Racine 6/3

[Grey Beard]

I wasn’t sure where to start fishing after the big blow. I was excited by a couple of friends phone calls about decent action 40-60fow off the Racine Reef and south. Lines set in 40fow by 0445 finding haystacks of bait but only 1 bite in the first hour. Headed on south troll from the reef taking another coho about a mile south angling out to 55fow finding surface temp 52. With two fish in the box I was the leader of the 3 boats I was talking to. Not good.

We decided to join My Boy and blasted east. Set down in 150fow finding 43.5 surface vs 47 on 3rd hill. No bites by 175fow I got impatient and didn’t like the cold water and knew nothing warmer was east of me from the temp graph on the internet. My buddy finally got one coho in 185fow while I pulled and went back to the third hill where I had passed a couple of charters. At the end of the day I found out I should have continued east. Buddy told me 3 guys had 14 fish right around my waypoint from 6 days ago. Kind of hard to believe they would be in the same area after the blow. Always more to learn.

I wandered around the hill picking up a LT and eventually angled in to 50fow and meandered back north. It was a bite here a bite there with no pattern and no bites close enough together to get me to turn. Trolled 2.2-2.5 Depth Raider DX-10. Really interesting that current on the 3rd hill about 0.4 from the north and 50fow about 0.3 from the south. Ended with 9 for 13 plus one shaker, 1 bow, 1 small king with adipose fin, 3 coho and 4 LT all under 7#. A nice day on the water with calm seas until typical SE late AM.

My kicker ran like a top the whole trip and I had not done anything to it yet. Ran it in my driveway in a garbage can for 3 hrs Sunday and never balked. Go figure? I read that vapor lock from my yr of Yamaha from faulty fuel pump caused similar symptoms and they have an upgrade that has ports for water cooling. Parts on the way.

FYI: we tried 3 credit cards to get a launch pass to no avail. We had a $100 ticket when we go in! After a number of phone calls and a trip to the police station we were forgiven in part because someone else had trouble with the machine. I’m told that cash seems to always work so suggest bring it as back up. I took the easy way out, bought an annual pass so I can avoid technology.

Grey Beard

Mono back 50 Orange blk dots ThinFish 2/3

Mono back 30 Orange gold ThinFish 0/1

2 color red flasher/dbl aqua peanut 1/1

3 color Cut Plug Groucho 1/2

4 color 3 different spoons 0/0

5 color 3 different Brad’s cut plugs and 1 spoon 0/0

3 set dipsy 25-40 red flasher/ LBB peanut 0/0

3 set dipsy 20-50 3 different Brads/spoons 0/0

1.5set wire Brad’s SeaHawk/white dodger 70loc 3/3

40 to bouncing bottom rigger Brad’s Sa-weet/white dodger 3/3

30 to 50 rigger Brad’s Twisted Sister/Big Al pearl 0/1

[KJ pluggin]

Nice mixed bag. Thanks for the report Grey Beard.