Day One of Four with Garren, Roger, and Mark 5/5/15

Today was the first of four fishing days with my crew from southern Illinois. Garren and Roger King (son and father) fished with me for two days last season, and booked four more days this year. This time, they brought their long time family friend, Mark, along with them. This would be Mark's first time using Off Shore boards, so he was looking forward to trolling and learning something new.

We started out with a nice breakfast from "Big Boppers" before heading over to Mazurik's to launch at 7am. After making sure everyone had enough rain gear on to keep dry, we loaded up and we headed out.

Our first stop was in the south passage between Mazurik's and Kelly's Island. We were trolling crawler harnesses with 1oz inlines and number 2 Tadpoles. The 1oz was run at 31 back on one side of the boat and 41' back on the other side of the boat. Those were also run on the outside boards, because they were higher in the water column, and I think it's best to run the high baits as far away from the boat as possible, whenever possible.
The #2 Tadpoles were run anywhere from 20-27' with varying depths, but the 25' back took the most hits. We caught 4 big fish there, and then headed to Kelly's when the bite slowed down in the first spot, where we caught 4 more smaller fish.

We only ended up with 8 fish in the allotted fishing time, but there were some real nice fish in the box...one at 30 inches, a 29.6", 29", 28", 27", 24", 24", and 22". My customers were very pleased with their day's catch, and that made me happy. :)

The weather wasn't too bad. We didn't get any storms, but it did rain on us for a few hours. The winds were out of the NE at 10-13 mph or less, so the waves were two foot or less today.

Hopefully, now that the moon is now a "waning moon" (backside of a full moon), and the skies are cloudy, the bite might improve as the week goes on.

We will be back out in the morning, and looking forward to less rain. Thursday and Friday look like it will be fantastic fishing weather, so we're all looking forward to that. :)

Stay tuned....

Capt Juls