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| July already! What a last two weeks we’ve just had here in Ashtabula! Aboard The Trophy we somehow, someway managed to limit all of my parties out everyday that we fished, but for many of those days it was far from easy. And we’ve been everywhere to do so. Off shore, near shore, tight along the shore line in the real skinny water. I mean everywhere. And everywhere we’ve been is holding some Walleyes. But still no massive schools. No signs of any mother loads arriving from who knows where any time soon. Nothing that where I did good the day before I can feel totally confident returning the next day that they will still be there and that it will be easy picking. Everyday is a new day and a new challenge. |
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| The weather continues to give us fits. No prolonged periods of stable uniform lake conditions. We continue each week to have a big blow from the north that forces us off shore immediately followed by near gale southerly's that force us tight to the south shore just to get our days in. When we are forced to fish shallow, it’s been dink city with tons of undersized Walleyes in there mixed in along with some really quality fish. Most days you go as fast and nonstop as you can running lines out only to have a dink grab it immediately. One of the most frustrating things I think you can encounter running fishing charters with many multiple rods trying to fill the box for your guests that all have high expectations of nice sized fish. |
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| Technique's which I haven’t talked all that much about this year has been all over the map as well. Aboard The Trophy we carry complete multiple rod set ups for any situation and in the past two weeks we’ve used them all. Straight up braid rods for pulling Bandits and other large crank baits. Another complete set of braid rods set up with Jet Divers and spoons. A set of shallow filled wire line rods along with yet another set of deep filled wire line rods for when the fish go to extreme depths. And oh, I almost forgot. And even yet another complete set of heavy braid Dipsy Diver rods equipped with Dipsys & spoons. I hate having to carry and store so many different rods. Yet every time I have been thrust into having to use a particular set of tackle to match the location that I have been forced to fish and the weather conditions I have been thankful that I didn’t thin any out rods off my boat yet like I normally would have done by early July. Normally when I make the switch to wire line I don’t look back and take home all the braid filled rods and even my shallow wire rods that I use occasionally in June. But that was the key word that I just used. “Normally” This year has been far from normal as far as I am concerned! |
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| Another thing that I normally don’t talk much about is endorsing different fishing products. Unless something is that good and has helped me out so much that I can not help but rave about it. We all rely heavily on spoons in our arsenal of tackle for these central basin Walleyes & Steelhead. And there are many good ones out there. Stinger along with their line of Scorpion spoons do well right out of the package. But the paint job on all of them sucks. You start catching fish on them and the next thing you know the paint is chipping and flat out falling off. Plus they bend so easily after catching some fish on them. Especially the Steelhead! Kranx spoons, another favorite around here does better as far as all of that is concerned but color choices are limited and the company doesn’t seem to care about captains concerns and requests. I’ve recently turned to the new Contender line of spoons and I have been super thrilled with the results! And this didn’t just happen overnight. I ran them heavily last season and they worked amazingly GREAT. They catch fish like crazy and they hold up better then anything else out there as far as I am concerned. I’m not sure where all you can get them but I buy all of mine at River Marine Supply right where I am docked here in Ashtabula Harbor. They have a very nice selection of sizes and colors and they are priced right! Alrighty that wraps it up for another couple of weeks. Perhaps in my next report all I will be talking about is Mom. I mean, the MOTHER LOAD!!! One can only hope... Capt. Walt Trophy Charters |
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