06-30-2013, 02:42 PM
[font "Comic Sans MS"][#000080][size 4]Thursday morning, my daughter Lisa and son-in-law Rami wanted to go fishing. We decided to hit Willard. After an early morning alarm clock, prep, drive, launch and buzz out to the middle, we finally started fishing around 7:30. Since we had lots to do at home that day, we called it a morning after just three hours. We caught 4 wipers and 4 walleye. We kept three for lunch. Rami had been fishing several times in his life but had never caught a fish. So, Rami didn't have his hopes to high to catch anything. As it turned out, Rami's first fish was the largest ... a very nice wiper. He had just landed his first fish ever and the biggest fish of the day with several more to come. Lisa caught the most though..
[inline "Rami's-first-fish-ever-444.gif"]
But we had to remind Lisa that "size matters". LOL. It was a wonderful morning on Willard before the bugs and the heat. Walleye and wiper for lunch was pretty darn tasty too.
[inline Lisa-Landing-444.gif]
[inline Both-w-walleye-444.gif]
[inline Both-w-wiper-444.gif]
Then yesterday, I and my friend from work, Dave Brocket, decided to do another short morning trip. We boated 12 in four hours and kept a mess for cooking.
[inline Daves-stringer-444.gif]
Here is what worked best for us: Found a hot spot out about a mile N-W of the island. We just kept going back and forth through it and caught fish every pass. Any lure that resembled a Rapala Shad Rap in the color “silver” seemed to work. Basically any lure with a gray or black back with a white or silver belly did well. Oh, and lures WITH lips (as opposed to lipless) was the ticket. Trolling 2.9 to 3.1 seemed the best speed.
[inline Lures-444.gif]
We seen immense amounts of bait fish in the water … more than I have seen in years past. Yea, I know they were thick the last two years but this year has them beat. The egrets were dive bombing all over the place picking up the little shadlets. I was amazed that our plastic fake lures would catch anything at all with all that other real food out there, but they did.
--- Coot ---
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[inline "Rami's-first-fish-ever-444.gif"]
But we had to remind Lisa that "size matters". LOL. It was a wonderful morning on Willard before the bugs and the heat. Walleye and wiper for lunch was pretty darn tasty too.
[inline Lisa-Landing-444.gif]
[inline Both-w-walleye-444.gif]
[inline Both-w-wiper-444.gif]
Then yesterday, I and my friend from work, Dave Brocket, decided to do another short morning trip. We boated 12 in four hours and kept a mess for cooking.
[inline Daves-stringer-444.gif]
Here is what worked best for us: Found a hot spot out about a mile N-W of the island. We just kept going back and forth through it and caught fish every pass. Any lure that resembled a Rapala Shad Rap in the color “silver” seemed to work. Basically any lure with a gray or black back with a white or silver belly did well. Oh, and lures WITH lips (as opposed to lipless) was the ticket. Trolling 2.9 to 3.1 seemed the best speed.
[inline Lures-444.gif]
We seen immense amounts of bait fish in the water … more than I have seen in years past. Yea, I know they were thick the last two years but this year has them beat. The egrets were dive bombing all over the place picking up the little shadlets. I was amazed that our plastic fake lures would catch anything at all with all that other real food out there, but they did.
--- Coot ---
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[signature]