Fishing Day Two with Steve, Dave, and Doug...6/16/2026

[Capt Juls]

I didn't write a report for Day one of Steve, Dave, and Doug's trip, because we had a late start, and by the time I got home, I only had time to feed the dogs, go to the bank, and make a quick dinner. For those that know me, you know what time I go to bed...for those that don't know me, I am going to bed when most normal people are sitting down to dinner. I like to get up at 2am, so by the time I have to meet my customers, I am in a good mood, and I've already gotten lots of things done before I leave the house. It's not for everyone, but it works for me.

Anyway...day one, we caught their 3-person limit and a couple of mine. We fished the SE side of Kelly's with spoons behind dipsies and Bandits behind the Off Shore boards. The spoons outfished the cranks, but the crank fish were still larger on average.

Day 2:

I got up at 1:30, feeling like I slept very well, and was feeling good. While sitting on the back deck with the dogs and my hot cup of coffee, I remembered telling them I would make them some of my brownies today, so after checking all my weather forecast apps, we went back inside.

I whipped up the brownies, and while they baked in the oven, I jumped in the shower and got ready. When I went outside to put stuff in the boat, I saw it....my electrical cord was on the ground. #%@*/! Ugh....I forgot to plug the charger in when we got back late. I said a few words, knowing I was the only one to blame.

Luckily, I have "Miller Tech" lithium batteries in the boat for the Ulterra. They have an app that lets me check the percentage of usage, and it showed there was still 65% left on all three batteries. Whew! If they were still AGMs, I would have been in a panic, knowing the batteries wouldn't last for a second trip without a charge.

The forecast was calling for wind out of the SW at 10-18mph.
The air temp was 64 degrees at 4:30, and I could see some stars in the sky, so I figured it was clear to partly cloudy. The high today would only reach the mid 70s.

My guys are staying at Camp Perry, which is 2 miles west of my house, so they met me at my house and jumped in my truck for the ride to the launch.
This morning, I thought it would be a good idea to launch out of Huron, because of the wind direction and the location of the area I wanted to fish. It would be closer and not as rough as launching out of Mazurik's and fishing the east side of Kelly's.
These friends are in their mid to late 70's, so I didn't want them to take a rough boat ride if I could help it.

After stopping at the Speedway on 250 and Rt2 to get ice, we hit the Huron launch a little after 5am.
**Note: If you're driving in from the west, you need to get off on Rt6 West and go through town, because 6 East is closed.

I got the boat ready and took the Bandits off the port side and attached Flicker Minnow11s instead. I wanted to try a smaller profile to see if the fish preferred those to a Bandit right now.

We didn't go far out of the river and headed west until I hit 25' of water. The fish marks were good, so I shut the big Merc off and deployed the Ulterra. The baby Merc and Fish Hawk were also deployed. The FishHawk usually gets set at 18' down, because that's far enough to get a good reading of opposite currents.

The target speed was 2.5mph, and the course was set in the direction of the dump.

The wind was still light when we started and was less than 5mph. By the time we would end, it would be blowing at 15mph(ish), and the lake would go from calm to 1-3s a mile out, 2-3s two miles out, and 2-4s on the north side of the dump.

Dipsies ran off the two back corners, as usual. Two on each side. The zero setting started out at 25 and 30 back, and the three settings were initially set to 50 and 60 back. They would be let out as we got over deeper water to what has been working the past two weeks.
The zero settings at 35 and 54, and the three settings at 64 and 72 back.
The Yeck spoons, DJ Custom Eye Lures, paints the bellies blue for me were consistently catching fish. I don't know the name of the other Yeck color, but it has a pink belly and orange/chart/and pink on the back. It did well, too.

The Off Shore boards on the starboard side pulled Bandits at 100, 90, 80, and 63 back. (I run the long leads on the outside and shorter leads on the inside...it works for me).
Colors were:
"Sunspot" (stock color) 100 back
"Blue Shiner" (stock color) 90 back
"Halographic Natural Shiner" (Slim Shady Custom) 80 back
"Fruit Dots" (stock color) 63 back

The port side ran Flicker Minnow 11s (unassisted) at 115, 90, 80, and 63 back.
Colors were all stock colors:
"Firetail Chrome Candy" (115)
"Firetail Hot Perch" (90)
"Flashy Chartreuse" (80)
"Racy Shad" (63)

All but the Fruit Dots caught one or more fish this morning. Slim Shady's "Halographic Nat. Shiner" caught the most of all the cranks, though. I need to order another 3 or 4 of those. I only have one in my box, and I really like that one.

Thankfully, my crew had a day of training before we had the kind of bite we had. And, they knew more about what to do. Dave was helping set dipsies, but they left the board setting to me. They helped net each other's fish while I was busy resetting lines.

The first pass was from inside to the north side of the dump. We picked everything up and made a run back to the start, so we could make another pass. The first pass had produced 12 keepers and several throwbacks. The second pass gave us the other 12, along with more Sheephead Dave wanted to keep for his traps back home. He called them "Bobcat Bait".

They caught their 3-person limit, and I reeled in mine, too. We had our 24 by 8:45 this morning, which made my guys very happy. Steve said, "This is the kind of experience we always read about, when people talk about Lake Erie...thanks, Juls". I smiled, and nodded, and that made me happy!

They have two more days scheduled with me, and it looks like tomorrow will be the last day, because Thursday's forecast looks nasty!

We'll be headed back to Huron in the morning...

Stay tuned....

Capt Juls