Fishing with Bill and Norm 7/6/19

I had set my alarm for 2:45am, and when it went off...I got up, made my coffee, and took it out on the back porch. All was well, I was sipping my coffee, looking at facebook, and checking the weather, when I noticed that the time on my phone suddenly changed from 3:21 to 4:21. It had never changed time zones when I drove through Indiana yesterday on my way home from Wisconsin.....stupid phone. For a 1000.00 phone, you would think it would easily keep track of time zones (rolling my eyes here)...hell, the minivan I rented changed time zones right where it was supposed to, but an expensive Apple phone can't do it? Ugh!

Anyway...rant over. I had 9 minutes to get ready and out the door now. I didn't have time for a shower, or breakfast, so I got dressed real fast, threw my ponytail under a hat, and brushed my teeth...out the door I went. The dogs were not used to that routine, so they looked a little sad when I left...poor dogs. :(

I hit the gas station for gas and ice. My guys pulled in behind my boat and said, "Good morning, Juls". I turned and said, "Good morning", as was walking into the Speedway to pay for ice, not knowing that they were my guys. I kind of thought it was them, so when I came back out I said, "I'm guessing you're Bill and my crew for the day." He smiled and said, "Yes, we are". 

I finished gassing up both the truck and boat, and put the ice in the coolers, and told them to follow me out to Mazurik's. They had never been there before, and are usually launching out of the marinas to the west...Wild Wings, Turtle Creek, Meinke's, etc.

We headed out of Mazurik's at 5:30am with the navigation lights on, because it was just dark enough to need them, even though the sky was lightening up to the east...the direction we were headed. By the time we drove 14 miles we didn't need the navigation lights anymore.  We set up with the usual program...4 dipsies..two set on the zero setting and two set on the three setting...a pair of them on each side of the boat.  The zero setting goes straight down, while the three setting goes out to the side, which keeps them from getting tangled while trolling.  

Speed was the usual 2.3-2.5mph.

We started out with two of the new Yozuri's (see previous blog about them) on the port side, and only caught one this morning. I changed them both over to the starboard side, because you know that sometimes one side of the boat does better than the other, so I thought that may be the case this morning and switched them. The last time out, I ran them off the starboard side and they whacked the fish. 

I took one off and put the Buck Fever Bandit on, and caught one on that one at 42 back. The Yozuri took one, but the fish was dragged for a while before I could tell it was on. That wasn't the Yozuri's fault though, it was mine. I didn't check it when I thought "maybe" there was on there. It was a smaller walleye, so it was hard to detect (I had the spring tension settings pretty tight, due to the speed we were trolling).

The dipsies were constantly going off though, so I was always reaching for the net, and bothering with that outside board that may or may not have a fish on it was not one of my high priorities....call me lazy, but I didn't want to mess with it with everything else that was going on. We did indeed drag that fish around for a while. It was still alive though, and set itself free before we got it in, so that was good....whew!  

We caught our limit of 18 nice eaters, and many smaller ones, along with a plethora of white bass, sheepshead, and white perch, so the guys were kept busy reeling and setting the dipsies. They had a lot of fun and when we had our 18 in the box they called it, since it was starting to get hot and humid out. The black flies hadn't invaded the boat yet, so that was a relief, and I was happy to be heading in before they found us. 

This trip was set up for tomorrow, and today was supposed to be an off day for me after getting back from a week in Wisconsin yesterday, but after seeing the wind forecast for Sunday, I asked them if they could go today instead. It all worked out, and it was a perfect morning. The heat index today will be scorching, so I'll leave the boat cleaning for tomorrow when the NE winds bring in a cooler and dryer air to work in.

I'll be out again on Monday.

Stay tuned...

Capt Juls