water. Mike was there to learn how to run the Off Shore inline planer boards, so we set three out per side.

The Humminbird wasn't showing the red marks (fat fish) like it had in that spot the last time I was up there, so I listened to the bigger charters talking about their marks where they were, and decided to head another direction. I didn't want to go in and bother them, because they were running faster speeds than I was, and I didn't want to get in their way.

Originally, I was going to run to the west side of Pelee to see if there were better marks on that side. However, when I got the Ranger up on plane and headed north towards the Helipad, I turned the Helix's sonar graph speed up to 10 while I was running, so I could see if we went over any fish on the way.......we did. We were only a mile or so north of where we had started the morning, and found some good marks. I turned the boat around and set the Ulterra down in the water...I had my three boards set on my side of the boat before Mike had his first one in. Just as he was setting his board in the water, I looked over and the middle board on my side was going back. I called Trayton up to bat....handed him the rod, talked him through the "drill" of where to be standing while I take the board off, and where to move to after the board was off. He did a great job and we netted his first walleye of the day. He as all smiles, and all three were getting a more positive energy about them.

The water temps were at 67.8 degrees, which means that the water temps had dropped 2 degrees since I was up there last Friday. I showed them how I like to hook my crawlers (I'm extremely picky with that), how to use the line counter reels, and how to attach the boards to the lines and set them out to run like "marching soldiers" in line. They were fast learners and only had to be shown a few times before they were doing it without my nagging supervision. heheh

We ran the same thing I ran up there last Friday. 1oz inlines 41 and 51 back and 2oz at 41, 45, 47, and 55 back. A 4oz bottom bouncer was out on one corner of the boat too. At one point one of the 1oz inlines was swapped out for a 3oz and the other 1 oz inline was swapped out for another 2oz. My root beer bead combo, which I call my "Mayfly Rig" out produced the rest of the colored beads that were out. Copper backed blades did well too. Speed was 1.5-1.6mph

We ended the day with only 10 fish, but had lost two or three before we even got the boards off, missed one at the net, and had one throw back. Pops was doing very well catching sheepshead and a catfish too. :)

All three said they had a great time, and that makes me happy. They have two more trips scheduled for July, so they are looking forward to that.

Tomorrow, I have a husband and wife team, who are looking forward to a trip up to the Ontario waters of Lake Erie. The wind forecast is for 13-17mph winds out of the south, so I'm not so sure we'll be heading all the way up there. It will be rougher on that side of the lake than on this side. I might stay on this side....I don't know....I never know until I head out of the harbor. lol

So...Stay tuned....

Juls

those are some great looking fish and happy fishermen. thanks for sharing your story and for the update on border crossing. I'm sure a lot of people needs to know the laws haven't went into effect yet.

hey Juls, I'm I correct assuming looking at the pictures you were about 3-4 miles east of Pelee half way up the Island, darn, I was almost there Wednesday hunting for large fish like you/about a mile off the island and couldn't get them going so headed back to the northern part of the Island, found a pod of fish and got my 5 man limit, no large fish though like yours, bulk of mid size with a smattering of dinks, but sure had to fish hard for them, had an assortment of lines in like you, mostly came off bottom with 2oz b/bouncers no. 6 colorado gold blades, char bead combo, 1.5 speed and variating at times. Ill have to give your root beer beads blades a go, that's a dirty brown bead or opaque like copper correct?Thanks for the info!
and....btw, I was telling my crew that we needed to probably be another two miles out from the island just as you were, it was getting around noon and we only had 5 fish ,so we took a vote and headed back to the island and found those fish upon initial set up then it was game on...lol

Yeah...pretty close to that. The bigger charters were several miles SE of me.

The beads are clear...not opaque. I get them at the Fisherman's Wharf here in Port Clinton.

Good job on a 5 man limit. That's great! :)

Excellent info and hopefully between this report and a couple others will help with a game plan for the coming weekend woot woot :o

Can't believe I finally get to fish the big pond, it's been to long :cool:

thanks CJuls, I can never recall the water clarity Wednesday east of that island so impeccably clear.....