Day One: Fishing with Mary and Nancy 10/28/19

[Capt Juls]

Mary and Nancy drove in from Columbus this morning and were to meet me at Mazurik's at 7:30. I had left early this morning, so I would arrive there at 7am. I wanted to tie up some crappie rigs for our perch trip today. They had beat me there and were a 1/2 hour early! But, because they are women...it didn't surprise me one bit, and it made me chuckle, because it seems I'm usually waiting for men to arrive on time.

It was still dark, so I said we would be waiting until it lightened up, and that I was going to tie up some new rigs for the rods.


By the time I was done, another Ranger owner pulled in the get ready lanes, so I asked if one of them would dump us in, so the ladies didn't have to help me. They were kind enough to dump us and go park my truck for me. Thank you to whoever you were! Much appreciated!


We headed to the northeast of Kelly's to perch fish, and set the Spot Loc on the Ulterra in a spot that the Helix was showing fish on the bottom. But, the current up there was tremendous and the lines were almost horizontal, so we changed locations to the "Stone Dock" on the NW corner of the island.


We caught a bunch of small perch, some sheep, and some white perch there. I decided to move north towards Gull Island Shoal and try by the buoy. My Ulterra was acting unlike it ever has though, and instead of pointing me into the wind, like it's supposed to, it had me stern into the wind, and left me scratching my head. I couldn't figure it out.


We moved again, back down towards the stone dock, but moved out to deeper water this time. The first time, we set up in 27 feet of water. This time we were in 34 feet. We caught some small ones again along with some keeper sized fish too. They were not coming fast though. On the bright side though....the Ulterra seemed to be working like its supposed to.


I kept looking to the west, and wondering how dirty the water had gotten after the blow. Yesterday, when I looked from shore, while driving into town along the lakefront, the water looked muddy out there, so I was hesitant to go that distance only to find it was not fishable. I asked the gals, "Feel like taking a ride to the west? If the water isn't bad, we should be able to find some that are more willing to bite." "Let's go!", said Nancy, and Mary agreed. So, we headed to the E and D can area. Long story short....we bombed there. lol


I headed over towards Mouse Island only to find more of that swift current. I dug some heavier weights out of the box and had the ladies put them on to see if that would get the baits down in a more vertical fashion....and, it did. After doing that though, I was kicking myself inside, because I hadn't thought of putting a heavier weight on in the first spot this morning....duh!


There were a lot of marks on the Helix in that Mouse area, but I think they might have been shad and not perch, because something should have hit, or been snagged if those had been perch. We moved over to the Lakeside spot I had used a couple times in the past couple of weeks, and we found some decent sized ones to put in the box. Nancy finished off the morning with a big fish. She thought it was a sheepshead, so I kept fishing. Then, I looked over the side and said, "OMG, it's a good walleye! I'll get the net". Nancy had hooked a nice 5 pounder, and in the box it went, much to her delight.


I will be fishing with Mary and Nancy again tomorrow. It looks like the last nice day of the week, so we're going to head over to Huron and go out of there in the morning. We'll stop for breakfast at Berardi's before heading the ramp at 7:30.


In case you're wondering, the water temp was only one degree cooler than this past Friday and registered in at 55.3 degrees.


Stay tuned....


Capt Juls