Is this really June? We continued to be hammered almost daily this past week with showers and thunder storms ranging anywhere from just nuisance light drizzle's and showers to heavier squalls along with some thunder and lighting. Once again somehow though we managed to work around most of the heavier weather all week long and got to go fishing but we sure got soaked on a lot of the days at one point or another in the day. It’s been a very strange June. It’s even been very chilly in the mornings and for those that braved the rain blasts with no rain gear on thinking that, “come on it’s June, how cold could it be...” well, goose bumps and shivering were in order for the rest of the day for a lot of them after getting soaked completely thru. So far it’s been very un-summer like and I think that it is impacting the fishing too after this many days in a row of just plain crappy weather.
Aboard “The Trophy” this past week we worked on our deep water off shore programs with fair success. It seemed like every morning the fish were wherever we started and more then eager to hit but after a couple hours of fairly good fishing it was just pretty much slow for us. I just could not keep them going strong all day. It’s pretty hard to explain how you can catch 10 or 12 fish rather quickly and then have it drop off so much. It has been even more important then ever to get a super early departure here as of lately. I think had we not been setting lines right at daybreak or even before daylight, we would have really struggled to get half of what we did. And with all the rain that we have received here lately there is so much debris in the water that you really have to be careful running around in the dark out there. It’s a real catch 22 situation right now. Thankfully I have a state of the art lighting system projecting forward in the dark which helps us while running but even that is not fool proof and makes one uneasy. How I long for just a hot, dry summer like we used to have all the time seemed like “back in the day”!
One of the things that saved the day for us several of the days this past week was the fact that I had rather small party sizes on most days and we didn’t really have to put huge numbers of fish in the box to make everyone happy. That and the fact that the fish that we did box on most days out there in the deeper water fishing deep were quite big. We seen good numbers of 28, 29 and even 30 inch Walleyes. Any one of which could be a fish of a lifetime on most any other inland waterway. My how quickly we all forget and get spoiled when the fishing is exceptionally good and easy for a few weeks! And then you have too really work for them. Still though, I believe this is just a bump in the road and if this weather ever straitens out the fishing will become more stable as well. Right now there is just no real set patterns to put all of your faith in. There seems to be fish scattered in really close that some guys are working and some clear out to as far out as 72 foot now as we aboard “The Trophy” can definitely attest to. They are everywhere. We haven’t had any problems finding some Walleyes. We’ve just had difficulties in keeping them biting real good much past the early morning.
So as I look forward to this coming weeks weather it’s pretty much a whole lot of the same ole same ole. Holy cow, is it ever going to quit raining? I think I saw a chance of rain showers and thunderstorms on at least half of the seven days of various weather forecasts that I viewed. Summer will be over before I ever get my rain gear fully dried out! lol! Anyway, we’ll be out there somewhere if at all possible snooping around looking for some cooperative big Walleyes way offshore. It’s pretty nice out there actually. I have been out there all by myself almost daily with not a single boat in site. None of the drama and horror stories that I keep hearing about in some of the other areas that are being fished right now closer to shore. Less debris out there, less junk fish and next to no traffic. They can keep playing bumper boats in on shore. We like our space aboard “The Trophy”! We’ll see what this coming week brings for us out there. Check back soon!
Capt. Walt
*I would like to remind all of my upcoming charters. As I have been simply asking all along now for the last few years, please try your very hardest to keep your group size to a very comfortable, more personal experience of 4 people for everyone involved. I myself just flat out DO NOT WANT more then that on my boat anymore for these summer trolling trips. This is not a hard rule or policy (yet) but if you folks want to keep me happy and chartering for years to come, you will do this for me and for yourselves. Also, we ABSOLUTELY need to be off the dock between 4:30am and 5:00am at the VERY LATEST! Our best fishing is ALWAYS at the crack of dawn and WE DO NOT WANT TO MISS OUT ON THAT OPPORTUNITY! Please, DO NOT BE Late! I am at the boat and ready to roll everyday by 4:30am and if you want to catch lots of fish, you will be ready as well!
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