Fishing with Karl and Anthony 4/23/2022

The day's weather forecast sounded promising. An early morning start, with an east wind reading of 18mph at South Bass Island, would change to light south-southwest winds of less than 10 mph were expected later in the morning. The change showed up mid-morning. However, it never changed direction until around noon.  The gusty east wind dissipated around 10am, and changed the 2 feet or less waves, to 1 foot or less, so no matter the direction...it was nice out there. 

Just a side note....Mark this day, as the first day this gal got to go barefoot in the boat, too. It warmed up enough out there to take the shoes off and set my little piggies free! Woot! Woot! Okay...okay...who cares, right?  I get it, but it's a big deal to me...lol :)

We started out in relatively shallow water not far from Catawba...17 to 18 feet, to be exact.  

We ran Bandits behind the Off Shore boards with the shallow program I ran the last time out, which was 15, 20, 25, and 30 on the port side, and ditto on the starboard side.   

Colors used today were:

"Furmi-Nuff" and "Psycho Killer" new colors by (Mike Schlimgen-slim Shady Baits)

Sunspot

Blue/Chrome

Taco Salad

Chrome Barbie

(2) Carrot Top

The Psycho Killer, and Carrot top, both at 30 back, on different sides of the boat both took a fish early, so we changed up the port side to all 30 foot leads, and changed the starboard side to 25, 30, 33, and 40.

We would put 8 fish in the box and watch a big fish swim away after losing it at the back of the boat. I didn't get a good look at it, because I was letting Karl net that fish for Anthony, but he got the hooks caught on the wrong side of the net and was unable to get the fish in it. It got off and swam away. It wasn't a trophy fish, but it would have been the biggest one for us today.

Now, let me first tell you, before you tell me that I should never let a customer net a fish, blah blah blah.... that Karl, is not a novice, and has fished with me on several trips over the years. He owns his own boat and does a lot of salmon fishing on Lake Michigan, so he's a well seasoned angler. It was just one of those things....I'm just glad I didn't knock it off with the net, because even though Anthony said, "That's okay", Karl and I could hear the disappointment in his voice.   I almost did the same thing later in the day, but was successful doing the flippy-thing with the net, to get the fish inside the basket. :)

Anyway....we worked that area for about an hour before deciding the wind was laying down enough to venture north.  We headed up towards Niagara to see what was happening up there.   There were a lot of boats around, but they were spread out enough that it didn't feel crowded at all, so we set up south of the reef and headed west.

We set the starboard side out at 110 (longest leads on the outside), 97, 77, and 57 and the port side at 100, 80, 75, and 50.  It was a very slow pick up there, but the 110 lead with the Furmi-Nuff color hit twice, and Carrot Top hit at 75 back. 

Speed was anywhere from 1.5-2.0mph...because when we did turns, we caught fish on the fast side and the slow side, so there was no real pattern to the speed. If I had to narrow it down, though, I would say that we mainly stayed in that 1.7-1.9mph range the most.

Water temp, down inside, was at 46.8 degrees, but out by Niagara my Solix was reading 45.1 degrees.  But, when the sun came got high in the sky, it didn't take long for that surface temp to start warming up. When we left Niagara, to head back down inside for the last hour of fishing, it had warmed up one more degree there.

We had set up again, with a short program of 25, 30, 35, and 40 on both side (deep leads inside with short programs), and it wasn't looking very promising, until we hit a couple pockets of fish, and it would get the adrenaline going again

. 

We would have a double on at one point, and then a quad on. However, we only got two of the 4 fish in the boat out of that quad. Some were slamming the baits, and really hooking themselves, but others were not, and would pop off before the board was taken off. Oh, well...

It was the nicest day of the year so far, and we all agreed that it felt great to be out there on such a nice day. A good time was had by all, and they went back to Little Ted's with a cooler full of fish to clean.  Karl and Anthony will be out in their boat tomorrow, giving it a try on their own. Hopefully, it won't be too windy in the AM.

The wind forecast for tomorrow is 15-20 out of the SW with gusts to 30mph. But, hopefully, the gusty stuff won't happen until later in the morning. 

Karl is coming back in November to fish with me for two more days, to fish the Fall Brawl, and that makes me happy. :)

Tomorrow, I have Casey Everette and his wife, who had to reschedule from last Saturday to tomorrow, because of the wind last Saturday, so we will meet at Mazurik's in the AM and see what the conditions are, then.

Stay tuned....

Capt Juls