Fishing with Neal, Dave, and Luke 4/6/19

[Capt Juls]

I left the house at 5:45 and swung by the White Caps Motel to pick up my crew at 6am for breakfast, before heading back to the Portage River Fishing Access ramp next to their motel, to launch.

It was still kind of dark out when we headed down the river at a bracing speed of 5mph for the 20minute "no wake" zone until we hit the lake. The sun was just lighting up the sky when we hit the end of the channel, and showed us a calm and glistening lake of glass. It was going to be a very nice day. The forecast called for winds less than 5mph for most of the day, and sunshine to warm the air temps into the 60's.

By the time we hit the mouth of the river, the E-TEC was all warmed up, so I hit the throttle and away we went. The Ranger glided across the lake like at a nice cruising speed of 40, so we could react if we saw one of those super giant logs that are floating out there right now. Some of them are over 20 feet long!

We headed north out of the river for approximately 15 miles before slowing down to check some marks that the Helix was alerting me to. They looked like the right fish, and the water wasn't too dirty, so we set up with the Bandit program at 65/70/80/90 back (unassisted) on both sides of the boat, and set the Ulterra's speed to 1.1-1.3 mph. The surface water temp was reading at 42.2 degrees.

We went 0 for 2 in thatspot, and decided to go check another spot closer to North Bass. There were some good marks up there, but the water temp was reading 2 degrees cooler, and the water was much cleaner there. Not quite the mixing water I was looking for. I just didn't have a strong feeling that we would do well there, so we moved back down to the first spot and changed the trolling direction.

We headed south from the original spot and started to pick away at them. We went 11 for 15 in total, but we did manage to land some really nice chunkers. The largest wasa 10.3 beauty... another was a 9.9 pounder...a set of 7.6 twins, a 7.4, a 6.6, and the rest just little eaters. The 10.3 was let go to live another day and hopefully get even bigger, so someday someone can catch a new state record walleye for Ohio.

Today, we celebrated Neal's birthday, which was back in December. His wife bought him this trip for his birthday, and we're just now getting it done. Neal brought his brother in law, Dave, and their nephew, Luke along for the trip too. Luke is an awesome young man...he impressed me a LOT (and, that's saying a lot..lol)...I only had to tell him something once and he was doing it like a pro. He made my day so easy, and if I could hire him as a first mate, I would! Great job Luke!!

It was a fun day with this crew, and I'm looking forward to a perch trip in the fall that they want to come back and do with me, and that makes me happy.

Hopefully, Neal will bring his wife along on that trip too.

Tomorrow's trip is with Daren Cable, who called me yesterday to fill a spot that was left open when I had to reschedule a couple for medical reasons. He wants to learn how to run the Off Shore boards, so this will be a learning trip with...hopefully, some walleye as a bonus!

Stay tuned...

CaptJuls