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Fishing with Craig, Steve, and Todd 3/18/18
Craig, Steve, and Todd drove down from MI this morning and met me at my house, so we could drive to the launch together. After a pit stop at the gas station to gas up the Ranger and get some ice for the cooler (my live well lever was frozen on Saturday and this morning, so I didn't want to force it. With the nice weather this afternoon, it's unstuck now, so all is well!)
We hit Mazurik's at 9am and, again, sat in the water for about 5 minutes to let the engine get up to temp, before heading west. My original plan was to launch out of Catawba, but with the SW wind this morning, and a report of icy ramps, I opted to launch out of M's.
We headed west, and ended up close to Round Reef, because that was the first area that I came to that wasn't muddy. I had thought the light winds overnight would have cleaned that whole area up more than it did, but that wasn't the case.
Anyway....when we arrived, I was on the southern end of the reef, in 19' of water. There were a lot of boats to the NE of me, so I deployed the Ulterra and set a course to the east at 1.0mph, but the surges would make it .9mph to 1.5mph.
The program was Smithwick Perfect 10's with 1oz snap weights at 30/30 (let 30' of line out, add the snap weight, and let another 30' of line out before attaching the Off Shore boards.) Bandits were running at 50, 55, 60, and 65 back unassisted (no snap weights) behind the Off Shores.
The hot colors for us today was definitely the IB Frozen Perfect 10, and a new "Custom Color of the Month" from Domka Outdoors that looks like a chrome perch. I don't know the name of this one yet, so I added a picture to the album.
Sour Grape and Darkwing Duck Bandits from Domka Outdoors were both good choices too.
We caught fish until the mud moved in on us, so we made a move to the north side of the reef, and made an easterly troll again. I wasn't marking as many fish on that side, so I turned the boat and made a heading towards D Can. Once we got closer to D Can we picked up our last three fish to finish out their limit.
It was a sunny day, but cold in the morning, with the wind, but it warmed up nicely in the afternoon. My crew was a hoot to fish with, and we were tripping over each other when we had a quad on and trying to land them all at the same time. We only managed to get three of them in though, but that's okay...it was a great start to the morning! They did a fantastic job setting lines, and getting fish in the boat!
The fish were definitely biting better for us today than they were yesterday. So, that was a relief.
The crew has reserved a date in late September to go perch'n with me, so that makes me happy.
I won't be fishing this week, and the regular schedule starts next Saturday, so I hope the weather forecast straightens out before next weekend. We are supposed to have some nasty winds all week again, so we'll have to see what happens.
Stay tuned....
Capt Juls
