Fishing with the Vallery Family

[Capt Juls]

Here it is, the end of June already... my favorite month...deep sigh.

I was meeting my crew at the Huron ramp at 5am, so I got there at 4:30, to do the usual things before they arrived.

I walked over to the boat that was behind me, to say good morning, and he knew who I was, but I didn't have a clue who he was. He was just a nice older gent, who was also getting things ready before his fishing partner arrived. I wandered back to my boat, and waited for the Vallery family to arrive.

They stayed at a place in Huron, and took a drive over to the launch last night, to make sure they knew where to go. They arrived at 5am, right on time, so we got the boat launched, and the trailer parked in a good spot.

It was still dark out, of course, so we took our time going out of the river. By the time we got on the lake, it would be light enough to see any objects floating in the water.

Speaking of floating objects...I'll tell you this event from today, right here...because, there's really no good spot in this day's report to put this, other than behind a good lead-in.

Here goes...

Tom (the dad), was reeling in a fish...and, as he's doing that, a floating log slides quietly down the starboard side of the boat, (scraping the boat kind of "close"), and when it appeared at the back of the boat, it freaked Tom out a little. It was a pretty big log.

But, when I saw it, and saw what was tangled in it....my heart dropped. Nooooo!!!
As the log moved away from us, the FishHawk probe was being moved away, too.

Luckily, though, the log was bark-less and smooth, so the 100# Power Pro had nothing to get stuck on, and I was able to gently pull it up over the log, and free it...whew! The thought of losing it, and having to replace it, made my heart skip a beat..Ugh!

Okay, back to the report....

We headed to the same area as yesterday... the fish were still there. All sizes, from itty-bitties to 26"... but, there are more White Perch in the mix now, too. They were annoying, actually. We were catching fish before all the lines were set, and started the morning off with some weird tangles caused by stupid little White Perch...doing weird little White Perch antics. (Those two tangles were it for the morning, and everything went smoothly the rest of the morning...well, other than that log incident, of course.)

Speed was 2.5 on the FishHawk...

Bandits ran on the port side, behind the Off Shore boards...
Blue Chrome at 120 back (outside board), and Green Lantern (a Slim Shady Custom) ran at 67 back.

Dipsies ran the usual BadMo, Yeck, and Scorpion spoons on the zero and three settings. The zero ran anywhere from 43 to 60 back...depending on how deep of water we were over, and what depth the fish were showing up at, on the Garmin.
The three settings ran at the usual 65 back on the port side, and 71back on the starboard side. (Hey, those numbers keep working, so I don't change them).

Evan and Eric are Tom's sons, and had never been on Lake Erie before, so this was new to them. Both of them did a great job, and Evan even helped me set lines, this morning. We were all reelers today, and kept throwing back smaller keepers, so we could stay out longer, but they finally called it at 9:00, and we headed in with our 4-person limit.

We said our goodbyes at the ramp, and I headed home. The river had a nasty slime (the brown bubbly kind) in the furthest launch from the bathrooms, and that's the one I loaded out in. It was nasty, so I had to hit the car wash on the way home. It would take too many towels to clean it in the parking lot, and then I would have to clean the towels, too. No thanks! Car wash it was....

They said they had a great time, and would like to book another trip next season, and that makes me happy!

I'm off tomorrow and Wednesday right now...but, I'm available for a trip on Wednesday July 2nd, if anyone is interested. The wind forecast for Wednesday is showing 6-9mph out of the NW, which isn't bad at all, and no precipitation until late afternoon.

My next trip will be Thursday July 3rd. I never book anything for the 4th, because I don't like being on the lake during the 4th of July, so I'll be back out on the 5th for another trip after that.

Stay tuned....

Capt Juls