Fishing with Jason and Warren...3/28/24

I usually don't schedule trips until the last week of March, but Mother Nature had given us a reprieve early in the month, so I took advantage of that, and got a couple of trips in, but she changed her mind mid-month and brought the cold and wind back.

The lake conditions right now are typical for this time of year, and yesterday, it was muddy inside and had mixing water a few miles out.

Jason brought his 12-year-old son up for another trip with me. The last trip was a fall trip two years ago, where we had a successful walleye trip, added with some bonus perch fishing, over by Vermilion. 

Unfortunately, this last trip was not so successful. While it was fun fishing, the catching part of it was poor, for us.  As I would learn later, the area that I started in, which was over by South Bass, would be where we should have stayed. But, we weren't marking fish, and my patience was running low, so we made a move over to the NE side of Kelly's.

It was strange, that my Humminbird wasn't marking any fish the entire way over there from South Bass. It had me scratching my head, and wondering if I was making the right move.  

We set up on the SW corner of Kelly Island Shoal, out in 42' of water, and headed NNE from there.  We started in some muddy water, so we had time to get set up, before hitting the mixing water.

We ran Bandits behind Off Shore boards at 125, 120, 100, 97, 90, 80, 70, and 60 back. We hit a pocket of fish, and the fun began, but it would only last a half at the most. We caught 5 fish, on the 125, 120, 97, and 90 leads, but threw one little 15" fish back, thinking we would keep catching, but that was the last fish we would catch.

Taco Salad (Stock Color), Potato Bread (Custom Color by Bruce Hochstetler), and Mint Condition (Custom Color by SlimShady Customs) took all the fish. Taco Salad (3), and the other two took one each.

Speed was 1.4-1.6mph on the Fish Hawk and 1.7-1.9 SOG.

Water temp on the Fish Hawk at 18' down was 40 degrees.

We tried picking up, and making another pass through the same area, but those fish were gone already, so we made another move, and tried again, but didn't catch any more fish. 

We made another long move over to the NW side of Kelly's, but the wind was picking up, and we didn't mark any fish there, so we just decided to head in. 

At least Warren was able to reel in those 5 fish that we did catch, and his arms were a little sore from it, so he was satisfied. :)

Jason was understanding, and said we will get them next time, so it's nice to know they will be back again, and that makes me happy.

I don't like not limiting out, but the day was full of sunshine, and wasn't as cold as we thought it was going to be, so it was fun to get out and go fishing. I just wish the catching had been better.  As it turned out, from what my friends told me, had I just kept going north from where we started in the morning, we would have gotten into some fish. 

I have to work on my patience....lol

My trip for Saturday has been rescheduled, due to rain and neither myself nor my client want to fish in a cold rain with an east wind, so he's rescheduling.  My Sunday trip, is a regular from Wisconsin, that bought one of my boats, and likes to bring it down for a few days to fish, after he fishes with me, and, while Sunday looks fishable... Monday through Thursday looks like crap, so he's rescheduled to later in the month....it's also Easter Sunday, so it was an easy decision to reschedule him.

I didn't have a trip scheduled on Monday, but I do have a three-day trip scheduled for Tuesday through Thursday, with some folks coming from 11 hours away, so we will look at the forecast again on Sunday, to see if Mother Nature will change her mind, and calm the &%^*$ down, and let us get their trip in.  If the forecast doesn't change from what it's showing right now, I won't have them drive that far, just to sit on shore.

Stay tuned....

Capt Juls