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Fishing with Ken, Trista, and Gavin 7/10/2020
The cat started making puking noises at 2am to rid herself of a hairball. It was a half hour before my alarm was to go off, so I jumped up to grab a rag, and figured that was the end of my sleeping for the night. I put the coffee on and fed the beasts. Went out on the back deck to water the plants and check the day's forecast.
It was supposed to be blowing out of the SSW this morning, and according to iWindSurf, it was supposed to be gusting 18-20mph. My original plan to launch out of Catawba was nixed and we launched at Mazurik's at 5:30 instead. There was only a light wind out of the south at the time, but with the forecast I looked at I wasn't making that run 19-20 miles out to the line, like I did several times this past two weeks.
Ken, is an avid Canada fly-in angler, never fished with Off Shore boards or dipsies before, and wanted to learn. This was Gavin's first time freshwater fishing, so this would be his first walleye too. Trista wasn't going to fish, so she took the job of sitting on the bow and opening the cooler lid when I needed to throw a fish in it. She was also in charge of the clicker-counter to keep track of how many fish were in the cooler at any given time. :)
I mentioned yesterday that I thought Trista needed a fishing license if she was going to be on the boat, but I found out officially that she didn't need one if she wasn't going to fish. I stand corrected.
I opted to head west to the Catawba area instead, as I had heard there were some good marks showing up on friend's sonars. We drove over and set up outside of the launch and I set the Ulterra's auto-pilot to power level 5. Then, I fired up the baby "E" and had it help push us, so the speed was around 2.3-2.5mph.
The dipsies were set on the 3 setting at 47 back and the 1 setting at 31 and 33 back over 25 feet of water. Two Bandits were running behind the Off Shore boards on the port side at 80 and 40 back. Two more Bandits ran the starboard side at 65 and 45 back. The shallower runners took fish first, so we moved the other ones up.
At one point I changed out the port side Bandits to number 11 Flicker Minnows at 65 and 45 back, and those took fish too. Then, it was back to one Flicker and one Bandit on the port side, and the starboard side was changed out to Reef Runner Mag 44's at 60 and 48 back (Gavin chose the numbers...everyone that knows me knows I like odd numbers). :) Those caught fish too.
We went through a ton of white perch, a couple of white bass, and maybe a dozen sheephead to get their 18 walleye, plus one of mine before the time ran out.
Ken and Gavin did a good job having never fished like this before, and after a few hours they were catching on as to what needed to be done. Ken said he booked me, so he could learn how to do it, and said he learned a lot today, so that makes me happy!
Tomorrow's trip has been rescheduled to August, so I'll be off tomorrow. Back at it on Sunday.
Stay tuned....
Capt juls
