Fishing with Dan and Ed....9/20/2024

[Capt Juls]

Yesterday, I got a text from Dan Ireland. He's a previous customer, from back in May...he and his friend were staying here all week. They bring Dan's little boat over from Missouri.

"Do you have any openings the next couple of days?", he asked.
I replied, "Tomorrow or Sunday...I'm perch'n right now". He said, "Perching is kind of slow for us...we only 6. How about you?" I replied, "We're only at 21...I'm by E Can...northwest of it, actually, between E and D Cans. Were you at?"
He said, "We are just south of D Can..we will take tomorrow, if you're good with that. We want to walleye fish". "Okay, are you staying at the White Caps?" I asked. "Yes", he said. "Okay, cool...I'll pick you two up at 6am".


Later that morning, he was driving his boat down from D can towards us, so I waved him over, and told him to set up right next to us, since he has Spot-Loc on his boat, and didn't need to throw an anchor...(that would disturb our bite).


We only needed 9 more for our 60 fish limit, and it didn't take long to catch them.
Dan and Ed didn't have any Emeralds, so I gave them what I had left of my frozen ones, and two of the crappie rigs that I designed, and make for myself and my customers, and told them to rip the minnows in half, to use. When we left, they slipped right in over where we were sitting, and managed to add to their count and ended up with 52 nice perch, before they ran out of minnows and the bite died. (The bead colors on the rigs we were using were chartreuse or white).


They decided to head back in.


This morning, I picked them up at their motel at 5:45. I had told them 6AM, but they were ready to go, and waiting outside by Dan's truck, when I arrived.


We hit the gas station for ice, then headed towards Huron.


The sky was just starting to get light, when we got to the get ready lanes at the Huron ramp. After chatting a bit with other early morning launchers, we hit the water at 6:45. I only had a clue of where I was going to look first, and that was NE of the Huron Dumping Grounds. The Helix wasn't showing many marks from the mouth of the river, out to 43 feet, but when we hit 43 feet, they showed up.


The bow mount was deployed, as was the baby Merc, and their speed set to 2.5mph on the FishHawk (for those that don't know what that is...its gadget that runs below the surface, to get the undercurrent speed, and temp readings).
We set a course to the north, and marked fish for about 1 1/2 miles, before turning around to go over them again.


The programs that worked this morning were:


Dipsey on the zero setting at 55 back (had two of these out)
Dipsey on the three setting at 80 back
Dipsey on the two setting at 70 back


Bandits behind the Off Shore Boards at 120, 100, and 97 back caught fish.
"IB Infected" (custom color by DJ Custom Eye Lures...Hi Way Bait) Had two of these out, and they both caught one.
"Green Lantern" (Slim Shady Custom) caught one.


The dipsies and spoons far out fished the cranks behind boards, this morning.


We had our 3-person limit by 10:20, and had around 8 throw backs, too. No junk fish today.


They were only good eaters....nothing big, yet.


Dan and Ed had a great morning, they said, and want to go again. Dan was grateful, that I took them to a new launch, instead of back to Vermilion, where I had first taken them...so, they could learn more areas. (I hope they come back, when there are more fish back on the west side, so we can use Mazurik's or Catawba...it's a lot closer to home).


I have another perch trip tomorrow, so my fingers are crossed that we have another successful catch. But, this time, there will be four of us, so we'll need 120 perch to fill our tickets.


Stay tuned....


Capt Juls