Fishing with Pat, Shawn, and Robert 4/9/18

It was chilly this morning with a temp of 34 degrees and a southeasterly breeze. I was supposed to pick the crew up at the Holiday Inn Express at 7:30, but timed it wrong. I had to stop for gas, so I left the house early....too early. I arrived at the hotel at 6:38...lol  But, as I played with my phone, they came walking out at 6:45, so it was a win win. :)

We launched at Catawba at 7am, and headed west to the reefs, where the satellite picture showed some cleaner water.  We set up SE of Toussaint Reef, and made a NW troll in 20-21 foot of water.

I ran the same program of P-10's and Bandits...20/20, 30/30, and 40/40 on the P-10's and 55, 65, and 80 back on the Bandits. I tried to keep my speed around 1.4mph.

We picked away at some smaller fish, and finished the troll with an 8 for 12 result.  We moved east to D Can and then trolled toward Niagara...didn't mark much and didn't pull anything there. Then we moved south until we marked some fish, and set up for one last short pull, since we were running out of time.  We picked up one more nice fish, and finished with 9.

The wind was switching from the southeast to the northeast all morning, so by the time we finished at 1pm, it was out of the northeast.

My guys didn't keep any fish today, except for one small male that had engulfed the back hook into his gills, so he was bleeding out. Rather than let it die and waste away in the lake, I took it home and turned him into a nice pot of Walleye Chowder for tomorrow's trip.  I'll heat it up in the morning and throw it in a thermos for us to enjoy at lunch. :)

The water temps were still in the 38-39 degree range, due to the cold water being blown back in from the east. 

Tomorrow's winds are supposed to be less than 5mph and out of the west, but we'll see what it is in the morning. It seems like it changes hourly this time of the year, and it's getting old! lol  

On the bright side though...starting Wednesday, it's supposed to start warming up. Unfortunately, along with those warm temps are some blustery winds out of the southwest that we'll have to deal with.

So, until tomorrow....

Stay tuned....

Capt Juls