Fishing with Jeff and Nathan Carden 5/16/2020

[Capt Juls]

Got up at 3am, to check the wind forecast, and make sure it didn't change for the worse...then, texted my guys to let them know we were still on for this morning.

I was meeting Jeff Carden and his son, Nathan, at Catawba at 5:45. Nathan follows me on Facebook and set this up for his Dad. They come up every year, this same week. They had brought their boat up, but wanted to go with me the first day, and run cranks, because they usually run crawler harnesses when they've been here in the past. I was happy that Mother Nature allowed us a decent morning before the stronger NE winds move in later this afternoon.


We set out of Catawba at 6am and headed towards Green Island. There was patchy fog on the lake, but it wasn't too bad. The winds were very light out of the NE, and the air temp was in the 50's. Water temp was 50.9 degrees.


We set up between South Bass Island and the south side of Green in 30' of water. The Ulterra and the baby ETEC were deployed and I set the course with the Ulterra's auto-pilot to the NW at 1.7-1.9 mph.


Bandits were set out at 70 back on the outside boards, 60 in the middle, and 40 on the inside behind Off Shore boards. Colors were (2) Glare, Green Clown, Chart Wonderbread, Chrome Barbie, and Sunspot. Jeff was letting out his second line when the first fish hit, so I thought it was good sign of things to come, but it wasn't. We trolled that line for about 20 minutes, and the marks on the Helix disappeared, so I said, "Let's go to another spot I like up this way".


We headed up between the islands, to what I refer to as the "Triangle". It's the area between South Bass, Middle Bass, and Rattlesnake Islands. We set up with the same program, but changed out the 40 to 50 back. It was game on. We caught steady, and some point I told them to put everything out at 60 back, and then it was doubles and triples going...Woot! Woot!.


We had our 18 fish in just a little over an hour in that spot. Jeff and Nathan had a ball, and I asked, "So, do you like running cranks over crawlers?" Nathan nodded his head, approvingly, laughed, and said, "Oh yeah! I like this!" Jeff agreed.
I said, smiling, "If I can catch them on cranks, and don't have to deal with all the mess, that's what I'm going to do, every time".


Since they had just got into town this morning, and still needed to clean the fish and go unpack, they thought it was a good idea to get our limits and head in, before the wind changed. However, now that I'm sitting on land, I don't think the gusts they were forecasting is going to happen. Which is nice, because there are a lot of boats out there today.


My trip for tomorrow was rescheduled, and I'm watching the forecast for my two-day trip for Monday and Tuesday. It looks like Tuesday is a blow, so they may reschedule both days. We shall see....


Stay tuned....


Capt Juls

[itsbob]

My buddy John finally launched his boat last week and fished today,first outing this season.Unfortunately I was unable to join him due to work today.I did give him some Intel on location and what leads have been catching.He told me he saw Juls heading in when on his way out.Started just north of E can and headed into wind towards green.Speed was1.9mph.Caught 14 fish in two hours.Best leads 50 and 70 and used Bandits.Best blue chrome and clown.Said fog was not bad till he was coming in.

[Eyezcrazy]

Good job captain! You were already coming in as we were heading out! I don’t know what speed you were running but we caught double and triples when we slowed down to 1.2-1.3. Our catch rate really slowed when we got up tp 1.6 or above. We ended up with a 4 man limit in 2 hours.

[Capt Juls]

Good job captain! You were already coming in as we were heading out! I don’t know what speed you were running but we caught double and triples when we slowed down to 1.2-1.3. Our catch rate really slowed when we got up tp 1.6 or above. We ended up with a 4 man limit in 2 hours.

Well, I reported that the speed was 1.7-1.9 and caught doubles and triples too.

[Mooner]

Makes it even more fun when you can dial them in. Good job, Capt. Juls!

[itsbob]

My buddy who fished that same day was too lazy to put out bags.He trolled for 2hrs and made one long run into wind with speed 1.9mph.Caught 14 in same area with 4 lines and had a thriple and several doubles.Unusual that could catch from 1.2-1.9mph.Stedke always says that its most productive to troll as fast as possible.Cover more ground and get better hook ups.

[Walleye Wizard]

Well, I reported that the speed was 1.7-1.9 and caught doubles and triples too.

I Juls thanks for all your reports they are a great help but I have one question do you run shallow or deep bandits

[Capt Juls]

I Juls thanks for all your reports they are a great help but I have one question do you run shallow or deep bandits

Deep walleye 5/8 Bandits