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Fishing with Ron and Bob Schlosser 1/9/2016
Awesome Day Fishing Open Water in January of the new year! The temperature hit 50 degrees and the water was calm. A perfect "spring like" day!
I was invited to fish with my Facebook friends, Ron Schlosser and is brother, Bob, yesterday, and I enthusiastically said, "Yes!"
I had to work a the animal shelter in the morning, so I got up at 2am and went in early, around 4am, to let the dogs out before cleaning the cat rooms. When I was almost done, I sent Ron a text to let him know that I could meet them at Big Bopper's for breakfast at 7 or 7:15am, instead of the planned 8am meeting time.
He said, "Bob just got in the shower, so we should be there by 7:15".
I got to Bopper's at 7am and went to the bathroom to change out of my dirty sweats and into my cold weather gear (minus my Mustang suit, of course), and ordered my breakfast. I was almost done when the guys arrived, so I told them I wanted to go hit the gas station at the end of the road, and would be right back.
When I got back, they were just finishing breakfast. They finished up, and I told them I would meet them over at Mazurik's.
Once there, they uncovered the boat, and readied it. I climbed into my Mustang suit, and grabbed my two RS Nets out of my Jeep. Ron and Bob wanted to try them out. They want to replace their nets, and knew I had these new RS Nets, so I offered to let them try them out for this trip. They were impressed with the quality, and liked how they handled, while landing fish. I think they might just end up getting one.
We headed out of the launch towards Starve Island, because my friend Capt. Nate Estrada was out with friends the day before and told me they had gone 9 for 15 in that area with Bandits, Deep Husky Jerks, and Perfect 10's.
The brothers were not as familiar with the island area as they are with the Huron area, so I said, "Why don't you let me drive?" And, I was surprised when Bob said, "Okay" and got up to let me sit down. (WoooHooo!!...I just wanted to drive a Ranger with an Evinrude G2 on the back!)
After being thoroughly impressed with the performance of the G2, we got to the spot in a speedy fashion. We chose a contour line to set up on and went with the waves for the first pass in 30' of water.
With the information from Nate's prior trip, we set the baits at varying depths with a couple of Husky Jerks on the outside Offshore boards at 35 back, Bandits at 90-120 back, and Perfect 10's with 2oz's of weight at 30/30 and 40/40 back.
We picked up two little "eater fish" in the first pass, but it was pretty slow for us. The radio chatter noted that people were catching fish on many different colors and style baits, so it was just a matter of finding a reasonably sized pod of active fish. There didn't seem to be a big school at Starve... Nate phoned me to tell me he had good marks over by Green Island, so we picked up after we finished that first pass and were no longer marking any fish on the screen, and headed west.
We set up on the south side of Green...about a mile and a half away from the island, and went with the waves towards it. We had some marks, but nothing to write home about. We had a good pull back, but lost it. We caught one more there before heading back to the east side of starve to try our luck again. This time we set up further east of where we started, and made a pass heading north.
With all of us getting a little impatient, we decided to go look for some fish. We headed to the NW corner of Kelly's Island, marked a few fish and were setting up when Nate texted me some numbers that were just a little to the NW/W of us, and said that they were catching. So, we picked everything back up and headed back towards the monument. As we approached the area from the east, we marked a lot of fish in small pods, so we set down and started trolling. We ended my part of the day at 3pm going 7 for 10 fish, with one big 10.10 pound piggy that measured 30 1/2 inches. I had to get back, because I had to be in bed early, for work the next day.
The guys let me drive the boat back in again (Thanks Ron and Bob!), and they dropped me off at the dock with my nets. Bob ran and got the their nets out of their truck and they headed back out for a little more fishing. This time, they headed closer in to the monument and I got a text telling me that they just set up and caught a triple....getting two of the three fish in the boat. Then, they finished out their limit with two more fish and headed back home to Michigan.
It was a super fun day fishing with these two gentlemen, and I couldn't thank them enough for getting me back out on the water yesterday. I'm thinking that will hold my cabin fever back for at least another three weeks. (Fingers crossed!!) And, then, by that time, it will be time for the Columbus Fishing Show, and my boat will be at Vic's Sports Center, and spring will be right around the corner. Woot! Woot!
Yes, I think I might just make it to spring now, without losing my mind..... :)
Stay tuned...
