It's been a busy month, with a lot of wind, and a lot of rescheduled trips for the spring! I have been busy fishing on the big boats, working as a first mate, when it was too rough for my customers, and they wanted to reschedule, to the spring.

It's always a sad day when I get to the last trip of the season...but, it's inevitable. It's time for this boat to go to its new owner...deep sigh. She was a beautiful work horse for me all season, and I will miss her.
But, on the flip side, I have also been busy putting together my boat order for the 2016 ride. The new Ranger will be powered by the new Evinrude G2, so I'm really excited to try that out next season.
I have heard nothing but good things about the new G2. Speaking of new things, Humminbird has come out with the Helix electronics in the larger models, and the new 12's have the CHIRP technology, so those will be on the new Ranger next season too. And, of course, the Minn Kota Ulterra trolling motor! I loved that self stow and deploy this season, and couldn't be happier with it. It worked flawlessly for me all season. How did I ever get along without it before? lol
I'm looking forward to trying out all the new "toys" next season...it just gets better and better every year. Woot! Woot!

Anyway, today is a walleye trip, which will be tricky after this blow we just had. Gale force winds blew a lot of water out of this end of the lake, to the point that some boats are sitting in mud at the docks in some of the marinas....ugh.
But on the bright side, the winds were out of the SW, so it didn't tear up the shoreline and make it a mud hole.
Today's forecast is calling for NW winds at 10mph or less by Noon, so it should be a decent day. We won't be launching until 10am.

I haven't been walleye fishing, since the perch have been on fire, and the walleye bite has been spotty at best. It's been a very strange fall for walleye, at least for me, and I can't remember a time in the last 15 years, that the fall bite for walleye was so poor.
We find areas with marks from 15' down to the bottom, and nothing we offer them works. In years past, if we found marks like these, we would make a run through them with our offerings and put a lot of fish in the boat. And, what's strange is that the deep fish are the ones that are being caught instead of those high fish we would normally target. What's going on? I wish I could answer that.

We're going to hit Kelly Island Shoal today, and run cranks over the top of it, to start. If we can't get any walleye going, we will break out the perch stuff, just to put some meat in the cooler for my customers.

It's a grandfather and his 14 year old grandson, so I want it to be fun for the boy.

I'll report back later today...

Stay tuned...

Capt Juls