Fishing with Jeff and Darren 9/15/2021

[Capt Juls]

Well, hello there! Seems like forever since I last wrote a report, but it's only been two weeks...lol

I've been getting emails, messages, texts the past week asking if I was okay, because I hadn't written any reports since August 29th. Thank you for reaching out, but, yes, I am fine! I just haven't been out due to wind, cancelations, reschedules, and scheduled days off. Who knew, when I scheduled the days off, that I wouldn't need them. It seems every day that I had scheduled off, it was nice out, and when I had a trip, it was blowing....deep sigh. I just couldn't win this month! Uffda!


Anyway, I got back out today with two gents who I had to reschedule three times, due to wind, and we finally got out. Jeff and Darren have only used big boards before and wanted to learn how I run my Off Shore boards, so the goal today was to get them comfortable using them.


We launched out of Mazurik's at 7:15 and headed north to the east side of Gull Island Shoal to start. The wind was 11mph out of the NNW this morning, and the waves were only 1 and 2s. The sky was black to the east, from the storms that passed through overnight, but it was clearing to the west. The forecast was calling for the wind to die down a little as the day progressed. The air temp was 61 degrees when we launched and would reach the low to mid 70s by noon.


We set up with three Off Shore boards on each side and one dipsey off each corner. The water was stirred up, and a little cloudy, between Gull and Kelly Shoals, but I could still see the motor's cavitation plate, so I didn't worry about it too much.


I went through the instruction of how to attach the planer boards and send them out, and explained why I do things the way I do (basically, cutting their learning curve to a minimum, and heading off any mistakes they might make), and they caught on very quickly. I have no doubt, that they can go do this in Jeff's new Hewscraft with confidence.


Unfortunately, they didn't get much practice bringing in fish from them. The bite was very poor, to non-existent, all morning. We only caught three keepers in that 15 1/2-18 inch range, one white bass, and one throw back....that's it.


We trolled from Middle Island, to Kelly's Shoal, to east of Kelly's, and down to Cedar Point, and that's all we had to show for it. The marks were so scattered and sparse, that it had me scratching my head. Last year, at this time, there were a lot more fish in these areas than what I was seeing this morning.


My guys were really fun to fish with, and the weather was pretty darn nice today too. There were no bugs, the air was cool, and the sun even came out, so other than a poor bite, there was nothing to complain about. Jeff and Darren said they had a great time and learned what they came to learn, and will be buying the Off Shore products very soon, and that makes me happy.


The only baits that caught fish today were on the Walleye Nation Creation Boogie Shad at 30/30 with 2 oz, the Red Headed Wonderbread Yeck spoon... on the zero setting dipsey at 42 back, and the Watermelon Scorpion spoon on the same setting.


Other baits we ran were Ripplin Redfin, Bandit, Spro Madeye 120, and the Mag 44. Other than the one fish on the Boogie, the rest just got washed all morning.


My two day trip for tomorrow and Friday, were cancelled by the customer yesterday, because two of the three crew members are suffering the effects of COVID and couldn't make the trip, so they will be rescheduling to the spring.


I've got perch trips lined up for next week, which I'm looking forward to, so we'll see how that goes.


I did mark what looked like good perch areas out there on the east side of Kelly's, but never in enough numbers to make me want to go set up on them. I think we'll be headed west next week.


Stay tuned....


Capt Juls

[Bob H]

We’re used to seeing Jeff and Darren with limits! Proof that its been tough for most of us.
Great post as usual Capt Jules.