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Fishing with Heather and Garrett 10/27/2020
Woke up and checked the wind forecast...it didn't change, so it was going to be a fishing day. The forecast was only calling for north winds less than 5mph from 7am until mid-afternoon, when it would switch and start coming out of the west.
I was looking forward to getting back on the water again. I fished with Heather and Garrett back in September. Garrett is the 8-year-old that gets to go fishing with his mom all the time. :)
We left Mazurik's at 7:45 and headed north. I was over in Huron on Saturday, but was only out a couple of hours and had only caught three, so I didn't report that one...but, since I hadn't been out since then, it was like starting over again.
I decided to hit Kelly Island Shoal first. We went out to the furthest buoy and turned the boat around to head SSW along the western edge of the shoal in 18-20' of water. The Ulterra was deployed and a course set on autopilot. The baby ETEC pushed us along at a speed of 1.8mph.
Water temp was 53.9 degrees
Bandits were run on the starboard side (shallower side of the break) at 40, 50, and 60 back behind Off Shore boards, and the Bandits on the port side (deeper side of the break) were set at 100, 83, and 67 back.
We caught an eater and put that one in the box, and then another board went back that looked like a big fish. However, that one came off on its way in.
We trolled to the middle green buoy and then I decided to head up to West Reef to see what was there. Again, we set up in 18 feet of water and then ran Bandits on the Port side and Flicker Minnow #11's on the starboard side. 3 Bandits caught walleye at 55 and 60 back and one Flicker Minnow caught one at 65 back.
We had made two passes on West Reef and decided it wasn't holding enough fish to bother making another pass through there, so we headed down to Starve Island and made a pass going from West to East in 40 to 44 feet of water. We caught one going that way, but caught 3 more going from East to West over the same track.
For the next pass, we picked up and went back to the other end to make the East to West pass again, but they didn't want anything to do with us this time even though everything but the wind had remained the same. And, it was just a light wind, so I don't really think that was it. I don't know.
We didn't catch any more and we were out of time anyway. Garrett did a great job and was keeping us entertained with his games. One is where a person thinks of a "noun" in a movie and then gives clues to the players, as they try and guess what it is he's thinking about. I'll have to remember that one, it was kind of fun. :)
We didn't have any brawl fish, but Garrett was entered too, and took a chunky 3-4 pounder over to get weighed in for the Fall Walleye Brawl, and have his picture taken. The others were taken to Port Clinton Fish Co. to be cleaned before they headed over there on their way home.
I have the next two days off now.... Heather was supposed to be on Thursday, but it looks like it's going to be windy, so she was able to switch to today instead. It all worked out and that makes me happy!
My next trip is scheduled for Saturday and right now the forecast looks pretty good for that day, so I'm thinking we'll be launching out of Huron, or maybe Dempsey's... I don't know yet.
Stay tuned....
Capt Juls
