Fishing with Sean and Linda...9/6-7/2023
by Capt Juls on 09/07/23Sean and Linda drove down from Wisco to fish with me. They had scheduled their trip back in 2021, but due to some puppies that needed taking care of, (they own a kennel in Wisconsin, near Madison, and a resort out on the west side of Devils Lake, ND), so they had to reschedule.
We tried again in 2022, but Mother Nature said, "Nay-Nay", and blew hard, so that trip was rescheduled too.
Yesterday, and today, were the days they could come, but the lake wasn't too kind, as far as giving up her finny friends.
With some wind and possible thunderstorms, yesterday, we opted to try some perch fishing out in front of Mazurik's and Lakeside. We hit a total of 6 spots, with the best being out in front of the Lakeside pier, in 26 feet of water.
We were also chased off the water by an incoming storm, a little early, so we headed in with only one limit out of a possible three. The bite was light, and the fish were like little "Houdini's", stealing our minnows, when we tried to set the hook on them.
I told them, I would add the time the storm took away from us, to this morning's trip, so we could go try for walleye first, and if that didn't work out (due to the amount of floating grass out there), that we could go perch'n again. They were happy with that plan.
So, this morning, we launched out of Mazurik's at 6:30, and headed up to Kelly Island Shoal. We made one pass over the shoal first, with crawlers, but that produced nothing, but a few missed bites and missing crawlers. Then, we set the trolling gear out to try and troll from the shoal up to the line.
Dipsies were set on the zero and three settings, on each corner with the zero settings set at 40 and 45 to start, and the three settings set at 65 and 80 to start.
The Off Shore boards were pulling Bandits set anywhere from 65 to 120 feet back. The port side ran three boards, while the starboard side ran two. We were only allowed 9 lines for the three of us.
The floating grass took the Bandits out of the equation pretty quickly, and they were put away.
We caught one walleye, one sheephead, and one giant catfish on the dipsies running spoons, but they were getting fouled with the floating grass pretty quickly, too, so we opted to just go perch fishing again.
The waves were 1-3s at the shoal, so we drove down the east side of Kelly's to the SE corner, to see if we could mark any perch there, before heading back to our spot at Lakeside. Nada....so, we drove down to the lighthouse, and set up out in 35 feet of water, out in front of it. The marks were really good, but the bottom was really soft in that spot, and we only caught one in 20 minutes, so we moved in closer to the lighthouse.
Again, good marks when we stopped, but they soon disappeared after we set up, so we only stayed another 15 minutes, to see if they would come back around...they didn't.
We moved back to our spot out in front of Lakeside Pier, in 26 feet of water, and started catching a few. The bite was slow, and the bite was light again, but we managed to get 20 in the box, before heading in. We had been discussing Mexican food, and we all got hungry, and went to Casa Las Palmas for lunch. lol
The fishing was excellent, but the catching was poor again, unfortunately, but once again, I had customers with positive attitudes, and we had a lot of fun anyway.
Sean and Linda run "Dakota Sunset Resort" (www.DakotaSunsetResort.com), and come this winter, will be once again running ice fishing trips, for perch. So if anyone is looking for a good place to stay, with some great guides, check them out. They are super nice people! :)
My next scheduled trip is Sunday (perch)...hopefully, now that the cooler weather is coming back, and the full moon is gone, the bite will hopefully start picking up again.
Stay tuned...
Capt Juls
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