first trip this year 4/24 North of Kellies Island

First trip of year 4/24 North of Kelleys Island

My friend invited me out to fish with him. We left dock at bay point at 7:35. Headed North toward the shoal. Started where we saw a few boats and trolled west and north side of KI shoal 40 fow up to 18 fow. No takers and few marks. Saw a boat jigging on top of reef that netted a couple but left before we finished our troll.

We picked up lines and headed west to NW corner of Kelleys in the bay. Saw a number of boats working 2 trolling lines. We found good marks from 34 fow up to 20 fow. So we set a troll ENE direction, zigging and zagging when we saw fish. It was tough to slow his boat down with the wind but we were showing 1.8-2.1 mph, then see fish marks and zag to slow down. This is how we triggered the bites. We picked up 1 on first troll and made mistake of going shallower into bay. Fish marks disappeared. We made a big circle back to our first fish and headed ENE again. We picked up 2 more on that troll. We trolled against wind for a while and picked one up early and late. Then we moved back to West first fish and trolled again to catch a few more. We ended up with 9 in box, one lost at net and one off before seeing it. All fish 3 - 6 pounds.

We fished mostly bandits with carrot top and wonder bread being the best. They caught 3 and 2 fish. Others that worked were chrome/ blue back and one purple with pink head reef runner ripstick off a lite bite. Leads were 100 unassisted with carrot top, 40 unassisted with assorted, and 33 with 2oz weight 5 feet in front of bait, then lite bite on 75 feet and 7 setting. I have to thank Juls for giving us such detailed reports. I don’t think we would have started baits from 25-40 feet back if not for her report Saturday. That 40 feet back produced the most fish. Though I think I should have run more than 1 at 100 back.

The good marks were from 25 feet down up to 12 feet down mostly over 28-34 fow. The number of fish on screen was a 6 out of 10 being the best I've seen. The water temp was 46.5 - 47 by 2pm when we left.

Tight lines,
Rickerd