Fishing with Dick and Jonathan...5/15/2026

[Capt Juls]

I got up at 1:30, and did the usual routine of dogs, coffee, back deck, and checked the weather apps. The air temp was 46 degrees. The sky was clear and full of stars. The wind was pretty much nonexistent.
There was a package on my front porch that the nightly critters visiting the "Critter Buffet" luckily didn't take an interest in, and I brought it in. It was the new Minn-Kota remote for the Ulterra that they sent me.

At 3am, I went out to the boat and turned the Ulterra and the remote on... paired the new remote to the motor, then paired it to the One Boat Network app, so I could do the software update on the new remote. That all went smoothly, and it did end up working perfectly this morning...so, all is well again.

This morning was a second trip, this week, for Dick Lehto. This past Tuesday, he fished with his friend Brad. This morning, he brought his friend, Jonathan, with him. Jonathan is an avid fisherman, so this was going to be easy.

They were meeting me at Mazurik's at 6am, so I was there by 5:15. I wanted to get everything ready, so when they showed up, we could hit the water right away. They showed up around 5:50, which was perfect timing, because many more boats were entering the park at a steady rate. We were able to launch and get out of there before it got too busy.

Initially, I was going to head north of Kelly's, because it was going to be a light south wind, but I decided to head over to Huron, because of that same light south wind. It would be an easy ride over there, and wouldn't use up too much gas. Normally, the fish are abundant over in that area this time of year, so I thought it was a good idea.

Womp....womp... lol

We started in 40' of water, north of the white condos, east of Cedar Point. We marked some fish when we set up, but they would come and go off the screen...but, mostly "go"....there was a lot of blank screen in the pass we made.
We were set up west of the Huron Dump, and headed towards it, so in my mind, I thought the marks would get better as we got closer, or on the east side of it. It's usually pretty good right now. However, that wasn't the case for us.

Like I said, we started in 40' of water....went in to 37' of water, and then back out to 44' of water. So, we covered a lot of water and never found a school of fish. Just a fish here and a fish there...it was a grind to say the least. (I was kicking myself, because I probably should have gone north out of Mazurik's instead of east. But that's how it goes sometimes. You make a decision and stick with it.)

My crew was not complaining in the least and kept saying how much they were enjoying themselves. Jonathan said, "This has been a shitty week, but this definitely makes up for it." I smiled and said, "It's a beautiful morning to be out here...you guys didn't want to be done by 8am anyway, right?" Dick was quick to agree.

Bandits let me down today....not one fish was caught on a Bandit, or PWC Lite. Three baits caught their limits. The WalleyeX Brawler, Spro Madeye Minnow 120, and the Yeck spoons.

The WalleyeX Brawler colors that caught were the "Chrome Tiger" at 80 back and "Craw" at 120 back, unassisted. The "Ghost Purple Perch" Spro 120 at 100 back caught several, too.

The dipsies caught a few fish, but not like they did the other day. The biggest fish came on a Yeck spoon on a 3-setting dipsey at 57 back.

Speed was kept between 1.9-2.5mph...again, most bites were during the 2.2-2.3 speeds.

The water temp was 55 degrees on the surface and 56 degrees 18' down.

We only managed to catch their limits, but none of mine. They were happy campers, and we headed back in. The ride was smooth as the lake was only producing a 6" chop, but the south passage was its usual self with wakes coming from all directions, so that was the only bumpy part of the ride.

Both said they had a great time, and that makes me happy!

My trip for tomorrow is moving to Sunday, since I had it open and they were driving in from their hometowns here in Ohio, so they could move it to the next day. Tomorrow is fishable, but it's going to be rougher than Sunday.

Stay tuned....

Capt Juls