Brutal weather... but fantastic fishing ! Most of my guests that have been along with me for the very many years that I have been doing this already know that my very favorite singer in the whole wide world is Jimmy Buffett. Well one of the songs on his most recent albums is "Surfin in a Hurricane" I can relate to that. I think the last few days I have just fished thru a friggin hurricane ! We had lots of off and on again wind all of last week but let me tell you, the real interesting stuff did not start till last Friday and lasted well into Sunday. With NOAA predicting waves around 2 to 4 foot Friday, we set out for some serious offshore fishing only to be met by good 8 footers on Friday and probably solid 3 to 5 footers on Saturday when NOAA again was predicting 1 to 3's. YIKES ! And Sunday which again was supposed to be half way decent ended up being very interesting with 3 to 5's in the morning with torrential squall driving rains thrown in for good measure. It came down in sheets and sheets. Just as in a hurricane. And guess what ? The harder it blew, the better the fishing was. I don't know how many times we had 5 fish hooked up all at the same time in that 3 day time span ! Fishing in a hurricane... You just gotta love it !
The fish are still moving out further and further now with each passing day. No big deal when the lake is flat but not so good when the winds blow like it did this past week and which it seems to do all the time up here on the big pond anyway all the time. It makes for just a lot of travel time and hits me very hard when it comes time to fuel up at the end of the day as well. Most of my gracious groups realize this and have taken extra good care of me at the end of the day knowing that I could have stopped them short and just tried to save a few bucks. I would never do that and most all of my regulars know this and appreciate it and there fore they seem to show their appreciation in the only way they know how and the one way that really keeps this whole operation a float. THANKS GUYS !!! It means allot to me.
The Steelies have still been making themselves very scarce still but each week we seem to manage to capture a handful anyway. And although this week we did not capture any more 13 pounders, we sure took plenty of fish again in the 5 to 10 pound class. In fact, we are still carrying a 6 pound average whenever we weigh our fish just for the fun of it at the end of the day and then do the math. Very remarkable !
So just that fast we are already into the last week of July. We have fished thru some heat waves here recently, hurricanes, and even an occasional picture perfect day which on Erie seems to be a rarity anymore but thru it all, we are catching fish. Lot's of fish. And that's what makes it all worth while. And just like my charter on just this past Monday kept chanting all day, "this ain't no kids game" . Hey, if it were easy, everyone would be doing it . LOL ! Lets see what this last week of July brings... Hopefully no more hurricanes for a while ! I am sort of beat up to be honest with you. Stay tuned ! Capt. Walt
* REMINDER There are no fishing licenses available at the marina this summer. You need to get them ahead of time ! Questions, CALL ME
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