Wiperslayer and I got out to Willard this morning, launching around 6:30 am. We headed to a spot I had done pretty good last week. Because the water temps were getting close to 70 degrees, I started putting out a crank bait, with hopes that bite had started. I had let out 60 ft and was getting ready to put on a side planer, when the first fish of the day came a calling and nice wiper.
Alright, I thought the crank bite has finally turned on but that was the last fish on a cranks until our last fish of the day. We continued to troll at 1.5 to 1.9 mph picking up another smaller wiper and an eye but then it went dead, so we moved to another location. When we got there, we had one on within minutes, a decent cat and we went on to catch two more cats and two more eyes. All but two were caught on TD’s firetiger blades. Water is much clearer this week. Because of the calm conditions the nats were out in force and we sure were glad when a slight breeze came up later. There were several BFT members out there today, JJannie, Reelfast, Suzukie Blue and Trapper Dave to name the ones I heard from, all had varied success. Hopefully Gene will chime in with his success story. Lots of folks out there today, it doesn’t seem like anyone works any more.
I was out there today with my three grandsons. We left the north marina at 830am. We started trolling two cranks out the back and two on planer boards. But after 20 minutes of fighting the gnats we decide to pull the lines in and go for a boat ride and try to out run the bugs.
At one point we motored out to the island to see if anyone was having any luck. We didn’t see anyone catch anything, but I did see Dubob and said a quick hello.
We were over in freeway bay when a little breeze put down the bugs for a bit, so we put the lines back out with cranks, and in about an hour each boy was able to land a fish. We ended up with one Walleye, one Catfish, and a nice 20” Wiper. Trolled cranks at 2.5 MPH.
It was great to know so many BFTer’s were out there yesterday, we probably passed by many of you from a distance and didn’t know it as we tried hard to keep clear of everyone else due all the planer boards folks had out - guess they helped us keep that social distancing, lol
Those are some nice cats reelfast, bet they were fun ones to bring in.
We ended up with 7 cats, 2 eyes… some caught on cranks, others on a TD fire tiger and a red worm harnesses.
That’s odd. Fishing was great on Tuesday. We pounded out a couple limits of wipers in a few loops, not to mention a couple crappie and catfish.
I couldn’t hazard a guess. Maybe the fishing vibes changed frequency or they were just plain being unfriendly. Hard to know with fish. Maybe some of them just profoundly dislike associating with other fish in the live well. Very strange, indeed.
Hmmm, sounds like hit or miss. Thanks for the reports! I will let you know how we do this Tuesday.
Way to go Dan, looks like you and Chad ended up with a nice pile of cats and some big ones too.