Fishing with Tim, Matt, and Wyatt 10/18/19

Today, I had my regular customers, Tim and Matt McGlothlin and Matt's son Wyatt. Tim is also the happy new owner of my 2019 Ranger 621 FS, but he's offered to let me use it until the 2020 Ranger arrives next spring, so I'm still scheduling dates until the ramps are too icy to launch from. Woot! Woot! Thank you Tim!

However, all my days in October are booked right now, but I have plenty open for November and December. I don't care if you're in the Fall Brawl or not. You do not need to be a brawler to go out with me. However, if you are a brawler....I'm signed up too, so that won't be a problem. ;)

This morning, we hit Ala-Carte in downtown Port Clinton for breakfast before heading to the gas station and over to Rickard's to pick up some minnows and ice. Rickard's will be closing their doors forever come November 10th, so I wanted to make sure I still got to see their smiling faces a few more times before they left us for good. I sure will miss them!

We launched out of Catawba at 9am. The wind was out of the northwest at around 11mph, so it was a bit bumpy, but not bad. I headed to my last known perch spot from last Wednesday, near E can, but it was super muddy, and the marks weren't showing up on the Helix like before, so we didn't waste much time there. I said, "Let's head north and see if we can find some cleaner water. Maybe, we'll find some up there."  

We moved up past Niagara where the water was a bit cleaner...."cleaner" meaning, I could see the cavitation plate, at the very least. The Helix showed some decent marks, but they turned out to be babies. All we caught there were young perch no bigger than 5-6 inches, so we moved again. 

This time, we moved northeast towards West Reef, and found the water was a little bit cleaner there too. The sonar showed decent marks, so the Ulterra was deployed and the Spot Lock anchored us one more time. (That machine makes it so easy to move around, because I know I would not want to move much if I had to raise and lower an anchor each time).  We were set up just off the west side of the reef in 33 feet of water and started to get into a little better bite. We managed to put 21 keepers in the box, so it wasn't a great bite, but it was enough to stay interested.

If all the little perch we threw back today were keepers we would have had a much better box to show for it. But, that's the way it goes, and I'm actually happy to see those little buggers, because they are the future of our perch fishery. 

I let Tim drive us back to the launch when it was time to go in, so that made him happy. They enjoyed the nice weather after the wind laid down, and the sun warmed things up, and were happy to be on the lake today....and, that made me happy. :)

Tomorrow, I have a walleye trip with Jeff Robinson and his crew. We'll be launching out of Mazurik's around 7:45...to catch that sunrise on the water.

Stay tuned....

Capt Juls