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Fishing with Tim and Matt McGlothlin 8/28-8/29/15
On Friday morning I picked my crew up at their hotel at 7:45...a late start, because they had not arrived in town until around 3am, giving them only a few hours rest. I had gotten up at 3am, which is my usual routine, and left the house at 5am to go on a minnow hunt for the day's bait.
We would be perch fishing, and the best bait for yellow perch on Lake Erie's Western Basin is still the Emerald Shiner. After locating some all the way over in Bay View, I made a run after breakfast to get some. They are very small scoops over there, and cost a premium price of 3.00 per, but when you're at the only store carrying them right now......you pay. What can you do, besides just shake your head as you walk out of the store?
Anyway....at 7:45 we were headed to Hi Way Bait to get ice, and then over to the ramp at Mazurik's, and in the water by 8:15.
I had been perch fishing the day before on the "Pirate Clipper", and we did okay, so I knew where to go if I really needed to get some perch, but I wanted to check out one of my favorite spots up on Gull Island Shoal first. We tried three spots up there, but there were no biting perch there, so we moved to the spot I was taken to the day before. They were on the smaller side, and my customers are 'meat hunters', so I wanted to try to get them on some bigger sized perch.
We set up just east of the monument in 29/30 foot of water and didn't catch anything in the first 15 minutes, so I lifted anchor....okay, I didn't actually "lift an anchor"... I hit a button, to turn the "Spot Lock" off on my Ulterra bowmount, and moved the boat about 100 yards to a little shallower water. I hit the button on the remote again, and we were "anchored" again. I love that Minn-Kota! It's a perch fisherman's greatest asset, if you don't like to mess with real anchors, and can have a Minn-Kota bowmount on your boat...;).
I can't even lift the humongous anchor off the ground, that the "Pirate Clipper" throws in the water, that thing weighs a ton!! I can't imagine what my back would feel like after dragging that thing up from the depths a handful of times trying to locate perch....ugh!
Anyway...I digress....after we had 35 of a 90 fish limit, we decided to make a run up to the east side of North Bass. The Pirate Clipper did well there the week before, and it's one of my go to spots for perch, so I wanted to check and see if the perch were still up there....they were. To make this part of the story shorter, we finished out our limit of perch in that spot and headed back in.
The one thing I had to endure all day was the fact that I had not made my brownies for that trip. I normally make them in the morning when I get up and have coffee, but this day, I had gotten up, showered, and left the house on a minnow quest, so they got missed. I figured they have eaten enough of my brownies, that they might have gotten sick of them (5th or 6th charter with me), and they wouldn't miss them....I was wrong!! I didn't hear the end of it all day long, and will never NOT go without the brownies again. lol
I promised that the next day I would have brownies, and I would put double the chips in them to make up for it. So, I made some as soon as I got home that afternoon. lol
DAY TWO: Saturday 8/29/15 A Perch and Walleye Combo Trip
After getting a tip on some decent sized perch at breakfast, we checked three spots out there, east of Kelly's, and didn't get anything going. I decided to take Tim and Matt out to the "Sandbar" at the 32.8/35.0 line, where I had marked what looked like good perch in several different spots on my ride back in the weekend before. I had laid down some waypoints on the Onix, just in case they would still be there, and to my surprise, they were still close to the area.
We fished for about two hours and put a three person limit in the box. They were all nice sized too. We caught fish from 8-12 inches, with the majority being in the 9-10 inch size. Perfect eaters in my book, and I'll take those over the jumbos any day.
After we caught our limit of perch, we still had a little over an hour to fish, so we headed back in towards Cedar Point, where I could get a good phone signal. I was supposed to Call Captain Eric after perch'n, because he was going to be walleye fishing that morning, and would tell me if they had a walleye bite going on. When I called, he said, "Don't come up here, I've go nothing going. We've only caught one big perch, trolling, and there's floating grass all over the place up here". To which I replied, "Great. Hmmmmm....well, I guess I'm turning left instead of right today. Thanks for the info!"
We did in fact turn the boat to the left, and headed south towards some old waypoints I had on my mapping chip from fishing the past 15 years in front of Cedar Point down to Huron. I figured if the walleye were in there, like I had been told, after they pulled the perch nets, I thought we could catch one or two small eaters and call it a "good day".
As it turned out, those small "eaters" would end up being three "Fish-Ohio's" and one good eater! Tim landed the first fish, which was a fat and healthy 28" walleye. And, we were completely happy with that one, if it ended up being the only one we would catch. But, that wouldn't be the case....
The second fish to come in was what I was expecting over there...it was a nice 22 incher.
Now, for the crazy part....it was the double on the last turn of the day that had expletives spewing out of my surprised and smiling mouth, as these two behemoths rose from the depths of the green waters. The third fish was a giant 32 inch fish and the fourth fish was a 30 incher!! Holy Walleye Batman!!!
I couldn't believe it! My guys were so happy, and had so much fun that day, that they didn't even care that I said things that would be illegal to say over the marine radio. Ha! I couldn't help it....I get excited sometimes, and I have no filter....what can I say? I try, but I can't promise to always keep a lady like composure. Forgive me...lol
We were pulling Bandits behind 2oz inline weights at 75-120 back...speed was 1.7-1.9mph. We caught three fish on the 75 foot leads and one on the 120' lead. All fish came on the Firetiger color. None of the other colors got touched that afternoon.
On the way in, I called Bay's Edge Fish Cleaning on Channel 19, and had their fish pick up service meet me at the launch to take the fish back to Bay's Edge. I only had my "Catch Counter" cooler with me, and it was too full to close the lid, so having a service like that is really appreciated.
I dropped my guys off at their hotel, and said our goodbyes. They are planning on coming back one more time in October, so hopefully, we can repeat what we did this weekend.
It was one of those days that just keeps you coming back for more. Kind of like hitting that eagle on a par 5 on a tough golf course, or a hole in one on a par 3. Gotta love it! ;)
Stay tuned....
Capt Juls
