Capt Juls

I didn't have to pick my crew up this morning...they were staying right down the street from Mazurik's, at "Little Ted's Cottages". So, I stopped in to grab a breakfast sandwich "to go" from Big Bopper's, before heading to the ramp. Today, I would be fishing with Mike Appell, his friend Brent, and Brent's son, Ben. I pulled in the lot at 5:05am, and was stunned when they pulled in at 5:10am. I had told them 5:30, so you can imagine my surprise to have someone show up...not only on time...but, very early, in fact. I thought to myself, "This is going to be a good day". :) We launched and headed out. The sun was just lighting the morning sky with different shades of red, but hadn't broke the horizon yet. We ran out to the area west of Gull Island Shoal, where I gave them a quick lesson on running Off Shore inline boards. They had never used them before, but wanted to learn. As they quickly learned how to set lines, I looked up to see the fireball peaking over the horizon, and grabbed my camera to capture the morning in all it's glory. You see, I'm never up late enough to see a sunset, so I appreciate the sunrises when I can see them. Anyway, our program was the same as yesterday's. We ran the root beer colored spinners with the #5 gold blades again. 1oz anywhere from 21-41 back at 1.1-1.2mph. We had 8 fish by 8:30. Then, the fishing slowed down, and we only had two more by 9:30. More boats were showing up by then, but it still wasn't too crowded yet. We caught catfish, sheepshead, white perch, and a yellow perch too. The cats took a ride, since they were willing to clean them and eat them too. That 9 inch perch that hit a 4oz bottom bouncer went for a ride too. lol After making one last pass on that spot, I asked them "Do you want to try another spot I had in mind? It could be hit or miss...I don't know...but, I would like to try it" Mike replied, "Well, it's getting to be hit or miss here too, so it's up to you, you're the Captain". I took that as a "Yes", so after picking up lines, and moving stuff back around in the boat to secure it, we moved Northwest. We headed up to the north side of North Bass and set lines starting at the Green Can on the Northeast corner. The Helix showed good marks in 28-30 foot of water, so we zigged and zagged between the two depths. We caught 2 more keepers up there to make it a total of 12 keepers today. The largest was 27 1/2 inches. The crew did a great job, and hardly had any tangles, which was very...very good! Tomorrow's trip has been rescheduled for better conditions, and for later in the summer. His wife would like to do some perch'n, which is always welcomed by me, because I LOVE Perch fishing! Woot! Woot! :) So, I have tomorrow off. Sunday's wind forecast of 15-20 out of the north needs to change, or that will be rescheduled too. I'll be texting him a "go" or "no go" Sunday morning, since they only live an hour away. Stay tuned.... Capt Juls

Picked up my crew from their hotel at 6:30, and headed to Big Bopper's for breakfast, before launching at Mazurik's at 7:30. We headed up between the islands, because the satellite picture from the day before showed that there was still clean water there. The water west of the islands (at least as far as you could see from shore) was very muddy from the three day NW blow we had. We started out trolling Bandits on a west to east troll up on the line by Middle Island. As we trolled east, we picked up a couple walleye on the Blue/Chrome color at 65 back....speed was 2.0-2.2mph. We kept trolling east past middle island, and found ourselves all alone with no one close to us, and hit a nice little pod of fish. At this time, I decided to take the Bandits off and put the crawler harnesses on. The Helix was all cluttered up with what I would guess was a Mayfly hatch going on. There had been a bunch in the parking lot at their hotel, which is right on the lake, and it looks like there are more coming up from the depths,. I figured my root beer colored beads with a gold hammered colorado blade would mimic the bug nicely. I chose the #5 Colorado blade over the larger # 6, because the water temps had cooled 4 degrees since last Saturday. I normally, like to slow down and downsize, after a cold front passes through. We were running the harnesses with 1oz inline weights at 41 back, and behind #1 Tadpoles at 25 and 27' back....at 1.0-1.2mph It didn't take long before we were picking away at them, but it was still a slow bite. My friend, Capt Kevin Swartz, was working an area about a mile west of me, and doing much better, so we picked up and moved over there. We finished out the 6 hours, and my crew asked to add another hour, so we could pick up a few more fish. In total, we went 12 for 16, not including the 4 throw backs, 2 catfish, 3 sheepshead, 2 white perch, and the 1 white bass. Woot! Woot! My guys had a good time, learned how to run Off Shore planer boards, and were setting lines like seasoned trollers by the end of their trip. The weather today was perfect, and they were able to relax and have a good time. They stated that they had never had such a nice charter in all their years coming to fish the lake, so that made me very happy. :) I'll be out tomorrow with another crew, running the crawler harnesses again. I suspect we'll have the same bite we had today. Thankfully, the winds will be down again tomorrow with a forecast of 5mph out of the South. Stay tuned.... Capt Juls

Jeremy is a regular customer, who usually fishes with his Dad, but today he brought his wife along instead, so she could catch her first walleye...ever. I met them at Mazurik's ramp at 5:15, and we were setting up on Scott Point Shoal by 5:30 am. (I just want to send a big shout out to Capt Kevin Swarts, who kindly launched us this morning, to minimize our time at the ramp. Thanks Kevin!) We set up with yesterday's program of Bandits run 45-65 back behind Off Shore planer boards....speed was determined to be the same as yesterday too, at 1.9-2.0mph. Colors were Khaki, Blue/Chrome, Green Clown, and Fire Tiger. All colors took fish this morning. Walleye size ranged from 18" to 28 1/2 inches, with one or two throw backs, for being under 15 inches. We had 11 walleye in that roomy Ranger live well by 9am, but the bite seemed to die off, so we changed spots, and continued a troll past our last turn around and kept on trolling over to Starve Island area. The Humminbird marked a ton of fish over there, with some really big marks, but all we could bring up were really big sheepshead. After one piggy sheep sunk a board so bad, that I thought it was a snag...we reeled everything up to go chase down that board, only to find that there was a massive barn yard critter attached to it. Ugh..on the bright side...at least I got all the gear back. :) We decided to move on over to the NW corner of Kelly's to try for some new fish there, and found a bunch of good looking walleye like marks on the sonar, so we set up a little deeper this time. We were trolling in 29-30' of water, so we set the Bandits out at 65, 75, and 30/30 with a 2oz snap weight. The 30/30 set up took a couple of fish, as did one at 65 and one at 75. Erika was reeling in a huge fish at one point, but it broke off and took my Blue/Chrome Bandit with it back to the blue/green depths.....deep sigh...sniff-sniff (sad face). She asked, "Was it something I did?" Jeremy and I said in unison, "No! It happens"....we laughed. We ended the day with 15 nice eaters and one "Fish Ohio". Erika was thrilled with the experience, so Jeremy is looking forward to getting her out on their new boat....the one you might remember from a previous blog (or, maybe it was a Facebook posting) about his new to him 2003 Pro Line that I helped him set up for trolling a few weeks back. They had a great time, as did I, and Jeremy and his Dad will be back to fish next Friday, and might bring Erika back with them, so that makes me happy. :) Tomorrow's trip with with another regular customer, who normally fishes with his Brother (Tim and Matt McGlothlin), but his brother can't make this weekend, due to work circumstances that couldn't be put on the back burner. So, Matt will be fishing with me and another customer tomorrow. The weather looks like it's going to be nice all weekend, so hopefully, the bite will just keep getting better and better. All those traditional areas should start lighting up, if they haven't already. It's going to be a busy weekend, so if you don't hear from me, that's why! Have a great Holiday, and please practice safe boating and patience. It's going to be a crowded lake this weekend. Follow the "rules of the road", and there shouldn't be any issues. Help each other out...there's enough fish and plenty of room for all of us out there. Good luck! Be safe! Stay tuned.... Capt Juls

I spent the last three mornings fishing with the father and son crew of Tim and Nick Becker from Wisconsin. I was fortunate, in that, they were eager to get up early and get a good head start. On Monday morning, they met me at my house at 5am, and we headed west. On Sunday night, I talked to another Captain friend of mine, and he was kind enough to give me the heads up on a quick bite west of A Can. So, we went there on Monday morning, and launched at Fenwick at 5:30am. We caught their limit of good eaters using Bandits, fished anywhere from 45-65 back at 1.8-1.9mph. Chrome colors were the best....Blue/Chrome, Green Clown, and IB Frozen were the hottest for us. I figured it would be a good idea to get them a box of fish before asking them if they would mind if we drove to Huron the next morning to try for some big fish. I had explained that I had not fished over there yet this season, but was hearing reports of big fish, and lots of them there, so I wanted to get over there and try it. But, I also said it could be a flop, but that we should try it. They were game for it, so we made plans to go there Tuesday morning. I picked them up at their hotel at 5am, and we drove over to Huron. We were on the water at 5:30 again. Our first stop was over by Sawmill, where they had fished with me last year at this time, so they wanted to check it out, and see if there were fish in that area again....so, we headed west out of the channel. It was a beautiful morning with light SSW winds, and 56 degrees...(10 degrees warmer than day one), and there were good marks on the Helix screen. My hopes were high that the bite would be good too. Well, we made one pass at Sawmill and only boated on walleye with a Bandit run 65 back. At about that time, we were hearing Gary Zart (Blue Dolphin Charters) and Gary Carpenter (Sara J Charters) talking on the radio, and it sounded like they were both just setting up over near Vermilion. Blue D. said, "It's loaded here", so we made the decision to leave our marks and go look at their marks. lol We set up on a 34' contour line and headed east with our trolling pass. Bandits were run at 55/65/and 71...then, we heard Sara J say they caught one on a Bandit 60 back with 2oz. Blue D was running crawlers, so I was pretty much ignoring his info, other than to know what depth his catches were coming from. We reset our two inside lines, setting them with 2oz snap weights at 30/30, which is similar to Gary's 60 back with a 2oz inline. They immediately started catching fish, so we changed up two more of our 6 lines with the same set up. Again, chrome Bandits were the hot colors...with the Green Clown out fishing the others by a few fish. The bite seemed to die off around 9am, and we struggled to catch for the last two and a half hours. We only ended up with 8 walleye over there, but three of them went 27 inches, and the rest were anywhere from 18 to 24 inches, so the guys were happy with the move to Huron for the second day of their trip. Today...day 3: I was meeting Tim and Nick at Mazurik's at 5:45, so I had a chance to stop at Big Bopper's for breakfast. I had a hankering for their Steak and Eggs, and it didn't disappoint! I was so hungry! Yummy!! Anyway....we launched at 6am. My first plan was to head to Lucy's Point, because I had heard there were fish up there now, and there was a wind forecast for some gusty SW winds, so I figured the island would help shelter us a little bit. But, when we headed out, the lake was calm, and there were no boats out on Scott Point Shoal yet, so I told them, "I just want to make one pass over here, before we head all the way up there. If the fish are here, there's no need to go all the way up there". Thankfully, we started catching immediately, and it was a pretty steady pick right up until around 9am again. Then, it was long periods of time between bites. Again, Bandits run anywhere from 45-70 back, with the chrome colors working well, and the Khaki stock color catching the most fish. Speed was 1.9-2.0 on an west to east pass and 1.6-1.7 on the east to west pass. We ended up with 17 fish...it would have been 18, but Nick and I watched his big fish of the day spit the bait about 20 feet behind the boat. No biggie....sometimes the fish needs to get lucky too. They had to head back to Wisconsin this afternoon, and were happy with their results over the three days, so that made me happy. :) I'll be fishing with one of my regulars tomorrow, who is bringing his wife along to catch her first walleye. They live in Columbus, so I asked him if they could come up to town tonight, so we could meet at the launch at 5:15. I would like to launch again by 5:30, so we can get some of that early morning bite action going again. I want her to have a great experience. The weather will be decent...warm, light SSW winds, and no rain until the evening, so my fingers are crossed we can get another good bite in the morning. Stay tuned.... Capt Juls

Got up early this morning and made a fresh batch of brownies for my crew today. I have fished with Mike before. He usually fishes with Chris Utter, from Wisconsin, but Chris won't be in until tonight, because he had to stay behind to finish up some work...so, Mike brought Steve and Bob down to fish with him today. It was calm when we left Catawba launch at 7:20am, but we knew it was going to get windier as the day went on, so I decided the furthest spot was the one I wanted to try first, so we could make our way back as it got windier, and as time ran out. Our first stop was up by West Reef (south side of it). The water was more clear than I like to see, but we were marking some fish there, so we put some Bandits and a couple Deep Husky Jerks out. We made one pass there, and decided that the water was getting cleaner, and the marks were dissipating, so we picked it all up and headed west. I had set a "Go To" line to the area just north of Niagara, because I figured the fish coming off the reefs would be going right past there to the area north of west reef, where there was a pack of boats. I know that pack was picking away at them, slowly, but it didn't sound like anyone up there had anything really dialed in to the point of catching a lot of fish fast, so I opted to go find a less congested spot. On our way out to the waypoint, I stopped about a mile short of it and marked some good marks on the Helix. The water clarity was perfect, so I had the guys set the lines again. This time, we ran all Bandits anywhere from 45-75 back. BUT....I over thought it, and I got impatient, AND I looked at the wind forecast....AND I got indecisive....so, I told them to pick them up again, after we didn't catch anything in the first 1/4 mile. (From what I heard on the radio, I should have kept going...ugh!) Anyway, we moved over to the area on the west side of Middle Bass. A stretch I like to fish this time of year, or just a little later. I wanted to see if they were in there yet. In the first pass, we caught two beautiful fish (that are now at Jim's Taxidermy here in Port Clinton, for Steve and Bob), using the same set up as previously. We would catch four really nice fish in that area, before moving down to the area between South Bass Island and Green Island. We didn't mark a lot of fish there, and made one pass about a mile long. Giving up on that area, our next destination, as we were on our last hour, was over to the Mouse Island area, but as we got closer, we could see it was all mud there. Pulling the boat off plane, I talked it over with the guys, as to what our options were, and they said, "It's up to you Captain". Steve said, "Let's go back to where we caught some fish", and I heard Mike say to him, "It would take a 1/2 hour to get back over there". That's all I needed to hear, because this gal is running a new Evinrude 300 G2 on this Ranger 621! Ha! Woot! Woot! I said, "Everyone good?" And, turned to make sure everything was put away, and nothing would fly out of the boat. After a careful navigation through the trough caused by the NE winds in the "Slop Chute", we got to the protected side of South Bass Island, and I opened her up....well, mostly. I wasn't full throttle, but it was over 50...lol It only took us 10 minutes to get from where we started, to our fishing spot. When I set the boat down, and deployed the Ulterra, I turned around and, smiling, said, "Because....we can!" They laughed...and, that made me happy. :) Again, they set the lines, and the Off Shore boards floated away from the boat with our offerings to the finicky walleye. This would be our last pass of the day. I put some Pink Floyd on the bluetooth, and "Shine on you Crazy Diamond" was playing. Steve told of his experience back in 1975 when he saw them at Soldier Field in Chicago. Then, as we approached a very small area where we had picked up all our fish, the flag on the middle board on the port side, went down, and then back up. "Did you see that?", asked Bob. Mike, who was sitting on the bow said, "Yeah, the flag went down". I said, "Hit and a miss". About a minute later the same board went back. That fish was swimming with the bait after it hit it. Ha! It was a nice 6-7 pound walleye. Then, while we were getting that fish out of the net, Mike jumped to the other side of the boat and grabbed a rod. Looking up, I saw that the middle board on that side was dragging another big fish. The guys did a great job landing all their fish today, and didn't lose any at the boat. Steve said, "Even the fish like Pink Floyd!" I agreed. We ran out of time, and high-fived our successful move back up there, and headed back in. Everyone said they had a good time, and that's all I can ask for. The fish don't alway cooperate and give us limits, but if you can have fun while you're fishing, then it's a successful trip in my opinion. Our best Bandit colors were the stock color Black Headed Wonder bread, and the Domka custom colors, "Huff Daddy", and "Toxic Melon". We caught fish at 45 back, 55 back, and 65 back. Speed was 1.4-1.6mph. I'm not sure if we will get tomorrow's trip in yet. I'll see what the winds are going to do tomorrow, in the morning, and talk it over with my crew. I have Chris and Mike, and a new guy tomorrow, so I know if we do go, and it's rough, I have two out of three in the crew that can definitely handle the conditions. So...Stay tuned.... Capt Juls

Will do Fishkiller16. I'll just make it a habit of posting my blog's fishing reports here too. If this weather ever straightens out, I'm scheduled to be on the water every day until mid-June right now. ;) Thanks, Juls

Thanks for the come back....wasn't sure if Western Basin Reports would fly here. :) I'll post more as I get out...nothing now until Tuesday...hopefully...weather permitting. Snowing here tonight....ugh... :) Juls

You're thinking of walleye.com, it's still a very good site to participate on. I have no clue if he sold LamberJack's or not. I don't get down that way very much...sorry.

I have to admit, I wasn't looking forward to fishing yesterday, because of the muddy lake conditions, and the cold temps in the morning. I'm fighting a stubborn cold right now, and the thought of sitting out there in 30 degree temps was less than appealing. They still wanted to go yesterday, so since it was fishable, we made it happen. I had advised my crew to stay home, but they came down from Wisconsin anyway. We didn't get out Monday, due to gusty north winds, so Ken and Doug spent the day in Cleveland touring the "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame". They said that was pretty awesome, and enjoyed exploring it. We met at Bopper's at 8:45 for some breakfast first, because I wasn't going to go out until the winds laid down, which was forecast for around 8am. By the time we got to Catawba, the lake was still rough looking on the horizon, but was laying down, so we went ahead and launched. The first order of business was to locate some cleaner water. The lake looked like chocolate milk coming out of the launch, and from my experience the cans would be muddy too. I had driven the Catawba point before meeting them for breakfast and thought I had spied a strip of cleaner water on the SW corner of South Bass and Green Island, so we headed there first. It must have been an optical illusion, because when we got over there, I couldn't see the cavitation plate on my G2, but we did mark fish on the Helix. We didn't stay there long, and decided to make the run to the north, to check the water clarity up by Niagara. The water there was better, so we set up to the east of the reef, and headed SW with the waves. We ran Bandits 45-65 back, at 1.3mph, and picked up two 20(ish) inch fish there, and one white bass. Then, I got a Facebook message from someone that was out fishing too, and he told me there was good water clarity on the east side of the islands, which is always the case after a blow, and that they caught a couple nice fish. I was hesitant to run there, because of how early it is, and I didn't think the fish would be in that area for a few more weeks yet, but we made the run anyway. Once we got there, he messaged me again and said, "We haven't had a bite in an hour now"...lol Just what you want to hear after making a 10 plus mile run to get there. Ha! Anyway, we set up and made a couple passes, because we were marking fish, and the water looked good. We didn't get anything in those two passes, so I wanted to run down to Kelly's, where I had been fishing last week. Luckily, when we got there, we found that the water clarity was decent enough to set up and give it a shot. This would be the last spot, since we were running out of time. We would pick up three more eater sized walleye before heading back in at 3:45. They had an 8 hour drive back to Wisconsin, and it was getting late. The water temps had dropped almost 5 degrees from last week and were 40-42 degrees in the spots we fished yesterday. Color Bandits that worked for us were the Fire Tiger, Anti-Freeze (caught 2), the Purple with the pink head and 3 Chartreuse dots, and the Fruit Dots (black headed wonder bread color...just thought I should use it's proper name.) They followed me to Bay's Edge, where I dropped their fish off to be cleaned, and said my thank you and good byes. Ken will be coming back in August with his wife for a couple days of Perch fishing, so that makes me happy, and I'm looking forward to that. Did I ever tell you that I LOVE perch fishing? hehehe :) I'm glad we made the trip, because it ended up being a really nice day on the water, and the company was exceptional! :) My crew that would have been here today through Saturday didn't make the trip out from South Dakota, so my next trip will not be until Sunday. So stay tuned.... Capt Juls

It's hard to get up early, and then have to wait half a day to get on the water. The northwest winds were blowing hard this morning, but the forecast promised that it would lay down towards noon. I had originally set up a 9:30 pick up at their hotel, but changed it to a 10:30 pick up, so we could launch at 11am. Today, I would be fishing with Jim Schneider, along with his two sons Trevor and Jimmy. I met up with Capt Kevin Swartz, who was also picking his crew up later in the morning, and we discussed our plan of attack for the day. After getting a message from Al Cassidy, who was already on the water, that said, "Stay home! It's dirty everywhere", we almost cancelled, but thought we should talk to our crews and let them decide if they wanted to still go out and try it. Both parties did, so off to Mazurik's we went. We ended up waiting for the lake to lay down a little more, and launched at 11:45. We headed to the area over by the monument on South Bass Island first, but didn't stick around there long, because we weren't marking enough fish there to keep us there. Then, we moved over to the SW corner of South Bass, and looked at the water...it was a lot dirtier to the west of the islands, so I told Kevin, "I'm going to Kelly's, the water is cleaner over there, and there were fish there the other day". He said, "Okay, that sounds like a good idea", and drove over there too. I set in a little further northeast of where Kevin sat down on the NW corner of Kelly's, and set lines. The Schneider boys were inexperienced with Off Shore inline planer boards, but after a quick lesson, they were setting lines like they have been doing it for a long time. So, all I had to do was tell them how far back I wanted them to set them out. We ran Bandits on one side of the boat and Deep Husky Jerks on the other side of the boat. It wasn't long before we had a walleye hit a Fire Tiger Bandit, set at 45 back. Then, we caught another one on a Bandit relatively quick, so we took the Huskies off and put all Bandits out. Blue/Chrome, Black Headed Wonder Bread, Fire Tiger, and a Purple/Chrome Bandit took our only four fish this afternoon. We had a 5th fish on after a long period of no bites, but it came unhooked at the back the boat. Poor Trevor was very disappointed....but hey, that's fishing. Sometimes the fish wins the battle. :) It was a struggle, and we changed things up quite often, but they were just in a negative mood...contrary to the marks on the Helix that would make one think those fish were really active down there. I kept getting texts and phone calls from anglers on the west side of the islands who were talking about the tough bite over there too. So, it wasn't just us. My crew had a 5 hour drive back to MI, and the late start didn't help that, so since the bite was not very good today, we decided it was best to cut the trip down to 5 hours instead of the regular 6 hours, so they could get on the road. My crew said they had a good time and learned a lot. They were in awe of the size of the fish here, so their excitement made me happy. :) My Wednesday, Thursday, Friday crew have cancelled due to the less than nice forecast, and my weekend trips might be shot too, but I'm not calling those yet. So stay tuned.... Capt Juls

Repeat customers, Jeff Smith, and his friend, Don, met me at my house this morning at 6:30. They drove down from Michigan, and were hungry, so after stopping to top off the gas tank in the Ranger, we headed to Boppers for some breakfast. Since it is Easter Sunday, I figured Catawba would be relatively slow traffic-wise, so we launched there this morning. I was right, and the parking lot was only half full, compared to the jam packed lot it usually is on the nice weekends. We headed out to the area between D can and Niagara Reef, and started setting baits out. We began with Bandits on one side and Deep Husky Jerks on the other side. Jeff, who was setting the Bandits, was putting his second one out when the first Off Shore board went back...fish on! Woot! Woot! That's how I like to start a trip! After the second Bandit caught a fish, we switched up to running both sides with Bandits at 45-55 back. The "Green Clown", (which I keep calling "Cheap Sunglasses"), Blue/Chrome, and Fire Tiger were our best colors. Speed was set at 1.4, but as the waves were building, the boat was surging between 1.2 and 1.6mph. We made one long pass and caught 11. We decided to go back up for one more fish, where the marks were more prevalent, and caught the 12th fish within 10 minutes of setting lines out again. The guys said they needed to get back to MI for their Easter dinners with their families, so we headed in. It was a very fun morning on the water today, and that makes me happy. :) A father and his two sons will join me on my next adventure on Tuesday, so.... Stay tuned... Capt Juls