Fishing with Grant, Brandon, and Aaron 4/29/22

Grant, and his crew, are another group that I had to reschedule from last fall, and again in March. We managed to finally make it out this morning.

My crew met me at Catawba at 6am, and we headed north out of the launch at 6:15. The 10 mile ride wasn't bad, but the waves were like a washing machine. Some were from the SE and some were from the NE, creating a very choppy surface, so it wasn't a fast ride out.

The air temp was a little warmer than yesterday, so the fingers weren't freezing this time. The water temp hasn't come up since yesterday, and is still hanging in the 47-48 degree range.

We set up in 30' of water, with the same Bandit program running behind the Off Shore boards at 75, 65, 55, and 45 on the starboard side and 80, 70, 60, and 50 on the port side. Speed was 1.5-1.8mph.
We went 3 for 5 fish out there, when the east winds started picking up, and the waves were getting bigger. I didn't want to keep trolling west and have to make a longer run in heavy seas, if it were to keep building, so I decided to pick up and take them closer to the Bass Islands, where it was more sheltered from the wind.

We set up with the same program....colors used successfully were:
Blue Chrome
(2)Carrot Top
(3)Chrome Perch
Chrome Barbie
Pink Lemonade

Grant has his own boat, and does a lot of striper fishing, so if I was busy, I was letting him net some fish too. Anyway, at one point, Brandon is reeling in a large walleye, and it gets to the back of the boat, comes up really close to the motors, (because I'm not back there yelling, "Keep the rod out to the side"), and Grant tries to net it in an awkward position, and pulls one of my oopses of catching the hooks, and the fish, on the outside of the net.
Unfortunately, he didn't have a chance in hell, to do the "flippy-thing" with the net to get the fish inside it, because of the location, and lost Brandon's fish.

I shouldn't have laughed out loud, but it just came bellowing out, and I couldn't help it. Aaron laughed too, but Brandon was not laughing. He wasn't mad either, but he was definitely disappointed. Grant was too, and was a good sport with all the chastising and ribbing he took from both of his friends over it.
It would have been the biggest fish of the day for them. Oh, well....as Brandon later asked, "It's good Karma, to put some back every now and then, right?" :)

We ended the trip with 14 in the box...and lost 5. Not a stellar day, but not bad either. They all had fun and were happy with the results. After they put the fish in the cooler they brought along, they couldn't have fit one more fish in it anyway. lol
(The cooler pic I took, and posted, was when they had only put 1/2 the fish in the cooler, when they were transferring them from my cooler, at the end of the day).

They did a great job today, had a good time with each other, and let me be my salty self, so that was fun for me...lol They said they want to come back again, and that make me happy!

Tomorrow, I wanted to reschedule, due to the wind direction and speed, but my crew is already in town and really just wants to get on the water, even though I told them I am not going to where I was today, in those winds, and there really isn't anywhere to hide from that wind direction, except west of Catawba. I told them that the fish haven't been over there in numbers, but that I have caught a few there this past week.
They want to go, even knowing all that, so we will go. How long we will be out will be determined by the crew. ;)

Stay tuned....

Capt Juls