First trip of year 5/3/2016

[Jiga-Byte]

We were finally able to get the boat out on the water after much spring work and preparation. The new boat was purchased at the end of the season last year, so I've been working to get this one all setup for fishing. New kicker is installed with T5, and cavass work is finally completed.

Based on the success reported from last weekend, we headed to the area just north of Niagra. We stayed out of the huge pack of boats, and to the north since I'm still new to running this T5 unit. Ran Bandits 1.6 to 1.8 at all different leads. Started out at 80 to 90 back and landed 1 nice eater - 24" on Fire Tiger. After that we had a little lull in the action. It took a few passes to get the next two in the boat. When we did they came fast almost back to back. Then again nothing for couple of hours.

Overall it was a relatively slow day for us. Four guys and only 8 Walleye. Not sure what we were doing wrong. To my knowledge we were running the same system as everyone else who has reported success. Bandits and DDHJ everywhere from 65 back to 100 back. We seemed to have the most luck around that 80 mark. Fished mostly 30 to 32 FOW. Had decent marks all day.

Towards the end of the day we headed over to the area just Northwest of Mouse since it was on the way in. There we landed our last 3 fish, and this seemed to be a much more active school as they came all within about 30 to 40 minutes. By then it was nearing the end of the day, and I had couple guys on board that needed to get home.

Would love to hear how everyone else did. Our best colors seemed to be Fire Tiger, and IB Frozen. That is the only custom color I have by the way. We tried all the different stock colors and never did seem to establish a pattern to what they were looking for. DDHJ didn't produce anything for us. All fish came on Bandits. Just for grins I even put out some Perfect 10's at one point. Ran em 40/40. They too didn't produce. Doubt they were deep enough in the water column since most our fish came around 80 back on the Bandits.

Even though it was a slow day of fishing for us, the lake was just beautiful and I got to try out the new boat so I'm happy. Slow day on the lake is WAY better than a good day at work. Here are a couple pics of the fish.

[Whopper]

We fished out between A and B can trolling huskys and bandits, 1.6 mph, 65 to 95 back. Caught 3 on huskys sweet angel, pink squirrel and sweet pea. Got one on fruit dots wonder bread bandit. Marked a ton of fish 8 to 15 down, water was dirty and 55 deg. Jigged early(5am) in front of wild wings in 14 fow, got 3 nice eyes before daylight then it was over, thought the water was to clear. Beautiful day on the water all in all, good luck to all.

[JBD's Regina Marie]

We had about the same luck, didn't go to mouse, but end of the day the action picked up North of Niagra. Fire Tiger was good for us too. We were a bit deeper running 1.9 and 100 back was best. Got 8 dropped 1 with just 2 guys.