Fishing with Jim and Chris 10/31/2020

Happy Halloween!

This morning's weather at 5:30am was a "brrrr-chilly" 33 degrees. The wind wasn't blowing at all. I bundled up and loaded the truck with the day's needs. Then, I headed over to the heated building the boat is sitting in.

I got to the building at 6am, so I had an hour and a half to burn before I had to meet my crew at Mazurik's. I vacuumed the carpet, wiped the windshield down, and topped off the ETEC's oil. After hooking up the boat to the truck I headed to the gas station, and filled up both the truck and the boat, bought some ice for the cooler, and headed to Mazurik's.

I hit Mazurik's a little before 7, so I had time to get everything ready before they showed up. When they showed up, Jim (Pops, or Papa as I called him) climbs in the boat, and Chris jumps in the truck. I lined it up, and told Chris what he needed to do. He jumped in the driver's seat and I jumped in the boat. The big motor warmed up while we waited for Chris to park the trailer and come back.

Once it warmed up to around 115 degrees, we headed north out of the break wall. We made it all the way to Kelly's before I remembered that I had opened the drain plug the last time out, to drain all the water out before putting her back in the building, and only turned the the dial to close it, without going under there and pushing it all the way in.
There's always about 1/8 of an inch that needs to be pushed in, or it will take on water. Anyway, I took the boat off plane and explained what happened, and that we needed to go back to the ramp, pull the boat, drain it, and then close the plug all the way again. They nodded in agreement, and we headed back to Mazurik's.

When we got back in, I was lucky enough to see my friends Mark and Jake Romanack at the dock. Mark said, "Are you already back in with your limits?" I laughed, and told him what happened. I got a hug, and wished them good luck as they headed out.

After we finished putting the plug back in we headed back to the north side of Kelly's. We started in 38 feet of water and put Bandits out on both sides behind Off Shore boards. On the port side, they were set with 2oz weights at the 50 mark then, let out a total of 150, 125, and 90 back.
On the starboard side they were set high at only 65, 61, and 57 back.
Colors were mostly white bodied baits, "RC Crush"and "Golden Boy" caught the most today.

First the 2oz/150 lead caught, then the 57 unassisted took a fish, so there was no pattern to be realized yet. The third one came on the 2oz 90 back and the fourth one came on the 61 back. Still no clear pattern....we just kept the one side high and the other side low until I needed to start changing some things up. We caught a few more this way pretty quickly.

The bite was very good early on, on a west to east pass. Then, it slowed a bit for us when we turned and went back to the west. I adjusted the speed to compensate for the difference in current. They didn't seem to care for that direction, or I failed at dialing them in while going in that direction. We turned again and made a pass towards the east again. It was slow. I decided to make a move.

We moved to the east side of Kelly's and ran south. The wind had picked up, and was sustained at 13-15mph with gusts a bit higher. The waves were solid 2-3's up by the airport. We went a little further south of there and turned the boat around. The Ulterra was deployed and the autopilot set on a northerly course over 41-43 feet of water and the baby ETEC was fired up and pushed us along at a speed of 1.7-1.9mph.

The Bandits were set out again, but this time, the higher baits were put down to 120, 115, and 100 back (unassisted) and the deeper side was set the same as before. The Bandit at 120 back caught one, but that was it. I swapped out the port side's Bandit's for Walleye Nation Creation "Reapers". I chose the white bodied colors I had in the box and set them out at 75, 60, and 45 back, which puts them between 15-20 feet. They would catch two, and a Bandit would catch two more too.

We ended the trip with 11 walleye in the cooler and 4 lost on their way in. My crew was happy, and said they had fun, so that makes me happy!

Tomorrow's crew has been rescheduled, due to more wind coming overnight and blowing hard all day tomorrow. Tomorrow night, the temps will fall into the low 30's, and might spit some snow.

Monday's trip was moved to Tuesday for now, but we'll see what the wind decides to do. I'm afraid that the rest of the week might be blown out too, so I'm watching it before contacting my Wednesday through Sunday customers.

Stay tuned....

Don't forget to turn your clocks back tonight...:)

Capt Juls