April 30th Fishing Report

Steve Chapman and his buddy Mike arrived at my house at 8am this morning. I was already sitting in my truck waiting on them to arrive, so all they had to do was transfer their coats and personal items to my truck and jump in.

 

We launched out of Catawba State Park at 8:20am and headed for the East side of Rattlesnake Island.

The program was the same as yesterday:

Crawler harnesses with 1 oz inline weights 20-30' back.

#5 and #6 blades that had chartreuse or pink metallic undersides were the hot colors.  My bead combos that were most popular were the Pink Lemonade combo and the purple/chartreuse combo.

Speed was 1.0.

Conditions today: Sunny, 70's, light SSW winds, water clarity in the Rattlesnake area was perfect today. Not too dirty and not too clean. :)

After I showed them how I like to have the crawlers hooked on the harnesses, how to operate the line counter reels, and put the Off Shore planer boards on the lines, we got our 6 lines out and were fishing by 8:45. We made a South to North trolling pass over 30' of water.

It wasn't long before we had a nice "eater" sized 5 pound fish on the line.

Mike was first up and reeling the fish in, and when we got it in the boat, they were both very excited at the size of it. I never get tired of hearing that...:)  

After a few pictures and resetting the line, it wasn't long before there was another fish on an outside board.

Now, things get a little more exciting since neither one has ever trolled with inline boards before, and I had to quickly explain about clearing the two inside lines and what to do with them while the third person reeled in the outside board.  

Both of them listened and did a great job...we netted a nice 8 pound fish. Now, they were really excited about trolling.

You have to understand...I fished with Steve and his brother Chuck last spring and they told me they only liked to jig, so we went jigging that day.  This spring, I told Steve when he called that the jigging bite was over and that he would have to go trolling with me. He didn't mind, but didn't sound to excited about it either. 

After that second big fish, he was converted and said, "I like trolling, this is a lot less work and the fish are bigger". (A lot less work for HIM that is..I just make it look easy...heheh)

After a turn and making a North to South pass over the fish, we didn't catch a thing, so I told them to bring the lines in and we would run up to the starting point again and reset the lines.

Once we were fishing again, we went a little ways and had a board go back, but it got off.  A little further and I see a board go back and the fish let go right away, so I figured it just grabbed the crawler's butt end and I quickly grabbed the reel to let the line out about 5 feet, and then engaged the spool again. It worked...the fish grabbed it and this time it was hooked pretty good. 

They were both impressed with that little trick and we netted a nice 6 or 7 pound walleye.

A little further in our pass and we hit a quad...four fish hooked up, but we only managed to get 3 in the boat.

Two fish to go and we tried the other direction again and caught one on the turn (fast side) on the inside board.

One fish to go...(or, should have been)

All three of us miscounted them as they went in the livewell and we finished with one fish short of a two man limit. They didn't even care, because that was more walleye meat in the cooler than either of them has ever had before. :)

Note to self....start using the perch counter to count fish as they go in the livewell. D'Oh!

It was a super fun day and the weather was perfect. It's going to be nice throughout the weekend, so I hope everyone gets a chance to go fishing and experience some of the fun we have been having.

Good luck to you all!

Capt Juls