)What an awesome morning of fishing today with long time clients Denny, Jim and Jimmy all from the Chicago area. We left the Gladstone Yacht Harbor around 6:30 a.m., had the lines in by 6:45 and had our 15 fish limit by 9 a.m. It was a fast and furious morning trolling Walleyes Choice (http://www.walleyeschoice.com) harnesses behind both in-line weights and bottom bouncers. I-62, I-76, and I-42 did the most damage. Most of the fish were nice chunky 17 to 19 inchers, but we did catch a 23 incher that coughed up a 6 inch alewife and a 3 inch alewife in the livewell. There must have been a decent mayfly hatch again last night, there were many, many spent carcasses on the surface. Nice to have some summer like weather and south winds to keep the warm water in the bay. We caught fish from 15 feet down all the way to the bottom, but it seemed that our bigger fish were coming on the bottom bouncer poles over the side of the boat working the bottom 3 feet. Here's a picture of today's catch, good luck from all of us in the Bay de Noc area. Better get out there and enjoy this weather...who knows how long it will last!
I have tried it several times on both harnesses and jigs, but have not had the success as with using whole crawlers on harnesses and 1/2 crawlers on jigs. I've done well at times snap-jigging with 3/8 oz. jigs with 4" white gulp twister tails, but day in and day out...I'll take the real thing! I do have a buddy that charters on Lk. Erie and he's done well using gulp crawlers on harnesses, mainly because there's so many trash fish down there to contend with. Lots of sheepies, white bass, white perch, etc. I have not fished enough with the Gulp Alive leeches or minnows yet to give a good opinion, but I do have friends that have done well using the minnows in the spring in rivers like the Fox in G.B. and the Menominee. Good luck fishing!!!
I have used these baits frequently on Little Bay. I start with real crawlers or minnows on slip float rigs and/or double hook perch rigs. Once I am rigged in this way I often set up a jigging rod with a 1/8 to 1/4 ounce Slow Poke or Weed Weasel jig ("pointy nose styles with the line tie straight out from the nose - good for weeds). I dress these jigs with plastic or Gulp minnows, leeches, or Powerbait worms and either snap jig them or "slither" them through the weeds and along the edge. My experience has been that I usually tirgger smallmouth bass or pike with the artificials. Of course, I am really trying to catch walleyes or perch. I am happy to catch and release the bass and pike, but if I want eating fish I think I have more confidence in live bait rigs.
Having said that, a day spent jigging artificials along the weed edges and weed pockets will almost always provide some unexpected surprises and some neat stories to tell around the campfire.
A final observation: lots of guys and gals overlook live minnows as a summer time bait. Last week they produced much better than crawlers when I was chasing big perch and caught bonus walleyes while jigging with live bait.
August 13th Limit
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