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Fishing with the Gahan's 6/11/15
Today I fished with the father and son team from Pewaukee, WI. I picked them up at their hotel this morning at 5:15...oh, wait, that's what time I was supposed to pick them up. Unfortunately for them, their desk clerk neglected to actually set their wake up call, so when I texted them at 5:14 to say "wake up", I didn't know my "joke" would be actually be waking them up!
They came out a short time later, and we left, headed to the gas station and bait shop, before launching. "Did I lock the car?" John asked his son, Matt. "I don't know", said a sleepy young 17 year old from the back seat. I asked, "Do you want to go back?" He hesitated, and I offered, "We're not that far yet. I'll turn around". So, we headed back to the hotel, because I know that creepy feeling, and he didn't need to have that nagging at him all morning.
To his relief, it was locked, so we headed out again. We got to the next corner when I mentioned, "I'm so glad you guys have your Canadian licenses, because I haven't been over there yet, and I've been wanting to cross the line". John looked at me and smiled shyly, then said, "It's in the car". So, another trip back to the hotel and we were off again....45 minutes behind schedule, but it's only a start time...not an exact time. Sometimes, stuff just happens.
Anyway, we got the gas for the boat, and crawlers and ice in the coolers. We hit Mazurik's and launched by 6:15. By the looks of the boats headed out before us, and their bouncy ride, it was looking a little rough out, but it was definitely fishable.
We headed up to the Canadian side and called in to report with the C-Authorities. I drove around for about 20 minutes looking for fish on the Onix around "Mosquito Bay", and near the "Wheel", but marked very little to interest us enough to set up there.
We decided to head down to the bottom of "Mosquito Bay" where there were a lot of drift cast charters fishing, but we didn't set up to troll there either.
Next we hit the SE corner of Middle Island and marked some fish, so we set lines. Unfortunately, by then, we had lost young Matt who need to lay down to battle the urge to Puke. I told him to go ahead and throw up, because it would make him feel much better, but being a male, he toughed it out for an hour or two before succumbing to the ill effects. He admitted he felt better afterwards though. I laughed and said, "You should always listen to your Captain".
Meanwhile, John had reeled in some walleye, catfish, and sheephead. I think we had two white perch today and one white bass, so as far as "junk fish" goes, it was a really good day.
We followed the top of Gull Island Shoal down and around the west side of it. I hugged the 28-31' contours until we got near the bottom of it, and had to turn off of it to stay off the shallow top of it. We only picked up three small eaters in that pass and just kept moving off the shoal towards the NW corner area of Kelly's. There's a whole lot of productive water in between Gull and Kelly's, so one long pass is what we did today.
We were probably 1/2 to 3/4's of a mile off the shoal when a big fish hit and a board wobbled back out of its marching line. John grabbed it and landed a beautiful 32 inch fish. It's the biggest of this season for me so far, so I was really happy for him. That one came on a "Purple Crusher" painted #6 Colorado blade behind a #2 Tadpole set 43' back.
We kept the speed at 1.5 again today too.
The other fish 5 came on:
1oz inlines 41, 51, and 59 back and #2 Tadpoles 35, and 45 back.
We didn't limit out, but we had a good time. Both ended up losing their tummies to Lake Erie, but both had smiles on when we hit shore. John worked hard, and did an excellent job. He learned how to run boards almost immediately, so it made my job much easier too. :)
On the way back to the hotel we stopped at Jim's Taxidermy in Port Clinton first, to drop off John's 32" 10.6 pound walleye, so he could get it mounted. John just built a "man cave" back home, and said it would look nice in there.
I have a trip tomorrow, and the winds should be out of the SSW tomorrow, so I'll attack that shoal again from another angle.
Stay tuned....
