Willard...Warm B-4 The Storm 10-15-24

[TubeDude]

I was also there yesterday with high hopes of catching a few Wipers or Walleyes.

I arrived at the north marina around 7:30am. There were no other vehicles or boat trailers there yet. Around 8:00 someone in a kick boat showed up and a couple kayakers.

I played around in the marina for a while chasing many of the marks that clutter the screen of my fish finder hoping to catch perch or crappie with no luck.

Next I trolled flicker shad through freeway bay with no luck. Still seeing a lot of marks including swarms of bait fish on the sonar.

So I raced over to the rock piles outside of the south marina. I spot locked the boat and dropped a piece of worm on a jig over the side of the boat, and started casting and jigging back a worm on a jig. I ended up catching four cats the largest being 19 inches.

The water temp. In the north marina was 65* in the morning and 68* in the afternoon.

I almost went to the north marina instead of the south marina.  But spotty reports and the higher water temps suggested to me that I would likely have a better shot at catching SOMETHING out of the south.   I have had reports of a few 10-12" crappies showing up in the marina, but no perch and nothing outside in the usual hangouts.  I can usually scratch out at least a couple of cats but still the south won the coin toss and I am even more glad it did after your report.  

Thanks.  Interesting about the rock piles.  I have heard from others that these are the new catfish dating sites in the early summer.  Had one report of seeing lots of cats stacked up over them...and that they would intercept almost anything dropped down to them.  One guy reported catching cat after cat on a vertical jigged spoon.  Glad the cats have made good use of them.  It was originally hoped they might be more attractive to walleyes.  But haven't heard any reliable reports of improved 'eye catching on or around those rock piles.  Of course, a lot of wallieholics are pretty tight-lipped about divulging anything about their best spots.