Fishing with Jeanne, Brad, and Harper...8/15/2025

[Capt Juls]

I left the house at 4:15 to hit the gas station and head over to Vermilion by 5:15. Jeanne, who is the niece/cousin of my long-time customers, Steve and Jeremy Chapman, set this trip up for herself, husband Brad, and daughter Harper. It is Harper's 16th birthday today, and she asked to go on a fishing trip, so that's what we did. They live in Lakewood, so I thought it best for me to meet them in Vermilion, since it was closer to them and closer to where I wanted to fish.

I had told them to meet me there at 6:00 am since the sunrise was scheduled for 6:38 this morning. They showed up right on time. I thought the ramp would be busy, because it's Friday and the weather was nice. The air temp at 6a.m. was 67 degrees, the sky was clear, and the wind was less than 5mph out of the SE. But the ramp was empty, except for one fella who launched about 5:45.
It was pretty nice having it to ourselves, because we could just take our time and not be in anyone's way.

We headed a little WNW out of the river and went about 6 miles, when the Garmin started showing some good marks over 47' of water. I slowed the Vexus down, and the marks continued, so we stopped. The Ulterra and baby Merc were lowered into position and set to a speed of 2.5mph according to the FishHawk. (The speed would eventually be upped to 2.7-3.0mph for a better catch rate.) The course was set to continue to the WNW until we hit the outer Vermilion Dumping Grounds, which were only a few miles away yet.

The dipsies went out first and were set on the zero and three settings.
The zero settings started out at 50 and 60 back. The three settings were set at 75 and 90. The zero settings were pretty steady at those depths, but we did lower them from time to time to 65 and 70 back, when the fish moved lower in the water column.
The three settings stayed at 75, and the 90 played at 97 and 100 a few times, and caught fish.

Badmo, Yeck, and Scorpion spoons were the flavor of the day. Greens with silver were the preferred color this morning.

We ended with their 3-person limit and 3 of mine. We did go in a 1/2 hour early on Jeanne's suggestion, since they had to run to the store to buy a cooler, because they forgot to bring one to take the fish home in.

The bite was really good very early, and as the sun rose higher in the sky, it slowed down, but they kept biting. And, when the walleye wouldn't...the white perch, white bass, and sheephead did. We caught one nice yellow perch on a BadMo spoon at 65 back, too.

Harper did a great job, and was setting dipsies and netting fish like a seasoned angler. Her mom sent a text after I sent them their pictures and said, "Harper had an absolutely amazing time, and I got a fancy new cooler out of it", so that makes me happy!

Tomorrow and Sunday, I have the Danny Pearson crew of three...one day of walleye and one day of perch'n. But, if the perch reports don't improve tomorrow...we may be doing two days of walleye.

Stay tuned....

Capt Juls