It never looks as bad as it was

 Pictures are great for most things, but getting examples of how nautical the water was, is not one of those. I've taken many pictures of the conditions while I've been fishing just to give you an idea of how bumpy it really was. I have yet to get a pic that shows the turbulence of the water as I experienced it, rolling back and forth all day. 

This is a little something I saw on the opening troll....

 

 

This log would've ruined someone's day... it was bobbing up and down in the water. This is truly the only thing that scares me about fishing in The Great Lakes. There was a post a couple years ago about someone hitting a telephone pole and ripping off the lower unit of his motor. 

Remember kids there's more in the water that just fish.....

 

That being said, Monday was pretty bumpy all day, it didn't even lay down for a couple hours or so. I mostly blame the weather for the day I had. I couldn't hold a speed no matter which way I trolled, and that plays a big part in my success. 

OK let's back up a little.

I knew it was going to be kinda bad on Monday, but it was the forecasted best day for me to get out, so out I went. When I got on the lake it was already rolling with small 1's. So I got set up and made the long troll against the waves from Vermilion to just past the Beaver park Marina. This took me about 3.5 to 4 hours and yielded only a couple fish. I was very optimistic to turn around and troll with the wind. From past experiences the troll with the wind ends up being the way the walleye want to be fed. 

Well, not today...

I was able to make the return troll take 6 hours with all the turns I put in, along with the fact that I went past the launch in order to try and catch a couple more fish.

At the end of the day I had boated 2 goo's, 2 short walleye, a cat, and one keeper. 

I worked all day and only managed a handful of fish, but like I say, "you gotta have bad days to appreciate the good ones."

That being said I really hope next week is a good one. 😉

Long days

 It's amazing how long 4 days is when you don't break it up with a day of fishing.

I stayed home this week for 2 reasons. First, I felt a little sicky after work on Saturday and took this week to get better. Second, the only day that looked fishable was Wednesday. Until Tues night, when NOAA put out a small craft advisory until 8 am Wednesday. So that effectively made up my mind.

Hopefully I'll be able to get out next week.

Another 12 hour day fishing

 Went back to Vermilion yesterday the wind had been coming out of the WSW for a couple days and Wednesday was no different. The only saving grace was it was suppose to die down in the afternoon. It was a little bumpy to start the day

Pictures don't do this justice.

so I started my troll to the West and went to the East. I intentionally made a long troll to cover depths and ground with 1 taker. So I picked up and did it again, this time I moved in a little to 28 fow where I found good signs of life. I had gone all the way out to 40 with plenty of fish on the bottom but either they didn't want my offering or I couldn't get it down deep enough. Anyway the 28' mark worked just fine for me. I caught a couple fish a pass and once I figured out the depth and color it didn't take long to put a limit together.

I didn't know Ohio had a blimp?

Did some more prospecting

I gotta write this quick just in case I need to make a quick getaway. It seems the Vermilion Police have sent out a BOLO for me.... more at the end of this post. 

 I noticed that when the summer hits one of the Charter Captains (Juls) on the walleye forum I follow heads East. On her last post she put in out of Vermilion. So I messaged her for some advice about the usual info needed to catch fish, namely depth and location. She was very helpful in her answer so I decided to head over there yesterday and see if it was any good. 

To say the least I was impressed, the water was alot cleaner. What I mean is over by the islands this time of year you have to continually pull and clean your lures to keep the eel grass from fouling it. I didn't have that issue out of Vermilion which was really nice, the spiny water fleas were also not as bad. I'm pretty sure I'll be heading back there. Probably not as often as I would like with there being there is a 7$ put in fee, all the same it was a good day. The water was a little bumpy but not bad enough to keep me off it. My first troll had me almost all the way down to the next launch which is Lorain. The best way to get back was pull and run, so that's what I did along with the 2 fish from my first run. Once I got set back up and trolling it took me only a couple hours to put the rest of my limit in the box. 

Oh, I forgot to mention on my first run there was some scattered dark clouds that were moving through and I swear I saw a water spout form, die and reform a couple of times before the cloud passed. The spout was to my West headed my direction and I had no intention of pulling and running before it had passed. At least where I was I could've made it to Lorain rather quickly, or at least to shore which wasn't that far away.

Anyway after the cloud passed the skies were sunny again and when the wind switched it even died down a little.

Yeah I know I chopped my head off, the fish were sooo big I couldn't get everything in the pic because I was in a hurry. 

 I fished out of Vermilion and this pic was taken at Mazuriks which is where I wanted to end up but I had to vacate Vermilion in a hurry.

Which leads me to the rest of the story: Why is the Vermilion PD looking for me?

Well, let me explain.

Apparently when I was coming in from the lake motoring down the river. I was throwing a ripple of a wake, in a no wake zone. Some busy buddy was on his phone taking pics of me and my boat while telling the police all the info..... 

Yep I got reported by a "concerned citizen" for a wake violation. You may be asking yourself, well how does he know he was reported? The dock commander at the launch came over to talk to me and tell me he was there and overheard the conversation. He also said if the cops come looking he never saw me, in addition to that he wanted to know how I did.

So I'll probably stay out of Vermilion for at least a week and let the heat die down before showing my face in that town again.