Fishing with Allen and Marilyn 9/3/2024

[Capt Juls]

Allen and Marilyn drove over from Indiana, on Sunday. We were supposed to fish yesterday, but Mother Nature had other plans, and sent us a gusty NNE wind instead. It was a "no-go".

Initially, we were going to do one day of perch fishing, and one day of walleye fishing. I asked them which species they wanted to target, since we only had one day, and Allen chose walleye, so their day 2 trip was set....walleye it is.


A friend had texted me with some info, from the day before the blow, so that was going to be my starting point, this morning. Crawlers made the most sense, since we had a change in conditions, and what walleye can resist a big fat crawler?


I had told my crew, that I would pick them up at 6AM, but as usual, I got to their motel 15 minutes early...and, to my surprise, they were sitting outside, waiting on me!
I said, "You two are early, it's still very dark out...we're in no hurry". Allen smiled, and replied, "I get up early, too".


We headed to the gas station, bought ice, and some powdered donuts, and headed to Mazurik's, to launch. Yesterday afternoon, I got in the boat, and re-rigged all the trolling rods with crawler harnesses. My friend, who had texted me, told me that blue/silver harnesses worked best for them, so when I looked in my stash, I found I didn't have any blue/silver harnesses made up. So, I made some.


We headed to the east side of Kelly's, and found the residual waves from last night were coming from the NNE. The flag on the pier at Lakeside, showed the wind was still out of the north. My wind app was showing light south winds. Obviously, the flag was correct. That changed my plan a bit...I was planning on starting SE of Kelly's and trolling north. So, instead, we went north, to Kelly Island Shoal, to start there, and troll south.


The water temp was 74.2 degrees.


The FishHawk was dropped down to depth, and turned on. The Terrova and baby Merc, worked in unison to keep us at a speed of 1.5-1.7mph. The harnesses ran with 2oz inline weights behind Off Shore boards anywhere from 60-80 back... over 41 feet of water.


The first board out, was running at 77 back...it got hit before the second board was set in place. It was a big fish, too. Allen reeled it in...it turned out to be a big kitty cat. The rest of the 8 board spread was set out. I had marked fish on the ride up, albeit spotty marks, so we just kept going hoping to hit some of those pockets of fish. We did that for too long, though. 3 hours had passed already.


It was time to go elsewhere and try spoons behind dipsies, and some little cranks behind the boards.


We headed east, off the point of Airport Reef, and kept going until we were north of the white condos, east of Cedar Point, and the Helix showed some marks, that looked fishable. The fish weren't tight to the bottom, like they were in other places, so they should bite.


The dipsies were running on the zero setting at 50 and 55 back, and the other two rods were running on the two settings at 75 back. All four settings caught fish with Yeck (D-11) spoons, and BadMo Arrow spoons. It wasn't a fast bite, and we only had 2 1/2 hours left to fish, so we were only able to manage one limit, of our three-person limit. But, they were decent fish, so Allen was happy with the catch. He said it made him happy that we made a move, and tried something else, when the first program didn't work, too.


The weather was beautiful, and the lake only had a handful of boats within viewing distance. Allen and Marilyn said they both had a good time, and would like to do it again, and that makes me happy.


I don't have anything scheduled until Saturday, which is a perch trip, but the forecast is calling for gusty NNW winds again, so we'll see. I'll have to keep an eye on that, and communicate with my crew.


Stay tuned....


Capt Juls