Fishing with Scott and Mark... July 10, 2023

**Capt Juls** · 07-10-2023, 02:49 PM

Scott Smith, and his friend, Mark Delagarza, met me at Mazurik's at 5:30, this morning. We launched shortly after their arrival, and headed up to the Canadian line, to see if we could find some fish. The Helix lit up with good marks, so we started setting lines.

Both, had fished with dipsies and Off Shore boards before, so little instruction was needed...just a refresher course, since it had been a while since they use different releases on their boards, than I do. I run the OR-18 (Snapper release) on the front and the OR-16 (red release with the pin in the center of it). They use the OR-19 on the front, so they can trip it, and release the front one.
They caught onto the dipsey program pretty quickly, and were very adept at not tangling any lines.

We ran Bandits behind the Off Shore boards, three on the starboard side and two on the port side, and two dipsies off each corner.

Bandit colors that did well were the Blue Shiner (Original one..not the foil one with the same name), Chrome Barbie, and one I can't remember the name of, but it's perch colored without stripes, and has a black "Shad dot" on it. "Green Shad", maybe? I don't know. Sometimes, I can remember the name, and sometimes it eludes me. lol

Anyway, we were trolling over 39 feet of water and had the Bandits set at 120, 85, and 65 on the starboard side, and 81 and 70 on the port side. Each one caught a fish, but the Blue Shiner was running on both sides of the boat, and caught 4 or 5 between them at 65 and 70 back. Chrome Barbie caught 2 at 81 and 85 back and the Green Shad caught one at 120 back.

Speed was 2.2 on the Fish Hawk and 2.3-2.5 on the GPS.

Dipsies ran on the usual zero and three settings....zero at 40 and 50. The three setting started out at 47 and 65, but both would be dropped to 70, eventually, and would catch their fair share of fish, too.

The grade of fish was pretty darn good for the island area, this time of year, so we were all happy to see that. We had a good number of young fish, too, that were carefully removed from the hook, and sent back with a kiss, and a wish, for them to survive, and grow up, to be big fish.

We had their two-man limit in an hour and a half, and then I reeled in 4 of my 6, when the bite slowed way down. I asked, "Do you want to grind it out for the last two walleye? Or, do you want to go try and find some perch?" They decided to go perch'n instead. Long story short...three spots (very good marks in all three spots)...all we caught were three perch, and a half dozen sheephead. It was a bust. But, it was relaxing, and there was good music and conversation, and the guys enjoyed themselves anyway.

I have a three day trip starting tomorrow with a father and son team. I'm not sure if I'll get back up there tomorrow, due to the gusty SW winds in the forecast, but we'll see what it looks like in the morning. Wednesday and Thursday's winds look much better.

Stay tuned....

Capt Juls