Fishing with Dan, Matt, and Ryan 7/5/17

[Capt Juls]

Dan Bishop and his two sons, Ryan and Matt, are staying at the campground right down the street from me, so they met me in my driveway this morning at 4:30. We headed to Big Bopper's for some breakfast, before hitting Hi Way Bait and Tackle for some ice. I also loaded up on some of the good colors of Skipper 9 perch rigs, since the fella that used to make them has passed away, and I'm too lazy to figure out how he tied them.


We launched out of Mazurik's at 6am and headed east of Kelly's for the morning. I had the rods all rigged up with 2oz inline weights with crawler harnesses that I tied up with (1) #4 Octopus Hook, (1) #6 treble hook, (8) 8mm beads, a quick change clevis from DutchFork.com, and some #5 and #6 Colorado blades with copper hammered backs, anti freeze backs, and pink antifreeze backs.


We pulled those in 38 foot of water at 40, 45, 47, 51, 57, 65, 75, and 85 back at 1.6mph. The 47, 57, 65, and 75 were the best producers of the bunch.


The water temp was up to 73 degrees today. The winds were calm, and the bugs were plentiful. You know...the kind that get in your eyes, ears, and nose if you're not covered up. Every now and then the wind would kick up a little and they would blow away for a while, but then the wind would die again, and they would return....ugh.


We went through many short walleye...but, gave each one a kiss for their boo boo before letting them go back home to get bigger. We lost a handful of keeper size walleye, because we didn't use a net on them, and just tried lifting them in the boat....that proved to be harder than it would have seemed, so we got the net out on everything we thought might be a keeper. lol


We ended the day with 14 nice eaters...with the largest going around 6-7 pounds. Most of them were in the 18-22 inch range though.


After we ran out of my 10 dozen crawlers, we put some Bandits on. I went to my "go to" colors immediately, which are the blue/chrome (stock), crown juls (Mike Chafin out of Cranberry Creek makes that one), huff daddy chrome (Domka Outdoors), and one by DJ Customs, but I can't remember what he called it...it's chrome pink with yellow dots on it.
We ran those anywhere from 85 to 100 back at 1.9-2.2mph.


As soon as we put them out, they started firing right away, and seem to be catching a larger grade of walleye. We didn't have much time left of their 6 hour trip, so we only ran them for about an hour before heading back in.


This was Ryan and Matt's first time fishing for walleye on Lake Erie, and their first time trolling for them. They were quick learners, and did a fantastic job of listening and getting the program down in quick fashion. A couple of fire drills produced some tangles, but that's to be expected even from the best of trollers. So, over all, I give them a B+ for their efforts today.


They had fun and that's all that matters....and, that makes me happy.


Tomorrow's trip is with Mike Shepperson and his 14 year old grandson again.
"Pops" isn't going this time, but Mike's friend is going to go instead.


I can't quite figure out what the wind is going to do tomorrow, because different sites are saying different things, so I'll be meeting my guys at Huron in the morning, and we'll figure it out from there.


Stay tuned.....


Capt Juls