Fishing with Tom, Peter, and Dan 5/20/18
by Capt Juls on 05/21/18When will this weather straighten out? It's mid May, and I still have yet to wear shorts in the boat. My feet are tan, but my legs are still "winter white"....sigh.
I met my crew down at Catawba at 6am and we headed out into a misty foggy lake. The guys weren't dressed for the weather, since the forecast called for mostly cloudy skies, but no rain. However, this is Lake Erie, and the weather does what it wants to. Since they had no rain gear with them, I was concerned that they would get damp and cold. The winds were from the west when we left the launch, but when we got out towards the firing range cans, the wind swiftly switched to the NE.
The waves were like "washing machine" waves for a short time, and the water a bit muddier than I like, so I took them over to the west side of Middle Bass to find better water and a wind break behind the island. We made one pass there and picked up one keeper walleye and two white perch on crawlers.
The wind did one more switch, and was now coming out of the ESE. After not marking as much in that area as I had the last time I visited, we picked up and moved north. Again, one pass in an area that I had done well a few days prior produced nothing....and, again, the marks weren't as plentiful, so we moved to the east side of the islands.
There were two packs of boats between Lucy's and Middle Island, so we set up near the line and pointed the Ranger south. The Helix as showing few marks where I was, and my patience was running thin. So, we moved further east to the next pack, but by then I was not in the mood to play bumper boats with a pack and decided to move down towards the monument and Starve Island.
This would be the last spot before time ran out, so we kept the baits in the water and worked a couple mile long stretch across the area....we picked up 4 more walleye, and lost just as many that didn't hook up. The fish we did catch were barely hooked, except for one suicidal 16 incher that inhaled the crawler.
We were running the 1 and 2 ounce inlines and one bottom bouncer. One fish came on the bottom bouncer, and lost two that managed to steal the crawler but not hook up.
Though we didn't put a smack down on them, we still had a good time fishing. Tom Memmen and I used to swim on the same swim team during the summers of the mid to late 70's, and went to the same high school. Peter, Tom's son, and Dan (Tom's daughter's boyfriend) said they were happy just to be out on the water, and enjoyed the experience...mentioning that they would like to do it again.
The last time I fished with Tom, he had brought his daughter, Katie, who caught big fish that day, so I said, "Next time, bring Katie...she's good luck!" He said, "She really wanted to come this time", but because I only take up to three people she had to sit this one out. She would come next time with Peter and Dan and Tom would give up his seat. And, that makes me happy...:)
My next trip is Tuesday, and it looks like the weather through to next week will be a very nice.
Stay tuned....
Capt Juls
Comments (1)
