Fishing with the Lickfelt Family 5/28/19

[Capt Juls]

I hope everyone had a nice Memorial Weekend and took a moment to remember our service men and woman who have sacrificed some or all for the freedom to live our lives with the freedom to choose our own paths. Thank you, to all of you who have, and have had, the courage to protect us from those who would harm us.
I had Sunday unexpectedly off, due to my customer canceling with a case of food poisoning, so there was no report...and, yesterday's crew didn't want to take any pictures, so I didn't write anything for yesterday either...just a blurb on my Facebook page.
However, today was a good day....so here goes...
My crew was meeting me at Mazurik's at 5:30/5:45, because they didn't want breakfast, and were driving in this morning. I stopped off at Speedway to get some ice for the coolers and then headed over to Big Bopper's for a pancake and some bacon before going over to meet them.
I got there first, so I took that opportunity to ready the boat and get the rods out of the rod locker. They showed up right on time and we were headed out of the ramp at 5:45. Brian, who is in his 40's, set the trip up so he could fish with his Dad Allen and his son, Jake. I asked, "How did you find me? Was it through Facebook or something?" Brian said, "No. I don't do Facebook. My dad has been a fan of your blog now for many years and told me about you, so we thought it would be fun to get out with you and learn something". I giggled and said, "Thank you! I'm glad you read it...it makes it worth the while to do it, knowing someone is actually reading them."
We headed west from Mazurik's to Scott Point Shoal. My plan was to run Bandits behind Off Shore Boards there. We set up with them running 35-55 back at 1.8mph, but we didn't even get a bump or anything in about a 1/2 mile. The wind was gusting out of the SW pretty good too, so I said, "Let's pull them in and head east over to the lighthouse. We'll set up a dipsey/spoon program and see what happens."
We stopped short of the shipping dock there, west of the lighthouse, and put the dipsies in the water. The 3 settings were at 49 and 57 and the 1 settings were at 33 and 37 (which puts them both at 15 and 17 foot respectively.)
I was going to have to go faster, so I used the baby E-TEC kicker motor, in conjunction with the Ulterra on the bow, to keep my speed higher, but my power level on the Ulterra's battery usage lower. I put the power level at 5 and adjusted the throttle on the E-TEC until I could keep it regularly at 2.4-2.5mph.
We hadn't gone very far when the first two fish came in the boat. Michigan Stinger and Scorpion spoons were what we were running. I had a Ripplin Redfin out for a bit, but the spoons were more tantalizing, or so it seemed, so I took it off and put a spoon back on. We would run up to in front of Mazurik's and turn around and set up again 3 or 4 times before we were done with their 6 hours.
We went 21 for 30(ish) walleye and three Sheepshead. Two fought their way off the hooks and the others were too short to go in the box legally, so off they went to grow bigger for another day.
We caught some of the 2018 hatch and some of the 2019 hatch too. I'm guessing the 2018 hatchlings are the 5-9 inchers and the 2019 early hatchlings are the 3 inchers right now...but, it's only a guess on my part.
We had a fun morning, and Jake did a fine job of reeling in fish, taking the hooks out of them, and putting them in the cooler all by himself. It made me nervous when he was in the net with a fish and hooks, but his Dad said to let him do it, so I just prayed he wouldn't get a hook in his hands and kept my mouth shut. lol All was well...no injuries happened...whew!
Brian said he learned a lot, and so did Allen. I have every confidence they can take what they learned today and practice the same in their boat with the same success for the supper table....and, that makes me happy.
Tomorrow's crew will be with me for the next two days. I hope we can dodge the scattered thunderstorms that are forecast, but if we can't, it won't be a long run back to Catawba to wait it out. I'll be running the Bandit program over there again, since we will have an east wind with the chance of storms moving in from the west for the next two days. On the bright side, the winds won't be that strong, so all is well.
Stay tuned...
Capt Juls
P. S. I have several available spots for July, August, and September at this time, so if you're looking for a day out on the lake to have some fun adventures, contact me and I'll get you set up.