Willard beautiful day

[Mildog]

Made my 5th trip out to Willard yesterday. Launched from south marina about 0830. Very light breeze, air temp about 52, water temp 60. 
Motored out past the feedlot tower over about 8-9 fow is where there seemed to be the thickest concentration of fish. 




Hit several of my marked areas from last year that were productive for Cats. Had several pop and drops while drifting bait at less than .5 mph. 
After about 2.5 hours decided to get over into freeway bay and start a slow troll with wide S turns back toward the feed lot. 

My son had given me a whole box load of various lures for Christmas and I hadn't tried any yet. So I hooked on one small lipped crank and one #5 Flicker shad.  and about every 15 minutes or so I would swap them out. I kept my speed at 1.15 to 1.50 mph and continued my slow wide turns. At almost 3 hours on the water got what seemed to be a Walleye hit, cuz as I reeled it in, there was almost no fight and it "surfed" along on the top all the way to the net. 
Turned out to be a nice SMB that was just barely lip hooked.  Did a quick photo and released. Swam off no worse for wear. 




Trolled back almost to the south marina entrance. At almost exactly 4 hours on the water the breeze died completely and it didn't  take long for the bugs to start getting thick. 
Since I had fought off another skunk (barely) decided to call it a day.  Pulled out at 1330, air temp 70, water temp 65.6. 

Tin Can,Just an FYI you will have much better success if you pick the speed up on those lures 2.0 to 2.2 will get you much better success at Willard.2 trips recently 19 Walleye and 7 wipers (total 6 hours fished). I Had a buddy up one day when we got 8 walleye before we left early he had none.I asked him speed he was trolling he said 1.5. I Told him he needed to speed up. He ended up with 6 Walleye, never changed what he was using just the speed.Good LuckMildog Out