Fishing with Mark and Jim 7/27/2021
by Capt Juls on 07/27/21The forecast was calling for a nice day. Winds, low to start, then picking up to 10mph with gusts up to 15 out of the WSW...and, sunshine. I left the house at 5am, and swung by the Best Western, to pick up Mark and Jim, who hail from my home state of Wisconsin. They have fished with me once or twice a year for the past 10 years. In fact, Mark was one of the first customers I guided, when I started this lifestyle back in 2012. They are here for the next four days. :)
We completed the usual routine at the gas station, of topping off the gas tank, and getting ice for the coolers, before heading over to Mazurik's to launch. It was still dark when we were sitting in the "Get Ready" lane at the park, so I took my time getting things ready in the boat for the day's fishing.
We headed NE from the breakwall, and set down at the 37/33 line. There were good marks, but they were deep, so I pulled out the dipsies and set two of them zero, and two of the on the three settings. The zero settings were set at 54 and 65 back. One side ran a "Velvet Fog" Yaleye Mooneye Minnow, and the other side ran a Black/Gold Chrome Ripplin Redfin. The three settings were set at 65 and 91. One side had a Red Headed Wonderbread Yeck spoon, and a "Gold Digger" Mooneye on the other side. (If you're confused...both corners ran a zero setting and a three setting).
Bandits, Reapers, Spro Madeye 120's, and Mooneye Minnows were run behind Off Shore boards at a variety of depths.
A Purple Perch Spro caught one at 45 back (unassisted)
A Golden Perch Spro caught one at 50/70 with 2oz (weight is put on at the 50 mark and then another 70 feet of line is let out for a total of 120', which puts it approximately 29 feet at 2.5mph).
A Gold Digger Mooneye caught at 30/80 with 2ozs
The Blue Chrome Spro caught one at 50/70 with 2oz
But, the majority of fish came on the dipsies.
It was a slow but steady pick, between checking baits for little walleye hanger on'rs. We went from the 37/33 line, east to the 38/28 line, where we finished.
The Solix showed more marks behind us, but we were still picking away when the screen was showing absolutely nothing too, so we just kept heading ENE, with the wind behind us. The fish were definitely bigger the further east we went. Unfortunately, we would have our limit of smaller eaters after keeping only 4 of the bigger fish there...(and, by "bigger", I mean, 23-24" fish. The earlier fish were in the 16-17" range).
The ride back in was a lot bumpier than going out, but we made it back in an hour's time. The lake was not too bad today, and I was surprised not to see a lot more people fishing out there today. I only saw two other boats north of me, but in the same relative area, and only maybe a dozen, on my way back to Mazurik's from the Buoy, and all of those were closer to Cedar Point and the SE corner of Kelly's.
I'm liking the 16" Humminbird Solix unit on this "new to me boat". It does a good job of marking fish on plane. I was able to mark a bunch on the way back in, so we can check that area first, if we don't do perch tomorrow instead. I just looked at the wind forecast at the weather buoy for the morning, and it's showing NE 10-12mph. That's a long haul for fish that bite, when the sonar screen is void of marks. lol Maybe we'll perch fish tomorrow and head east on Thursday. Right now, it show very light winds for Thursday. A 10-12NE wind would be good for perch'n, I think. We shall see....
Stay tuned....
Capt Juls
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