Fishing with Danny, Daniel, and Jim...8/16/2025

[Capt Juls]

Woke up at 1:45 and headed to the back deck with the dogs and a coffee in hand. The air was quiet and slightly heavy, the sky was dark but Jupiter and Venus were shining brightly to the east, and the temperature was around 70 degrees.

The forecast for the morning was for light winds out of the southeast and sunshine.

I arrived at the White Caps Motel at 5:40 am to pick up my crew from Indiana. Danny, his boy Daniel, and Danny's friend, Jim, wanted to do some walleye fishing. (If you read yesterday's report, you know that I did well out of Vermilion.)
But, I didn't want to travel over there on a weekend, due to all the road construction on RT2 right now. The weekends are the worst for backups and accidents, and I didn't want to hit a backup on our way back this afternoon, so we launched at Mazurik's.

We headed northeast from the ramp, about 8 miles (43' of water), when the Garmin showed some decent marks that I wanted to set up over, so we stopped. The marks looked just like what I was fishing over yesterday...swimming from 20-35 feet down.

Yesterday's catching started out pretty fast in the morning, and then slowed as the sun got higher, but this morning was a slow start and finished better towards late morning. I struggled to find a working program, but eventually figured out enough to get them to their limit, but none of mine.

The dipsies were very slow, and the spoons were changed out often. BadMo spoons outshone the Yeck and Scorpion spoons by 3:1 today.

Zero settings were catching at 50 and 54 back. Three settings were catching at 77 and 90.

Speed was anywhere from 2.5-3.0mph

Bill Lewis PWC Lites with 2oz snap weights, ran behind the Off Shore boards on the port side, while Bandits ran on the starboard side. The PWCs were set at 50/47 and 50/27, and both were the "Purple Tiger" color. Both caught fish.

Slim Shady Custom Bandits in "Blue Lantern" and "Fire and Ice" caught at 120, 97, and 85 back with no snap weights.

Direction seemed to play a big role in our bite today, too. We had been going for miles in a NE direction, and then turned north towards the border. Once we were close to the border (now 12 miles from the launch), it was time to turn around. And that's when the bite got better for us. The north-to-south troll seemed to be the ticket. That's my story, anyway, and I'm sticking to it.

I had talked to a few people about the perch bite today, and they all had a tough time of it. After many hours of trying, they only had a couple of dinners in their buckets...nothing close to limits...even though they were marking lots of fish all morning.
So, I told my crew this information, because they had booked a second day with me to go perch fishing tomorrow. We decided not to do the trip tomorrow. I told them to save their money and come back again another time. They appreciated my honesty and said they would be calling me again next spring.

Yes, I'm sure a few folks got on a good bite somewhere, but I'm guessing the majority struggled today, so the decision was made in good faith.

They all said they had a great time and enjoyed the beautiful day on Lake Erie, and that makes me happy!

My next trip isn't until Wednesday, but I'm watching that forecast, because it's calling for gusty NNW winds, and a perch trip is scheduled. He's retired, so changing days isn't a problem.

Stay tuned....

Capt Juls