Fishing with Dan, Stephanie, and Greg...8/27/2026

Dan is here in town with his co-worker, Greg. They fly a private company jet for someone who is here in town taking care of business. Since they had a day to goof off, he called his girlfriend Stephanie to see if she wanted to go fishing, too. She did. She's a police officer in Chicago and had some vacation days to use up, so she drove the 4-hour trip over to go with us. 

I picked them up from the Fairfield Inn at 6 a.m., and we headed to Hi-Way Bait to see if they had any minnows. They did, but they were Goldies...not Emeralds. :(

I bought 3 scoops of those, and had about 4-5 scoops of frozen Sand Shiners with us, too.

We launched from Mazurik's at 6:45(ish) and headed to the east side of Kelly's. I decided to go that way up to the east side of Middle Island, because the wind was out of the west at 8-10 mph, and the lee side of the island would be a faster and more comfortable ride. I was right. I even got to open up the V-10 for a bit..as it was a 6" chop for the length of the island.

I would watch the Garmin and hit "Mark" as we passed over some good marks, as we headed up to my original destination. So, if that spot was a bust, we could come back to these areas to try.

We found some good marks up by the east side of Middle Island over 39 feet of water. I got everyone set up with rods and baits. They were using the "Fishing Addiction Flies", and I had on one of my homemade crappie rigs with chartreuse beads. I hadn't even gotten my minnows in the water yet, and Dan hooked into a real dandy. That got us all excited, and I thought we hit the jackpot. But, just like a nightmare tournament day...where you catch a fish in the first 5 minutes and then nothing...it was like that. lol  

It took a little while before any more were caught, but they were caught close enough together to keep us interested and staying there.  The fish were moving in and out of the area. 

With Spot-Lock, the lines are usually staying vertical over the side, but the undercurrent was strong up there...from the NE to the SW, and had the lines slanting.

Eventually, we would leave that spot and find the school again...set up, and then catch a few, only to have them leave us again. In total, we hit 6 spots.  Three up there and three on the way back down (spots that I had marked earlier)

The bites we did have were both super light and aggressive. The light biters snatched a lot of minnows, but the more aggressive ones took a ride with us, or fed a seagull. We didn't catch a lot of White Perch, so the seagulls were sad. Small perch went back, mostly no worse for the wear.

The fishing was fun, and the company was great! They are very interesting people, and it was a lot of fun getting to know them. They all said they had a great time, and Dan said he wants to come back next spring and do some trolling for Walleye, and that makes me happy. 

He has his own boat, but usually does jigging or drift casting from it. 

The weather was absolutely beautiful this morning, and a nice day to be on the water....even if the fish didn't want to cooperate like we wanted them to. 

My next trip is with Melinda Phinney and her friend on Monday the 31st. They want to do walleye, so we'll probably launch at Vermilion to try our luck.

Stay tuned...

Capt Juls