Fishing with Vito and Saunders 4/5/19

Vito, and his buddy, Saunders, came down from Wisconsin to fish with me today, and then he'll use the Ranger he bought from me last fall to fish the rest of the weekend with his Dad and Saunders. His dad drove in this afternoon.

We met at my house this morning, and ate some sausage gravy and homemade buttermilk biscuits for breakfast, thanks to Chris Utter, who was here earlier in the week and brought me a big bag full of venison breakfast sausage, chorizo, and assorted summer sausages from Wisco. Yum! :)

Saunders had brought me some Wisco cheese curds and string cheese too! You can take the girl out of Wisconsin, but you can't take Wisconsin out of the girl! Thanks for thinking of me you guys! It's so very much appreciated! ;)

After breakfast, we headed over to Mazurik's to launch and hit the water at 8:45.
The northeast blow we had yesterday muddied up the waters inside, so we headed north until we found clean water with some marks in it, and then went a little further up to the line...turned around, and set up.

We ran Bandits at 65/75/80 on one side and 75/85/and 50/30 w/2oz on the other side. The two running up at 65 caught fish, and one at 75 had one on, but it broke off when a big stick and another board got in the way on its way in. I sure hope that fish gets that lure out of its mouth somehow. It was a smaller fish from what I saw when it was up on the surface...sigh.
Speed was surging this morning with the big NE rollers coming in. But, by keeping the boat's corner on the waves, we were able to control the speed a little better and tried to keep it at the 1.1-1.4mph range. The waves would settle down as the day went on as the winds died down though, so that was nice.

When we picked up to go back and make another pass, I decided to keep going further east towards Middle Island and make a longer pass along the border, but instead, made the decision to go look on the east side of Gull Island Shoal for fish.
I hadn't looked there lately, and in the past, in April, it's been a good area when there was a NE wind....well, it wasn't the case today...sigh. No fish there.

Then, we moved down to the NW corner of Kelly's and had better marks, but no takers. The water was a little dirtier there too though. Then, we moved back towards where we started this morning, but didn't go as far north this time. There was a huge pack to the south of us, so we set up and headed south. We hit two fish right away, and then nothing for the rest of that 3/4 mile pass. So, we picked it all up again and started again in the same spot....picked up two more fish right away, and then nothing, but this time it was time to go in, so we headed in with only 6 fish.

We had a good time, and I told Vito, "Well, at least we eliminated a lot of water for you this weekend." To which he replied where he planned on launching from and where his starting point would be. ;)

Tomorrow's weather looks even better. The winds are forecast for less than 5mph out of the NE and temps in the 60's. Of course, it will be cooler on the lake, but it should be sunny, which will make it feel warmer. I am SO ready for flip flop weather! I hate wearing all these layers.

I'm fishing with Neal DeWolf and some of his family members tomorrow, and will be looking for new water to fish. Hopefully, a lot of this mud will sink overnight, and give us some more areas that are holding our finny friends to fish.

Stay tuned....

Capt Juls