6/17 report

[gb1234]

Making my way to the men's room at Mazurik this morning sounded like Captain Crunch with all the Mayflies under my shoes. I had forgotten about mayflies, but it looked like today was the peak of the hatch. My heart sank because last year I couldn't get any bites when they appeared. Still worth a try of course.


By sunrise, we had our six lines set at Cedar Point dump, moving east. Marked a lot there. By 7:30 we had 5 keepers plus a tasty drum. But it dried up after we got well to the east of the dump. So we turned around and passed over the dump again heading westward. But only got shorts and a white perch. It was a fat 11" white perch but still just a white perch.


Trolled to the north from the dump and caught more shorts and a white bass but no more keeper walleyes. Tried the whole arsenal of cranks and spoons, different speeds and depths. Eventually added in worm burners and crawler harnesses, although with the breeze and the current, the Minn Kota couldn't maintain a direction when under 2.4mph, which I thought was too fast for worms.


After a 3-hour dry spell under the hot sun and with some kind of annoying bugs (not mayflies). We had made it to within sight of the Kelly's Island Shoal (eastern) buoy when a nice 27" walleye slammed a gold single-willow crawler harness. Then a 24" hit a big orange spoon. And it was on. It was just after noon at that point. Cloudy now, with a light rain.


We curved eastward, staying south of the KI shoal and proceeded well beyond it with frequent catches on spoons, harnesses and burners. No bugs that far east. The rain passed and the sun was back but they kept biting.


Best spoon was copper with black and white stripes and green spots. Best harness was the gold willow. These all had 2 oz weights at 25' and then went back an additional 35 - 65'. The depth didn't seem to make any difference - all caught.


Unfortunately, another dark cloud formed and thundered menacingly. So we high-tailed it back to the ramp before completing our third limit. Still, a pretty good day by my standards. 15 walleyes with the biggest being 27". 2 tasty drum, an 11" white perch, and 2 white bass.

The biggest producers for us today...

[Fisherman205]

Very nice report and picture.

[RobM1969]

We were north of Kelleys, fishing sort of between KI Shoal and Gull Island Shoal. We probably saw you out there. We fished through the rain too. 2 of us got 11 keepers in the box and gave up on the 12th when we caught nothing but shorts and farm animals for about an hour straight. Flick Shad, Flicker Minnow, Bandit and spoons all caught fish. White still seems to be a good color for us.

Was actually suprised we caught as many fish as we did given the constant flow of mayfly carcasses on the surface.

Thanks for your report!