Fishing with Shane, Marilyn, and Sharon... May/13/2023

Shane, who lives in Minnesota, wanted to share a day on the water with his Mom Marilyn, and his sister, Sharon, so he booked a trip for Mother's Day weekend with me.

Last night the wind forecast wasn't looking too favorable, so the plan was to launch out of Catawba and stay on the protected side, and see what we could find. But, this morning when I looked, the forecast had changed for the better. The gusts were no longer in the high teens to low 20s, but rather 10mph or less. So, with that knowledge, and hope that the forecast wasn't wrong, I sent Shane a text at 4am, to let them know it was a better forecast, and that we would be meeting at Mazurik's, instead of Catawba.

I got there an hour early, so I could pull all the rods, and check the line on them, before picking out what baits I wanted to run this morning. Only three needed trimming, due to abrasion near the lure, so it didn't take very long. I puttered around the boat getting things ready, as the birds started to chirp their morning greetings. It was still very dark out, and quiet.

The feral cats, that hang out around the break wall, were curiously watching me, until other vehicles began to drive in, and they scurried away.

The air temp was in the low to mid 50s, with a light ENE wind.

My crew arrived early, so we had a head start, and launched at 5:30. The sky was cloudy, which kept the sky from lightening as fast as it did the past few days, and we would not get to see a pretty sunrise happen, so that was missed.

We headed to the NW side of Kelly's again, and set up with some Red Headed Wonder Bread Dead Eye lures that DJ Custom Eye Lures painted for me, on each side, behind Off Shore boards. Bandits out produced the Dead Eye this morning for me, so I'm not sure what to make of that. I keep hearing how they out produce the Bandit for everyone else who's running them, so I really had higher hopes for them.

We ran the same program as yesterday with the lures running 90, 80, 70, and 60 on the port side, and 80, 70., 60 and 50 on the starboard side.

Colors were two Red Headed WB Dead Eyes on each side, along with two Bandits on each side. The Bandit colors were (2) "Pearl Shad" by Chris and Matt Hoopes (the one I kept reporting as "the white one with the black dot", that I didn't know the name of, or who painted it...I found out today, they painted it, but don't paint lures anymore.), (2) "Red Chartreuse"(stock color at FishUSA)...one of each of those on each side. The Red Headed, which is usually my best color, didn't produce at all this morning, but the other two colors did.

At one point, I took one Red Head off each side and then added two dipsies to each side...running the zero and three settings. We started with spoons, and then I remembered I had some crawlers in the cooler, so I dug out the worm burners and put one on each dipsey.
The zero setting was set at 25 and 27, while the three settings were set at 43 and 45 back.

I adjusted our speed to run 1.9 on the Fish Hawk, which was 2.3-2.4 on the GPS and we started catching at a better rate.
The Worm Burner took the biggest fish, on a three setting at 45 back.... which was only a "good eater", at maybe 25 inches. 5 crawlers were stolen, too, so they were hit and misses.
I took the Bandits that were running at 50 and 60 back out of the line-up and put a 2oz snap weight on them, running at 50/24 (total of 74), and that took two with Pearl Shad Bandit.

Water temp near Starve was 58.2 on the surface, but only 52.7, at 15 feet down.

It was a tough bite overall, and like others have said, the bite for us slowed way down at around 8:30-9:00, too. We had 9 when that happened, and would only get two more the rest of the morning, before it was time to head in.

My crew had fun, even when it was raining on them. Shane was an excellent "First Mate"...having never run boards before, he did an excellent job. He caught on very quickly, and was running his side of the boat in no time at all. His mom and sister had fun reeling in fish, even if they had trouble standing up in the boat, after the wind kicked up a little.
It was enjoyable for me to spend their special time together, and I hope Marilyn has the best Mother's Day weekend, possible.

Tomorrow's crew has been rescheduled to Monday, since my Monday crew had to reschedule to July, due to an unexpected surgery, because the winds tomorrow will be nasty.

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mom's out there....for those with human children and to those of us with furry four-legged children. :)

Stay tuned....

Capt Juls