Long Boat Ride with John 6/1

Was planning to fish Thursday with John and our classmate Phil.We all had Canadian licenses and John and Phil were fishing Wednesday for bass and walleye around Pelee.They only tried casting and caught zero fish for the day.John even said all the marks were gone on East and West side of Pelee.Of course I didn't believe him but told me to be at boat at 5am.Think that was punishment for being 15 min late last week.I showed up ON TIME.....and got a text that Phil had food poisoning and for me to open boat in the dark.We headed to the East side of Pelee looking for bigger fish again.Water was clean and we ran past chickinole and Mill and no marks....well there has to be fish in deeper water and off we went...and went...and went all the way to weather bouy.No marks.no bait,no boats and no nets.I couldn't believe all that water had no marks.We circled into US waters and headed west.We eventually found some meager marks off Vermillion and set our first line at 8.We caught 5 eaters in 3 hrs at 39/28 and the midges were bad.Got them all on boards.Could not get dipseys to catch a thing.John had had enough and wanted to blow those bugs off his boat.Headed to NE side Kellie's....there are always fish there....nope...no marks again. Avoided perch nets too along the line on our way.
So we continued west and saw a small pack boats on wagon wheel.Turned out to be casters and as we got close were still not marking fish.But I saw them netting some fish.So the fish had to be high so we set lines high and I told John to circle the outside of that 10 boat pack.John noticed a few marks down around 20ft on the western edge of pack in a little deeper water and we also hooked up with a fish on a gold bandit at 55.It finally occured to me that the casters were catching with gold spinners so i put out a gold willow harness on a dipsey at 40 and caught our first dipsey fish in 2 min.Then caught another in a couple minutes on same rod.I put out an gold IB frozen at 60 and a gold harness on a tadpole targetting those 20 ft deep fish.John was able to keep us away from the casters in that deeper water and got out last 7 in 90 min.Our 12 fish weighed 34lbs,speed was 2.2-2.3 mph caught no junk or shorts.Ended up catching a few miles from where we caught our fish the previous week too.

Way to go sticking with it and figuring them out.
Good job.

thanks for the report.

Sometimes you gotta pay attention to those casting;)

Rickerd

My buddy John also saw those boats casting in same area the day before i fished with him. He told me was not marking any fish when he drifted with them. He also said saw nobody netting fish and he got skunked casting too. But i pay attention to a pack of casters. Especially when there are charters casting. You know they are usually on fish. It can be hard to see the boats netting fish too. But i always tell our driver.... don't drive through them...stay on the outside of pack and you will usually find some active fish.