Finally, Back on the Water...Fishing with Bill, Mica, and Eryn 4/11/17

[Capt Juls]

I hadn't been out on the water since Saturday...."Why?", doesn't matter...it's a long story. lol

Anyway, today was the first day of a 5 day trip with a group of 9 from South Dakota.

In my boat, I'm fishing with Bill, Mica, and Eryn. Capt Kevin Swartz has three more, and Capt Chuck Oeder has the last three. We're all working together to put them on some fish.

The bite has been less than stellar this season so far. Due to the March winds, early on, the lake got really torn up, and turned to chocolate milk. Then, it started to clean up west of the islands, and we started catching some fish in the usual haunts. But, it was short lived, when another Nor'Easter came roaring in last Friday to churn it up again....deep sigh.

We left Mazurik's this morning at 7am, and headed up the east side of Kelly's Island to find clean water with some marks in it. I ended up making the first past on the SE corner of Kelly Island's Shoal...headed NW to go up the west side of it.

We marked fish there, but didn't get any to go, and there weren't as many marks as I would have liked to have seen. So, a call to Kevin confirmed that there were fish north of Kelly's in deeper water.

It was cloudy in the morning, but the waves were 6" at best. The sun was trying to come out at 9:30, and we were hoping the sun would help with the bite. But, a phone call to Kevin, from a friend, told him to go west of the islands, and that the water was cleaning up here and there. So, after he discussed it with me and Chuck, we decided to pull lines and head west about 15 miles as the crow flies. The ride was great and I'm happy to say the new Ranger 621 with the 300 ETEC G2 are performing nicely.

We fished the reef area and targeted 11-17 foot of water with Bandits trolled 20-40 back at 1.4-1.5 mph. However, I'm hearing of fish being caught at speeds upwards of 1.7-1.8mph, so I might just give that a try tomorrow too.

We didn't catch any big fish today, but we managed 6 fish out of the 11 pull backs on the Off Shore boards...and, 3 bonus piggy Sheep.
Oh, and we also lost two bandits to a big toothy critter with a very big mouth and big teeth! We never saw it, but it severed the line like "Butta". lol

Tomorrow's weather looks pretty good. Winds are forecast below 10mph out of the WSW all day, so moving around the lake will be easy. A good thing for the NWT competitors, who are starting the tournament tomorrow and want to go to far away locations.

We'll be launching out of Catawba in the morning, to cut our run to the west side of the islands in half.

See you out there!

Stay tuned....

Capt Juls
No pictures...sorry!

[b-lou]

Thanks for the report Juls. I am coming up tomorrow and after a 6 hour tow just giving me an idea on where to go saves me and bunch of time and gas money. Up until your report I was gonna be flyin blind...B-lou

[cycleguy]

Even if I can't make it over this year (still hoping to), I surely love reading your great reports - thank you for that time!

[Whopper]

Great report as usual Capt Juls. I will be on the water at firSt light trying to jig em for a bit, then will troll for a lunker or two. If I get a bite going I will be sure to relay the information. Good luck, tight lines.