Fishing with John, Arnie, and Rick...6/10/2026

[Capt Juls]

I couldn't go out on the back deck when I got up this morning, due to a thunderstorm moving through at 1:30am. Even the dogs didn't want to go out there and went back to bed. I went to the kitchen to whip up a batch of buttermilk biscuits and put some coffee on. By 3:30, the rain had stopped, so I went out and checked the wind situation. It wasn't blowing, and it was a gentle SW wind.

iWindSurf was showing some orange and red in the forecast, which is gusts to 20-25 out of the SW showing up around 5am....But I figured that was because the thunderstorm was going through, and their app usually shows higher winds when a storm goes through. There wasn't much wind outside at 3:30, so I figured the app was just being cautious, and it would be fine.

I picked up John, Arnie, and Rick from the Whitecaps Motel at 5am. We drove to the gas station for some ice, then headed to Mazurik's to launch. There were two boats already in the water at the dock when we arrived, but no one else yet.

The sky was just getting light to the east. The air temp was 68 degrees, and the sky was partly to mostly cloudy. The sunrise wouldn't be making a big show of it this morning, unfortunately, either. I got the boat ready over by the bathrooms, so it would be a shorter walk for anyone who needed to use it before we left the shore.
I do carry one of those handheld urinals that the hospitals use, in case someone needs to use it out there....a Vexus doesn't have a bathroom on it. Men get the urinal thingy, and ladies can use the bait well.

The wind was just picking up as we were launching, but it wasn't bad.
We went to the north side of Kelly's to start. After passing over American Eagle Shoal and getting to the deeper side, the Garmin was marking enough fish for me to want to stop over 28' of water and set up.

The Ulterra and the baby Merc were deployed, and the Ulterra's iPilot was set to a NNE course (on power 5) while the baby Merc pushed the Vexus along at a speed of 2.3-2.6mph according to the FishHawk.

Water temp on the surface was 67.8 degrees, and at 18' down it was 69.6 degrees.
The surface of the lake is loaded with the husks of Mayflies, so don't forget to turn your outside lights off overnight. By the looks of the amount of husks...it's a BIG HATCH!

The dipsies were set out first. The usual zero and three settings on both sides.
The zero setting on the port side was set to 28 back, and the three setting was set to 50.
On the starboard side, the zero setting was set to 35 back, and the three setting was set to 64.
I started with Yeck, BadMo, and Scorpion spoons, but eventually dialed it in to using the special Yeck spoon color that DJ Custom Eye Lures paints for me, with the blue on the belly. I've added a picture of it in the album. I know he's sold them at Hi Way Bait before, but I don't know if there are any there right now.

After dialing in the settings...the zeros at 35 and 54 back did best, and the three settings were 64 and 72 back.

Bandits behind the Off Shore boards went out next...3 per side this time, since I had a crew of 3 this time. Yes, I could have run 4 per side plus the 4 dispies, but I wanted to keep it simple since I had two people who don't fish on the boat, and I was doing all the setup by myself this time. John has been fishing with me before, but it's been almost 10 years since he has. He likes to fish, but doesn't get out as much as he would like to.

Bandit colors that caught today were:
"Halographic Natural Shad" (Slim Shady Custom) 57 back...caught several.
"Psycho Killer" (Slim Shady) at 80 back
SunSpot (stock color) on both sides at 63 and 80 back.
That one color I had run the past several trips, but don't know who paints it or what the name is....sorry. One of those ran on each side on the outside board at 93 and 97 back. Both caught fish.

The spoons definitely outfished the cranks, but the cranks never had any throwbacks hanging on them.

One spoon had a walleye so small, it wasn't much bigger than the spoon and was maybe 3 1/2 inches long....sooooo cute! This is your reminder to always check your dipsies from time to time. Had I not checked, he would have been dragging the entire time, and it would have been useless.

The shorts all got the hooks taken out as carefully and gently as possible, and then got a kiss on the boo-boo, and were sent back to grow up.

John, Arnie, and Rick all said they really enjoyed the lake once it laid down and stopped blowing so hard. While it wasn't bad earlier (2 foot or less), it laid down to 1 foot or less for the last couple of hours.

We all caught our fish and were done by 10am. We packed it up and took a nice leisurely ride back in, so they could enjoy the morning on the water a little bit more. I knew it was going to be hot and humid on land, so I wasn't in a hurry to get back. It was beautiful out there...perfect weather.

They all said they had a great time, and would be back again someday....and that made me happy!

I'm off tomorrow, and will need to clean the boat of all the Mayfly carcasses before my two-day trip starting on Friday. Friday's wind isn't looking very good, though, so we'll see if Friday is a go or not.

Stay tuned....

Capt Juls