Fishing with Vito and Neal....5/15/2025

[Capt Juls]

I first met Vito in 2016, I think. He hired me to take him fishing, and teach him how to run Off Shore boards more efficiently. He's been fishing with me once or twice a year since. He also bought my 2017 Ranger, so when he does come down here, he usually brings it with him, so he can stay and fish a couple more days.

We were supposed to fish this coming Sunday, but the forecast is calling for another big blow for Saturday and Sunday....so, when he contacted me via text saying, "Hola Juls. I'm on my way over to do a little fishing before we fish", I took that opportunity to ask him if he could change his date to Thursday, since he would already be here. He agreed after seeing the forecast.


The person he would be taking fishing is a co-worker from Michigan, and I asked if I had to be on my best behavior, or if I was allowed to swear...( I swear a lot...sorry!) Laughing, Vito said, "Oh, you're good....you can be you...I wouldn't have it any other way", and that made me happy!


They were meeting me at Mazurik's at 6:15, so after picking up ice and getting some big fat crawlers from "Hi-Way Bait", I hit Mazurik's at 5:30. While I was getting the boat ready, I thought to myself, "Vito knows me too well....he's probably going to show up any minute now, so we can get an earlier start". And, sure enough, at 5:35, they pulled in.


I finished getting rods out of the rod locker and putting them in the rod holders, for the ride out, hit the bathroom, and off we went. It was 65 degrees, cloudy, with a chance of rain. The forecast was calling for 7-8mph out of the SE, water temps were 55 on the surface and 57 20 feet down, and there were small ENE rollers still coming in from overnight.


We headed to the north side of Kelly's to start, and set up with Bandits on the port side, and Hit Stick 12s on the starboard side. I kept hearing how well people were doing on the Hit Sticks, so we put some out. They didn't do diddly for us, so we replaced them with Flicker Minnow 11s.


The best color and lead for us, was "Pooh Bear" (purple body with a chartreuse head...painted, not chrome) Bandit, at 120 back behind the Off Shore board. It caught at least 1/2, if not more, of our total catch today.


We would eventually remove a few board rods and replace them with dipsies....running two off each corner. The inside rods were on the zero setting and the outside rods were on the 3 settings.


We caught 7 on the north side of Kelly's, before I told the guys we were going to pick up and move, to find better marks and water clarity. The north side of Kelly's was pretty clean, and the fish marks that were there a few days ago, are gone.


We moved to the west side of Middle Bass and picked up the rest of our fish in that area. There were only a few boats in there, but they were far enough away from us, that we didn't have to keep dodging anyone, that would have had the right-of-way.


"Pooh Bear", worked its magic in that area, too...but, the bigger fish came on worm-burners off dipsies. The 3 setting at 60 was best. The zero setting was set at 30 and pick up a few, too.


Speed was 2.1 on the FishHawk.


We all caught our limits, and headed back in to Mazurik's, where there was a back up of boats launching, and loading out, because they have started work on repairing the pavement at the launch, and the parking lot.
Two of the 4 ramps were blocked off, and the pavement was ripped out already, so it was a little messy....doable, but messy. It will be nice when it's all done, though.


So, if you plan on using Mazurik's, know that that is happening, and expect delays.


My next trip won't be until Monday the 19th. I have family in town for the weekend, so I'll be entertaining. Have a great weekend, everyone!


Stay tuned....


Capt Juls

[itsbob]

Thanks for the post and good work on another day fishing.We have also had good luck with the worm burners and often catch the better fish on them too.

[Smitty]

Nice job Juls. Hate to hear about that forecast for the weekend, we're heading out for our annual week of fishing Lake Erie early tomorrow morning.

[gb1234]

Great report! Those are some fat ones.
When you say "worm burners" are you talking about something like these Dreamweavers? Are any colors better than others? How do you rig them?
Dreamweaver Wormburner | FishUSA