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We launched out of Mazurik’s at 6am and headed east of Kelly’s for the morning. I had the rods all rigged up with 2oz inline weights with crawler harnesses that I tied up with (1) #4 Octopus Hook, (1) #6 treble hook, (8) 8mm beads, a quick change clevis from DutchFork.com, and some #5 and #6 Colorado blades with copper hammered backs, anti freeze backs, and pink antifreeze backs.

After about 5 minutes, and while Kevin was still futzing and setting his lines, my outside board went back….FISH ON! Woot! Woot! It was the first walleye of our 2018 season. We didn’t weigh it, but guessed it to be around 7-8 pounds….took a picture and let her go, to live another day and lay all those eggs. Really though…neither of us wanted to bother with getting fish cleaned today. lol We would catch two more eaters in that area and decided to move to another location to check out the water clarity and fish marks, so he would have more that one place to fish with his crew.

I left the house at 5:15, so I could hit the gas station to fill both the truck and the boat, before hitting up Hi Way bait for some minnows. They had a nice mix of emeralds and goldies that were the perfect size. The pinheads were a little too small for my liking, since the perch showed me yesterday that they were more than willing to munch on the bigger minnows again. If I don’t have to use pinheads, I prefer not to, because they get sucked off the hooks to quickly. I met my crew of the father and son duo of Greg and Ryan Faulks (Wisconsin) at Catawba this morning, since they were staying about a mile north of the park on Catawba Island. It was a short ride for them to meet me there. I got there a little early and got the boat ready to go…and, also installed the navigation lights for the ride out. When they arrived, I told them we would wait a few minutes for it to get a little lighter out, and then take a leisurely ride out to the area just west of Gull Island Shoal…they …

I left the house at 4:30 this morning, so I could stop and get ice, and gas up, before hitting Mazurik’s by 5am. Well, when I was half way through town I realized that I had forgotten my 10 dozen crawlers, sitting on my kitchen table…ugh. I made a quick stop at Hi Way Bait, who open at 5am now…thankfully, and bought 10 more dozen, so I didn’t have to drive all the way home to get them. The air conditioning was on, so I figured they would last until I got home to put them back in the fridge.

Fishing with the Parker Brothers Randy, Jim, and Dick 6/9/17 I arrived at Mazurik’s at 5am. The remnants of a full moon lit up the parking lot, pushing away the darkness. My crew was supposed to meet me there at 5:15, but they were early too. Yay! The sky starts getting light enough to see by 5:15 now…and, by 5:30AM it’s almost light enough to not need the running lights lit up on the boat. With a 5-10mph SSW wind, we headed north out of Mazurik’s to the area between the Bass Islands, Middle Island, and Kelly’s Island…to look for a starting point. I set the Ranger down off plane, to take a picture of the sunrise…and, look for good fish marks on the Humminbird. After finding some decent marks, we started to set up. Randy has fished for Bass all his life, and had contacted me a little while ago to set this trip up as a “learning” trip. He wanted to learn how to troll successfully for walleye. He went out and bought a used Ranger 621, and all the trolling equipment he th

This morning, I left the house at 4:30, thinking I had enough time to get to Mazurik’s launch by 5:30, after gassing up, getting ice, and grabbing some breakfast at Big Boppers. I was wrong. I was close…but, I was wrong. I managed to get the gas and ice with a 1/2 hour left, but there was a snafu with my ordering at Big Boppers. I walked in, and there was only one other person there….so, I ordered pancakes and bacon, because I figured that would be really quick, and I could make it to the launch with time to spare.

Thanks to the generosity of my friend, Scott Bogen, for lending me his Ranger 621 until my new 621 shows up at the end of March, I was able to get out fishing a few times since last weekend. Scott and I fished this past Sunday and Monday. On Sunday, we went out of Catawba to see if the girls were moving into the area yet. While we marked some good fish, we were unable to get any to bite for us in the first 6 hours of hunting. We were all over the west side that morning, and didn’t find any willing to bite until we moved into shallower water…around 20-21 feet. We pulled Smithwick Perfect 10’s, Bandits, and Deep Husky Jerks. We only caught 3 fish that afternoon on Bandits, up high in the water column….25 back on gold chrome colors. The stock colors of Black/Gold and Copper Clown produced for us. We probably would have caught a limit had we not found them.

I headed right to the spot where I was the day before, and set up. We were approximately 2 miles NW of the ramp, so it was a very short run. We weren’t there long, before I caught the first green and gold goodie from the depths, that told us they were down there. Ben started pulling perch too, but Mike was struggling on the other side of the boat to hook the little buggers. They were biting, but he was feeding them more than he was catching them. We teased him, and he was a good sport about it. He eventually got better at it, and helped fill the cooler too.

I hadn’t been out since last Tuesday, before the blow, and I was a little apprehensive about what kind of bite it would be after the winds we just had. Wednesday the winds were out of the SW with gusts blowing 35-50mph, and Thursday, the same, but at 25-35mph. I wasn’t worried about that wind direction muddying things up, since it was an offshore wind. It was the Friday/Friday night winds out of the NE that I was worried about. I figured it would bring in the colder water from the east, and muddy up the inside, by the cans where we had been doing well earlier in the week.

1st Annual American Fallen Heroes Walleye Tournament to be held May 21st, 2016 at West Harbor Public Boat Ramp. Cost will be $250/Team. Contact Cory at [emailprotected]