Fishing with the Memmen Family 4/12/15

[Capt Juls]

I was supposed to meet my crew at Catawba State Park this morning at 9am, because they were driving in from the Cleveland area, but I got there early (8am) and found that the parking lot was already full. There was still a line of boats coming out of the parking lot when I drove up. Ugh!


I called Tom and his kids, and let them know they should meet me at the McDonald's, so they could follow me to another launch. We hit Mazurik's at around 9am and were on the water a few minutes later.


I wanted to try the area around Mouse Island since I launced out of M's, because last year around this time we hammered the big spawned out females that were making their way east again. It didn't disappoint, and we had their three person limit within 3 hours. I can't remember if it was Kate or Phil that caught the biggest fish of the day, but either way, it was a nice spawned out 30" female.


The Lemon Lime Crush Perfect 10, run 30/30 behind a 1oz snap weight was the ticket this morning. We only had 4 boards out, even though there were 4 of us on board, because keeping it simple with novice trollers was more organized and was less likely to lose fish due to chaos. lol


However, speaking of losing fish.....I hate to have to admit this one, but I did lose a fish for them while netting it. It was at my furthest reach and its tail was out of the net just enough to use the rim as leverage while it flipped and flopped on the surface. On about the 5th or 6th flop, I thought I had it in the net well enough to lift it, but I was wrong. It did one last ditch effort to free itself, and this time was successful. I felt bad, but they didn't seem to care, and said to me, "that's fishing". I guess when you have 10 giant walleye in the well at the time it happens, it does take that sting away. lol


After we loaded out of the water, they followed me over to Bay's Edge where I dropped off their fish for them...the scale said they had 90 pounds for their 12 fish. They said they had a great time fishing, and everyone was all smiles. I like that.


Anyway, it was a fun day, and if the weather allows, which I think it will...I'll be out again tomorrow trying the same area again with a Father and son crew.


Stay tuned...


Capt Juls