Fishing with Luke and Jeff 4/21/18

We launched by 7am and headed west from the dock to see what we could find. The marks were scattered, and the water very stained...not too muddy, but not what I like to fish in. Knowing the lake was still a mess from the last NE blow I didn't have my hopes too high today.  

After making one pass through an area, I decided to move north towards the islands. The most recent satellite picture had shown some decent water up there, but you never know how it's going to change over night. Last night was pretty calm, so I was hoping it would clear up even more. But, with the lake's current running high, it moved some of that west mud into the island area.

We were pulling more P10's than Bandits to start, but decided to change it up after not pulling anything after a long pass.  Luke and Jeff fish with me every two years, and remembered the Khaki color from the past and asked me, "Do you still run the Khaki color?" I said, "Yes, but usually more so in May". I thought, "Why not?" And, grabbed one out of the box. Luke put it out at 20/40 with a 2oz Guppie weight, and it took a nice 7 1/2 pound walleye a short time later. So, we put a second one out....however, it wasn't a magic color...it would take one more in the same area, but that was it.

We moved from the west side of the islands to the east side, to see if Lucy's Point had cleaner water. It did, and the Helix showed great marks there too, so I was hopeful we could get into a better bite. The water temperature was 1 degree colder there than on the west side of the islands.  It was 41.6 on the west side, and 40.7 on the east side.  

We didn't catch anything by Lucy's, which was disappointing, so after running out of time, we moved back down to where we originally started, so we could make one more pass before heading in. My buddy was down there and reporting he had caught 5 and lost 7 nice fish. 

We marked some good fish on the way back there, so we stopped short and set up. Again...good marks, but no takers. They were staying deep on us today, and we couldn't get them to come up and play with us.

With the east winds for the next three days, maybe the fish will be fooled into thinking we have "stable" weather, since the wind direction won't change 180 degrees every day, like it's been doing.

So, not much to report today, other than there's a lot of fish out there waiting to be caught, but they are not ready to play yet.  There was a DNR officer at Catawba when we came in and he said, "From the numbers coming in, everyone is struggling today"...which pretty much summed up our day too.

But, tomorrow is another day.  I have three gentlemen from my home state of Wisconsin for the next three days (if I don't bore them to death, and they go home early!), so hopefully, we can get something figured out early on.  Fingers crossed!

Sorry I don't have better news for everyone who is reading this, looking for information, but I don't have any to give today.

This lake and weather has to straighten up soon...and, then, it will be "game on"!

Stay tuned.....

Capt Juls