Fishing with the Wilburn Family 8/1/19

After several days off, due to reschedules, it was back to business this morning. There was a 15mph NE wind on my back deck at 3am, which kind of pissed me off. It's been NE for days now. I looked at the iWindSurf app to see what the forecast would be over in Huron for the rest of the morning, and it showed it laying down a little bit...not much, but enough to make it a "go".

I drove into town at 4:30am to gas up the old Excursion and Ranger for the ride over to Huron. Capt. Kevin was unusually early this morning, as he was already filling up when I got there. He was going to be launching out of Huron too.

The Wilburn's are from the Columbus area, and were up for the week staying in Huron and vacationing in the area. Doug (the Father) brought his three sons, Aaron, Matt, and Nathan for a day of fishing, because none of them have ever caught a walleye before.

We left the Huron River at 6am and headed NNE from there. I marked fish on and off for many miles, but never quite found anything that got me excited. The conditions this morning were 2-4's, but they were a mix of waves and swells, so they weren't all close together, which made the driving a little easier...however...still slow going. Running around was not going to be an option...so, getting negative fish to bite was going to be the order of the day.

We stopped to take a pic of the beautiful sunrise as it peaked over the horizon and, then, continued on. We made it to the 27/24 line when I stopped to make a pass back to the south. Most of the fish showing on the Helix were tight to the bottom and below 41 foot. Sure, there was the occasional higher fish, but the majority were down....down...down. We went about a mile and a 1/2 before we moved up to the 33/24 line and tried again.

We set up with the Scorpion spoons on the dipsies. I had one Silver/Black Ripplin Redfin out, but it didn't do anything today, so eventually, it was taken off and replaced with a spoon.

Now, I'm sure someone, somewhere, got on a good actively feeding pod of walleye and had a spectacular morning catching fish. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case for us this morning. While my crew of novices enjoyed the morning of "fishing"...we only caught 5 keepers to put in the cooler.
I'd like to say, "The junk fish kept them busy", but that's not the case either. I can count on two hands the number of white perch, white bass, and sheepshead we caught.

I ran spoons high, med, and low in the water column. The Off Shore boards started out with all #11 Flicker Minnows, but eventually, those were changed out to two Bay Rats on the port side at 100 and 85 back, and Bandits on the starboards side at 85 and 75 back.

Speed was anywhere from 2.2-3.1mph throughout the morning, as I tried different things to get them to bite.

The fish we did catch came on the #3 setting at 75 and 85 back and the zero setting at 60 and 65 back. The Blue/Chrome Bandit at 85 back caught one too.

We only had 4 short walleye that went back...so, with junk fish, and the fish in the cooler...we had maybe a total of 15-20 fish today. :(

I felt bad and apologized that the catching wasn't better, but they wouldn't hear it. They said they had fun, and caught plenty of fish for the dinner they have planned tonight....and, that made me happy. :)

We headed in a little early, due to a couple of them being seasick....poor guys.

Tomorrow, I have some repeat customers I haven't seen a few years. Kathy and her son, Mathew will be going out to try for some walleye or perch...we haven't decided yet. I would really like to find some perch that are willing to bite, but I won't get my hopes up. lol I'm sure we will end up walleye fishing, but if I come across something that looks perchy...I'll stop and set up on them and let you know what happens.

Stay tuned....

Capt Juls