3 Attachment(s)
Fishing with Chris and Nancy Seigneur and Stacy 7/30/18
Today's trip was supposed to happen back in May for Mother's day. Chris asked his Mom what she wanted, and she said she wanted to go walleye fishing, so he contacted me. Unfortunately, that day Mother Nature was throwing a hissy fit, and we had to reschedule. Chris works out of state, so this was the soonest he could make it back. And, luckily, the weather behaved today.
They met me at my house at 5am, and we drove into town together. After stopping at Rickard's for some ice, we hit the Speedway to fill up the Ranger. We headed over to Mazurik's after that, and arrived at 5:20.
I told them it was a bit too early, since the days are getting longer now, and the sun wouldn't be up until 6:15 at the earliest, so we waited around for the sky to lighten a little, so I could see where I was driving. We launched at 5:45, and headed ENE towards the lightening sky.
It was partly cloudy, 68 degrees, 0-5mph wind out of the SSW, and there was a chance of showers possible. I told everyone to bring raingear, because we might get wet today, but that never happened. It sprinkled a tiny bit, but never enough to get really wet....thank goodness.
The "Tickle Bugs" came out in force when the wind died, and covered us and the boat from head to toe. They are annoying, but harmless, so it's best just to try and ignore them...and, blow them out of your nostrils from time to time...;)
Anyway, we started SE of Kelly's in 39 foot of water, and had good marks, but couldn't get them to go. The radio chatter told of a better bite out in 41-44 foot of water, not too far away, so we picked up and moved out, until we found deeper water holding fish.
Capt Keith Unkefer, (of the "Pooh Bear"), had transmitted over the radio that he was running the Tru-Trip 40's at 95-105 back at 2.1knots, so I hailed him to find out what depth the Tru-Trips were running at that distance back, and he said 35-38 feet...or, maybe it was 33 to 35 feet (I forget). I had a chart but it blew out of my glove box at some point this season....sigh.
I was running the standard number 1 dipsies again, so I wanted to get those down to those depths, since Capt Keith stated that they were "coming as fast as they could take them". So, the program we ended up with that worked for us was the dipsey on the 3 setting at 91 and 95 back, the 1 setting at 61, and the 0 setting at 57. The Tru-Trip 40 was set like "Pooh's"...95 and 105. Speed was 2.3-2.5mph
Yesterday, I had a hard time getting anything to bite on a spoon, and did better on the Ripplin Redfins... today they wanted the spoons, and I ended up with 5 spoons out and one Ripplin Redfin. :)
Nancy learned quickly how to "pop" the mechanism on the dipsey, and reel the fish in without tangling in the other line that was out on the same side. We only ran one Jet, so we could move it from side to side as the fish came in. We tried two Jets out the back, one on each corner, but it wasn't long before there was a tangle of the two, so I took one out of the line up again....and, all was well.
Nancy saw the rod with the Tru-Trip on it bounce, so she grabbed it. She immediately said, "I think it's a sheepshead", because of the weight of it. I said, "You never know, it might be a big walleye". I was standing behind her telling her not to try and look at the fish, but to pay attention to where the rod tip was and to just keep reeling nice and steady. "You can look at the fish when it's in the net", I told her. Chris was going to net this one for her...he thought it was a big sheepshead too, until it came up and rolled on the surface. Everyone but Nancy saw what it was, but we kept it quiet until she got it in the net, and then we all cheered for her. She finally got a look at the nice 28 1/2 inch walleye, and screamed/laughed, and said, "This is the best Mother's Day present....ever!" We all laughed with her.
And, that made me happy. :)
The boat is all cleaned up again after this buggy day, so that chore is done. I'm off tomorrow, and will be out again on Wednesday with Vito Centofanti (he'll be taking this boat home with him in the fall by the way). So....
Stay tuned....
Capt Juls
