Fishing with Tyler and Jeff 7/8/17

Yesterday, I met Tyler and Jeff at Big Bopper's for breakfast before heading over to Hi Way Bait to ice up. I then met the crew over at Mazurik's for a 6am launch.

We headed out....and, now, for the GOOD NEWS...when I called in to report entry into Canada, I was asked by the officer on the other end of the line, "Are you just going to be fishing over here today?" I said, "Yes."  She said, "You don't need to call in anymore, if you're just going to be fishing, or passing through". I said, "I'm a charter captain, don't I still need to call my trips in?" She said, "No. Here's my badge number if you want it", and proceeded to give me her  badge number.  She told me to have a great day, and good luck!

So, I guess it's official now....we no longer have to call in to cross into Canada to fish. :)

We headed up to the west side of Pelee. The wind was gusting out of the NNW, so it was a slow ride up. It took us just over an hour. Waves at that time were 1-3's, so it wasn't too bad. I just don't like to beat up the boat or my passengers on a rough ride.

We set up to make the first pass with Bandits, because that's what I still had on the rods from the last walleye trip out. We ran them anywhere from 55 to 100 back, sat 1.9-2.2mph, and picked up nice eater walleye on the 55 and 85 leads with the Crown Juls color being a hot one yesterday.  That's the one that Mike  Chafin over at Cranberry Creek Marina makes. 

At around 8am the wind kicked up, and the lake was now rolling with a bunch of 4 to 6 footers up there. At one point, when we ran back up to make another pass, I took a big one over the front of the Ranger.  It was the second of a "three sisters" wave, and it was bigger than the first one that I was going over. I saw it and thought to myself, "Uh Oh...OH SHIT!!!"  There was nothing I could do at that point, but keep her nose up...turn her sideways in the trough, and hit the bilge button.   Thankfully, my guys were not shaken in the least, and laughed about getting water down their rain pants.  

It didn't take very long to pump the water out, and since we were almost back to our starting point, we just started right there.

That's only the second time I've taken a full wave over the bow. The first time was back in 2003 at the Devils Lake RCL  tournament, when I made the top twenty cut on day three, and they sent us out with 45mph winds in the morning.

Anyhooooo....back to fishing...

We ended up taking the Bandits off around 11am when the bite seemed to shut off, but we were still marking them.  Putting crawlers on, we would narrow the program down to running three 2oz inlines on one side of the boat and three 3oz inlines on the other side of the boat.  The 3 oz were running 30-40 back and the 2oz were running from 47 to 65 back at 1.6mph.  Everything caught fish at some point or another.

We had a good time with smallmouth, sheepshead, and walleye yesterday.  They caught their limit of nice eater sized walleye, and said they learned a ton, and thanked me for all the info I shared. That made me happy. :)

I was supposed to be out on the lake again this morning, but my customer texted me last night and told me he had to cancel, due to a funeral he had just found out about. So, I'll be spending the day entertaining my dogs.

Tomorrow, I'm back out with a couple of my regulars...Steve and Jeremy for some walleye and perch.

So....Stay tuned....

Capt Juls