Fishing with Dee, Dan, and Steve 5/14/19

I had my guys meeting me at Bopper's at 8am, because they were staying at Little Ted's Cottages around the corner. After breakfast, we headed to Mazurik's to launch, and were headed north by 8:47.  

I hadn't been on the water for 8 days due to unfavorable conditions, and rescheduled all those crews for different dates, that will hopefully have better conditions. This week looks to be a nice one, and the winds are down for the next several days, so I'm looking forward to a fun week of fishing. 

The lake was laying down a little by the time we launched and the waves were only 1-3's, but were even less once we got to the east side of the islands.  We headed north to the Canadian line and found a parking lot of boats up there. I didn't really feel like trolling in that mob, so after we passed the green can at Lucy's Point I took a hard left turn and headed down the passage between North Bass and Middle Bass Islands. I watched the Helix for walleye marks through there, but didn't mark enough to make me stop and fish it. Pretty soon, that will be a good spot.

We made our way out to West Reef and took a right turn to head up to Taco Bell on the Canadian line. Before I get a ton of PM's asking me where "Taco Bell" is, it's the red bell buoy on the line, that's straight up from the west side of the reef. ;)

We set up with Bandit's at 50 to 100 back at a speed of 1.8-1.9mph. We ran three Off Shores per side and then one dipsey off each corner with Ripplin Redfins.

The first fish was a fiesty white bass on a Bandit at 50 back. The second hit/miss was a fish that hit the Ripplin Redfin running at 30 back on the 1 setting.

When I decided to reduce the speed, I removed the dipsey rods and replaced them with two more Off Shore boards, so we were running 4 per side at 1.5-1.7mph

The Khaki colored Bandit (stock color) was probably our strongest color today, followed up by Nailed It (a Huff Daddy Chrome with tape on the sides..one of DJ's customs), Huff Daddy Chrome (Domka), Chrome Barbie (Domka?), "No Name" (DJ's), and Chrome Marvin (DJ's). Though we ran baits from 50-100...71 and 75 caught the most fish...followed up by 85 and 100. The deeper side was 2:1 over the shallower side.

Water temp was 51-52 degrees.

We only caught 15 of our 18 limit, but it was still a fun day and my guys were happy, and that's all that matters. I have them again tomorrow, so we will be launching out of Catawba to check waters to the west. There was a very good satellite picture today, so that will help people spread out and fish someplace else other than in big giant packs.

We will be launching at 6am tomorrow, so I hope there is a pretty sunrise. I sure could use one after the dreary week we just had. 

Stay tuned....

Capt Juls