Fishing Day Two with Doug and Mark 4/20/2021

Continued from the previous post titled "Fishing Day One with Doug and Mark 4/19/2021"


On to this morning:


I went to bed at 5:30 the night before, because I was getting tired! I slept hard for 9 hours and woke up nice and refreshed. I got up and made some coffee and hit the back deck to check conditions for the day. It was drizzley (yuck). The wind forecast was not as bad as predicted the night before, and would be less than 15 out of the SW and switching to the WNW and diminishing as the morning went on....only to build again when this snowstorm hits town later this evening.


I sent Doug a text and told him, "It's a go", and to meet me at Mazurik's at 6:30. I didn't want to launch in the dark again, because unlike the Portage River, this time I would need to be able to read the waves.


Capt Sam Downing was alone, and sitting in the get ready lanes when I arrived this morning. After the usual greetings and pleasantries, he offered up some helpful information as to where he caught some fish yesterday when he launched out of there. I gladly accepted it, because I know he doesn't lie to me. :)


And, because it was not my information....as usual I am not at liberty to give that information out. All I will say is, that we headed north out of the launch and not east or west. :)


The program was Spro's on the port side at 50/60/80/100 (order of the boards going out away from the boat...long lead on the outside) and Bandits on the starboard side with the same numbers.


Spro colors were Marvin, Golden Perch, Blue Chrome, and Golden Perch (again, in the same order going away from the boat).


Bandits colors were Taco Salad, Blue Chrome, RC Crush, and Carrot Top.
The Taco Salad color didn't catch anything, so it was switched out eventually for another Spro Golden Perch.
RC Crush caught one, but was eventually swapped out for another Carrot Top, because Carrot Top was on fire!


We were bringing in singles, doubles and triples, and had our 18 fish by 9:15. I said to Mark, "Well, you said you wouldn't mind if we were off the water by 10am". He giggled.


Doug and Mark had a great time, and so did I. At first I was kind of dreading it, since a cold front moved in last night, and I thought it would shut them down, but those fish were hungry... and, most of the fish had two sets of hooks in them, rather than the one single treble hook barely hanging on to the skin of their lips, like I've seen on most of my trips this past week.


They were happy campers and set off to see George Cutcher out there in Oak Harbor at Cutcher's Fish Cleaning, where he cleans them for a dollar a fish. That's a big savings when you have a cooler full of 3-5 pound fish!


I have scheduled day off tomorrow...thank goodness, because we are supposed to get 2-4" of snow overnight. I put the boat over in the heated storage for the night, and will bring her home when the snow melts by tomorrow afternoon.


Thursday through Sunday's trips are on notice right now, due to the wind forecasts. So, we'll see when I'm headed out again.


Stay tuned....


Capt Juls