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Coin toss was for Willard this morning . Arrived at the north marina about 7:00am . Launched the boat and fished Pelican Bay for about 30 minutes with a few hook ups on crappie jigs but lost them . Finally decide to get with it and after some wipers . cruised south toward the feed lot and hooked up on the first wiper at 21" . turned around and hooked another 19" . Cruised over the same spot again and again and nailed 2 more big wipers . All with in the first hour of being on the water . It started to slow down then so I cruised around looking for AFdan and Bearclaw . I don't think I passed them but it is a big water . Headed for the west side for some jigging . Slow on the west side for me . Trolled back to the east to my morning hot spot and hooked up with a nice fish , then all the sudden I looked at my other rod and my planer board is going down deep . Fighting the fish on the rod in hand was a chore so I stopped the boat after I seen my planer board surfaced and it appeared not to have a fish on it now . Reeled in another 21" wiper . What a hoot ! I was having a blast . Decide to try something different on one rod so I put a walleye diver on to get deeper for some eyes . It worked but all I could get was wipers on it . Nailed 3 more before getting back to the north marina . Reeled in the pole with the planer board in and found it was missing a lure on the end . I was wondering why they quit hitting it . Lost several more fish that didn't even get close to the boat , but had my best morning out on the bay today .
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[font "Arial Black"][red][size 3] Hi HA69, hey bud Ole BearClaw and I were out in the middle about 100 yards North of the bouy by the Island. [/size][/red][/font]
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[font "Arial Black"][#ff0000][size 3]AFDan52[/size][/#ff0000][/font]
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Nice report Randy, sounds like you found the spot for the bigger fish. On Friday we never caught any larger than 16 or 17 inches. How many did you end up catching and how late did you stay?
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I got off the water about 2:00pm . Fish were 18" to 21" long . I boated 8 or 9 today with a few long distance releases . I spent about 3 hours jig fishing today thinking I could master them on jigs but the trolling was the way to go . I did get bites on jigs , but never hooked up on any . Here is a pic of one and the view from my hotspot . LOL Life is good with a gps . Fish that broke off , broke my 20# fluorocarbon leader and I thought I was safe from losing lures . Wish I could of seen it .
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I have never done good at Willard with jigs either, every once in a while I'll get lucky and catch one but I have always done better trolling. I have done the same thing on numerous occasions, thinking that a wiper can't brake my line but they are a powerful fish. Even the smaller ones can easily brake your line if given a chance, I have started checking my line after every fish but that is still no guarantee. I always keep my drag loose until I get a chance to judge how large the fish is. The lure I lost on Friday to a wiper was just one more example of misjudging a wiper. Oh well, what do you do.
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[font "Arial"]What did you end up catching them on I tried almost every rapala and soft bait in the tackle box and I have a wide variety. We only caught one little kitty.[/font]
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Great report Randy glad to hear you got into some nice size wipers. It seems the morning fishing at willard is the best.
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[size 1]I been having luck with Rattlin' Rapalas in the Holographic Blue Shad .[/size]
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I guess up north was the money spot? I fished the South side out by the island and by the feedlot without any serious success, managed 1 wiper and 2 walleye and another small walleye that released itself just before lifting it out of the water.
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It sounds like the morning was the best time to be out. I was out there until 10:00 last night. Craig we went past you at about 7:30 just north of the south marina we were trolling south west. We hooked up with one wiper around 6:30 and caught 3 more between 8:00 and 10:00 with 4 poles in the water. As we were heading in we saw another boat head over to the light pole.
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No, my boat is on blocks while I fix the trailer. I was in my B-law's boat we went between you and the shore. He has a bass boat that is white and green.
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Ah, I remember seeing a couple bass boats, a tracker and another which I didn't catch what it was.
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I was northeast of the island about a mile or 2 . Look for clouds of shad on the finder and troll thru it . I seen fish all over the place but sometimes it was a big cloud 10' deep on the screen .
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