Fishing with Chris and Jeff....7/3/2026
Chris contacted me yesterday afternoon, after I got home from fishing, and asked if I still had Friday open, and I told him I did, so we set up a meeting time at Huron for this morning. I asked them to be there between 5 and 5:15a.m.
I was up early again and managed to get the kitchen clean, gardens watered, dogs fed, cat fed, showered, emails returned, and messages answered before walking out the door at 3:45.
I hit the gas station for some ice and headed to Huron. I would be early, but I needed that time to clean the boat a little. It was too hot to do it when I got home yesterday, so I took advantage of the 81-degree temp at 4:30 a.m. to do it.
I only had to do the windshield and get the fish slime off the black 400. Only one side gets the fish slime from the netting process, whereas the other side is just water spots and wipes off easily. Fish slime takes a little more elbow grease to remove it.
The windshield just had some bugs on it from the ride over, so that was easy enough.
Chris and his Dad Jeff showed up at 5:10, and we launched. The ramp was busier than it had been at that time of the morning for the last few days. This morning, there were probably 8-10 boats launching at 5:15.
As we headed out the river, we talked about the program I'm running, and they told me how they hired me, because they wanted to learn to troll. They have only done drift casting with their own boat. It's not really set up for trolling, so Chris wanted to see how I troll and what gear I use to make my trolling more efficient, so he could take some ideas back and implement them on his own boat.
We didn't go far before I shut the Black Mama-Jama down and deployed the Ulterra and baby Merc. While the Ulterra kept us on course, I let the kicker warm up, and I put the FishHawk down to 18'. Then, I adjusted the iTroll controller to get the kicker's speed up to 2.5mph.
We started in 25' of water, with good marks....Like I have the past several days out, but this time they were mostly White Perch, Sheephead, and White Bass, with a couple of walleye mixed in. The past few days, by the time we were near the south side of the dump, there would be 2 limits in the cooler already. This morning, we had 7. They were kept busy with removing undesirables from the lines and resetting the lines.
I showed them how to use the dipsies and set them out. Short rod on the inside (furthest rod holder to the rear), and the long rod on the outside, and how to get the outside rod set without tangling in the inside rod line.
The inside rods ran dipsies on the zero setting, and the outside rods ran on three settings.
Zero settings started at 25 and 27 back. As the sun rose and we traveled over deeper water, they were lowered to 33 and 41 back.
The three settings started at 40 and 50 back, and then lowered to 64 and 82.
Bill Lewis PWC Lites ran behind the Off Shore boards with 2oz snap-weights...leads were:
50/100, 50/85, 50/80, and 50/75. (Put the weight on at the 50 mark, and then the second number is the total amount of line out, before you put the board on).
Colors used were:
"Purple Tiger" (2 of them)
"Green Tiger"
"Red Tiger"
They all caught fish.
When we got to the top of the Huron Dump, I turned the Vexus east-northeast for a bit, before turning back around to go back over our trail. Sometimes, it's just a directional issue, and I wanted to see if they would bite better going back the other way.
I got off course, though, when some boats showed up right at the moment my Ulterra remote said, "I'm done. I need new batteries". I had to quickly change them out, so I could operate the motor. I had a boat heading straight on at me, and I needed to turn to starboard. Luckily, it happened, so the crisis was averted. Whew!
Thankfully, I keep a lot of extra batteries in the boat, and have them handy at all times.
Yes, I know, I could have turned the big motor on to control direction....but, it's still a panicky/icky feeling when you see something out of your control, and there's a big boat in front of you.
All is well...
I let Chris and his Dad set lines as I watched and gave instruction when needed, so they could remember how to do it more easily. People only learn when they can actually do it for themselves, and figure it out. Chris and Jeff certainly did that. I wanted them to do everything together, because they fish together, so they also netted each other's fish, which was funny to watch. The only advice I gave them was, "Use the net like a shovel and not a pool skimmer when you reach for the fish". After they started doing that, they got the fish in easily.
After the remote mishap, we were headed from east to west over 38' of water, and just kept going. We picked a walleye here and there and more junk fish.
The marks on the Garmin were getting fewer... and what looked like bugs coming up were showing on the screen instead. So, I turned the boat north to start a turn to go back. We had trolled maybe a 1/4 mile when one of the planer boards went floating away after it released from the front clip. One of them had not properly secured the line on the Snapper release before letting it out.
We picked up all the dipsies and brought the boards in, then headed back to where it floated away. It was a pretty calm morning, so it was easy to find. I don't think the wind ever got over 10mph at any time this morning. After picking up the board, I just turned the boat to the east, which was the plan in the first place, so that board floating away right when it did was pretty fortuitous, because we hit a frenzy of bites as soon as we got set up. I wouldn't have hit that area in my turn if we had kept going.
We set the dipsies out and got the planer boards out, and they suddenly went bonkers.
"Fish on the inside dipsey", "Fish on the outside board", "Fish on the inside board opposite side", Fish on the other board now, too", "There goes the other dipsey". lol They thought that was great and were giggling throughout the chaos. We put the last fish in the cooler and headed in. They got their limits this morning, and I reeled in mine too.
It was getting hot out, and I knew it was going to be even hotter when we got back on land. The good news is, there were no bugs out this morning. That would have been miserable, as humid as it was. They would be sticking to every inch of exposed skin...ick.
The water temp out there was 79 degrees on the surface and 18' down. The water is getting hot now, too.
I'm off tomorrow, but will be fishing with my neighbors Danielle and Dave, and our friend Keith (whose boat we sometimes take instead of mine) on Sunday.
My truck goes into the shop on Monday. Dave has been generously letting me use his truck for the past several trips, so I wouldn't blow mine up before I can get it fixed. Thanks, Dave!
Stay tuned...
Capt Juls
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Originally Posted by itsbob
