The weather report was for calm and warm. Just right for tubing Willard. TubeBabe and I hit the South Marina about 5:45. Still dark. Saw quite a few fish inside the marina on our way out. Couldn’t get bit on plastics.
Noticed a few little cells to the south that had some lightning in them. Nothing to worry about. Right.
At 6:30 I hooked my first fish, on my favorite purple and chartreuse plastic. Small channel cat from right next to the rocks to the north of the marina entrance. I kept throwing plastics, hoping for a walleye or maybe a crappie or two. TubeBabe had not had a hit on anything.
Just before 7:30, TubeBabe began dragging a minnow, to tempt a kitty. Her first pickup and run turned out to be a 19" wiper. That was her first ever. She decided she would like to do that some more. Had to smack her alongside the head to get that silly grin off her kisser.
I started tossing some minners too. I ain’t as dumb as I look. If wipers wanted meat, I’d serve it up to ‘em. Two or three quick small channel cats later, I went back to plastics. TubeBabe had not started a trend. Pure beginners’ luck.
**Our nice warm calm morning suddenly got “airy”, and a dark little cell sneaked up on us and started spitting a few rain drops. I got a couple of neat cloud pics and one of a little piece of a rainbow (see attached). The north wind pushed up some nice waves and we were thinking about beating a retreat for the marina when it layed down as suddenly as it came up. **
I got a series of small cats (average 14" - 15") on five different lures, still trying for other stuff. Oh yeah, I also yanked in a silly 7" yellow perch. I kept it for the multispecies pic attached. I did hang one cat 21" and 3# on my light rod. Fun, fun.
I had kept a limit of the cats, and threw several back. TubeBabe still had not caught anything except the one wiper. Just as I rounded the point to go back into the marina she got into a few channel cats and managed to bring in three.
I was marking small schools of fish inside the marina, along the edge of the channel on the north side. I changed plastics to a small smoke sparkle slider grub and soon felt the tick of a crappie. Hollered at TubeBabe to come inside, just in case we could get some crappies going.
**That was the only crappie, at 10 1/2". But it was lucky for TubeBabe that I called her in. She was still dragging a chub minnow around and as a “mini boil” of wipers came up for several seconds one of them snarfed her bait, put the line over its shoulder and boogied. She fought in her second, a slightly larger 20 incher. Same silly smile. **
**I threw a RatLTrap for awhile and had one good smack. No hookup. I also threw some larger plastics and had a couple of hard hits that I am sure were wipers. But, although I had lots of fun with the kitties, I blanked on wipers today. **
Saw quite a few boats head out this morning, all headed in different directions. Didn’t see any trollers within view that seemed to have any success. There were a lot of birds on the water down off the feedlot, but they did not seem to be feeding or reacting to anything special (no boils).
Water temp in the marina early was 71, warming to almost 74 in open lake. It was over 76 when we got out about 1 PM.
By the way, both fish TubeBabe hooked on minnows came from about 10 feet of water, within casting distance of shore, for those who might be shorebound but anxious.