Fishing Reports

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Happy New Year everyone, I'd like to thank everyone who sent reports to us this year for helping to keep this site going. Travis and I fish less than Dean did and don't have the immediate support that Dean had in his campground but a lot of you came through with good and accurate reports to help us out. Thank you.

My email box shows that we received over 420 reports or questions during the year and the bulk was in April to August about fishing in the Island and west areas. We would like more reporting from this area next year and encourage those of you that have successful trips to continue sending reports in and if you haven't done so yet to start. A simple email with colors, depths, lure types and speed with general locations will really help those that drive for hours to get here make for an even more enjoyable trip. Since Travis and I both are primarily trollers we would also like more drifting and casting reports to pass on.

2006 was a great year overall for numbers of fish and 2007 should be even better with larger fish available. Those 16-19” fish from 03 will be 18-22" this year with some larger. At the Huron Basin this fall we caught a lot of 03 fish with egg sacks and it looks like 07 will be the first year for those fish to enter the parenthood game. Let's hope and pray that the hatch this coming year is better than the last 2 were.

Fishing this week at Huron was again good to great. The area west of the dumping grounds north of Huron produced the most consistent bite and the area north of Cranberry Creek produced some spectacular results as well. Many lures and lure types worked but the pattern that worked best overall was slow speeds in the 1.0-1.3 range. Glass and reflective lures produced fish in the sunny weather and colors in whites and purples dominated the cloudy weather reports. We are also getting a trickle of reports about the jigging around the islands in the traditional ice fishing spots and if we don't get ice that would be a good place to start if you get the bug to get the boat back out again.

In the doom and gloom department, last years West Basin perch results were poor for both Commercial and sport fishermen. We hope this isn't an indication of a crash in perch populations and with the political climate on VHS and commercial fishing it doesn't look like anything will be done in the legislatures any time soon to try and alleviate the problem. There is a lot of finger pointing going on about both issues but the fact remains that our State and Federal congress people aren't doing anything so far. We'll keep you posted as the new year goes on if that situation changes any.

Here's to a Happy and successful 2007 fishing season,

Marc

Well it looks like 2006 is going to go out with a bang for the boaters but those looking for ice fishing are going to be left in the lurch unless something drastic happens. The forecast shows some fifties during the next ten days. I'll continue to fish until the ramps freeze up or the fish quit biting but it would be nice to get some ice this year.

I fished Friday and Sunday last weekend and neglected to give Travis any reports.  Friday the 2nd I fished with several other boats in the stained to muddy water north of Sawmill Creek. We had a great day with several nice fish in the 7-9.5 pound range; some 5-6 pounders filled the rest of the limit with a couple 03's. Others in the area were catching mostly 03's and running similar programs as I was but were catching fish at a faster rate. Deep rogues in Blue/Silver ruled the day for 1 boat and on mine Ripsticks at 25 feet back ruled. Eriedescent was my best color.

Saturday there was a pretty big blow and when I went out Sunday I expected that the lake would be riled up. That wasn't the case however and we started over by Old Woman Creek in really clear water. We didn't mark many fish but bait was schooled up here and there and I haven't seen that for a while. We immediately started out with an 03 and then went into a stall for 45 minutes or so. We switched to mostly Ripsticks at 50 back and the fun began with a couple over ten, some 7-9's and then to cap the day off we pulled a 14.5 pounder. A Reefrunner and Rogue in blues also caught a few fish. Eriedescent was the overall hot lure again and we found that full throttle bursts at the first sign of board movement kept the fish hooked up for us but we still lost several fish. We were trolling at .8-1.2 MPH and any direction worked, along with stalls and tight turns. Some of the hits came as our planer board would just start to move forward again after stalling them out in a turn. There were 6 boats in the area and it appeared that all had a reasonably good bite going. 

Today and tomorrow show high winds and there's no way to tell what the lake will look like Thursday but I plan on being out there and will post the results or at least let Travis know so he can.

Marc

I haven't heard much lately, except that fish continue to be caught around the Huron dumping grounds.  Most are 2003's, but there are some big fish mixed in at the right time on the right days.  There is a front in the forecast this coming Tuesday with some rain, snow and wind predicted.  Other than that it still looks relatively mild in the 10 day outlook.

I want to wish everyone a happy holiday season.  I will be spending time with family and I hope that you all get to do the same.  Thanks to everyone that made this such an enjoyable year.  This page is nothing without it's loyal readers and reporters.  Here's to another great year ahead of us.

Travis

The first part of todays report is a letter I recieived from  someone who disagrees with me about the compromise bill that was hashed out in the Ohio Senate last week. It probably doesn't matter since nothing has been brought to vote even though I hear there is a lot of support to get something done before the session is over. Sadly there is also opposition and those that want nothing done at all, and they will probably win out.

By the way HB 609 was dead in the water before SB 351 was brought to committee. It was a guarantee that no bill would be sent for vote in the form that HB 609 was in. I made no public statements before the sidelining of HB 609 and did support it. You can thank some of your House Representaives for that and you could start with the new Democratic Chair Chris Redfern to find out why that was.

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Copy of letter WBSA recieved today

Yesterday I made what was probably the last trip of the year with my dad and good friend Eric.  We fished from just after 9 am until around 5 pm.  The best action was from 9:30 until about 11:30.  We caught 6 walleye, missed a few, and also got a bonus 28" steelhead.  The biggest two walleye were 28.5", 10 pounds-4 ounces, and 26.5", 8 pounds-5ounces.  The action was slow in the afternoon, but it was a fitting way to end the season by boating our 5th legitimate 10 pound fish of the year.

All but one of yesterday's fish came on ripsticks with 40 to 60' back being best.  Color really didn't seem to matter.  The ten pound fish came on pink lemonade and others that worked included monkey puke, white-purple hot tiger, gold clown and blue-hawaiian.  The only non-ripstick fish came on a clown rogue 50' back.

All of the walleye that we caught were in 23 to 27' of water from just west of Ruggles Reef to route 61.  The best area was right in front of Cranberry Creek in 25-26' of water.  The steelhead was right off Old Woman Creek in about 18' of water, also on a ripstick.  We caught most of our fish between 1.2 and 1.5 mph GPS speed over ground.  The water temp was around 39 degrees on the surface.

This fishing season was pretty remarkable, and will probably continue to be as long as the weather allows.  With Christmas coming up and inevitably ice at some point I will probably get the motors winterized in the next week.  With the spring and summer being so good it would have been greedy to ask for such a great fall with big fish littering the stretch of lake from Vermilion to Cedar Point, but it happened anyway.

The Vermilion weather buoy has been pulled for the season.  The latest observation at the South Bass weather station has 6 knot N-NW wind, 45 degree air temperature, and steady barometric pressure.  From the nearshore forecast the surface temperatures are 38 degrees off of Toledo and 48 degrees off of Cleveland.

Travis

Travis report is right below this Senate Bill 351 update:

SB351 hearing 12/13/06

Today's Senate Bill 351 hearing was about a revision in the bill that would double the voluntary and involuntary buyout payments, triple the cost of commercial licensing, create better accountability with GPS type systems for catch tracking, increased and automatic penalty's (including license removals and suspensions) for habitual offenses and a general toughening of the laws and the enforcement of them. In essence it would take some of the favoritism shown by the courts and make the penalty's more in line with what happens to sportsmen for the same offenses.

There is another scheduled (possible) meeting tomorrow(12/14) morning to make any final amendments and then it could go before the Senate for a vote yet this week with the House having hearings and a possible vote next week.

I believe that the additional emails and correspondence in the last week has really helped to fast track these bills, and the changes to the original bills are all very welcome news to me. The honest guys will get to keep their jobs and businesses and the ones convicted of felonies last year will be told to look for a new line of work if the bills pass. Another set of emails offering support of the sub bill may be in order for those so enclined.

The commercial fishermen that testified today were for the most part well spoken, upfront about trying to correct issues and aired their complaints in a mostly courteous and forthright manner. I may not have agreed with everything that they quoted as fact but I have much more respect for the group in general, that I heard today, than I thought I would before attending. As usual with most issues the truth laid somewhere in the middle of everything that was spun at us from both sides of the issues at hand.

Representative Redfern was on hand to state his opposition to the bill as he has been all along. He says more study needs to be done before taking any action. Whatever his stand is on the issue he has done nothing himself to try and correct any of the problems so I am suspect as to why he is taking such a stand, especially since it is his district that is so heavily involved.  

Ex State Representative Dennis Opfer was also on hand to state his opposition and I heard nothing from him that would appease a sport fisherman either. I think that continuing to do business as usual at this point would be almost criminal in and of itself.

To reiterate what I feel has upset so many recreational fishermen about this issue is this.  We all know that there are recreational fishermen that bend and break the rules. Most of us support the fact that when Wildlife officers  write tickets to these offenders of fish and game laws, that the offenders are dealt with strictly and for the most part with expensive consistency. I feel and think that most of you feel that a commercial fisherman, as a professional, should be held to stricter standards than a sport fisherman is simply because he is professional and because of the amount of damage they can do with one boatload versus a few fish over  each trip. What has been seen as an injustice by so many of us in the past is now finally almost corrected and it's about time.

Now maybe somehow, someway we can get the commercial guys to put some battery or solar operated lights on those net flags so we can actually see them at night before we get our gear and boats wrapped up in them.

Marc Hudson

WBSA Pres.

A report came in from the same day that Marc was out.  Some nice fish were caught, although less than limits, on Pink Squirrel reef runners 37' back and also on a mooneye ripstick.  I assume they were fishing the same general area that Marc reported on Monday.

Marc made it back out yesterday for a few hours but he didn't catch anything before the rain hit and made it miserable.  He said that the marks are great off of Ruggles and Vermilion out in the stained water and he couldn't mark anything inside in the clear water.  On the radio someone was catching fish in 17' of water up high on short lines, and someone fishing out deeper had also caught a few.

The ten day forecast still has mild temperatures in the 40's and 50's for the entire period.  Winds in the marine forecast are mostly southwest with Saturday looking like the best day of the next week.

The Vermilion weather buoy has been pulled for the season.  The latest observation at the South Bass weather station has 17 knot SW wind, 42 degree air temperature, and steady barometric pressure.  The nearshore forecast has a wide range of surface temperatures with a chilly 36 off of Toledo and a mild 46 off of Cleveland.

Travis

Like Travis said yesterday there has been no activity until the last couple of days and few reports. Sunday the couple guys I knew that were out had only a slow bite with only a couple of fish caught. I understand there were several boats out of Mazurik boat ramp but we had no reports from any of them. Today I went out of Huron at around 2PM. 1 boat had 4 fish with 1 fat 29" and 3 other nice 5-8 pounders. All caught on ripsticks andDeep Lil rippers run high in the water column. I only caught 1 male 03 for our effort but the screen on my 104 was newsworthy all by itself. My battery's went dead after this photo and there were screens that were absolutely full of fish.

I'll be out the next couple of days and I'll let you all know how it goes. Water temp today off Huron was 39 degrees in 40' and 37 degrees in 24'. With a litle warming we may get one more good flurry of activity before ice sets in.

Hello, it's Travis again.  I haven't said much lately because quite frankly there hasn't been much to say.  The weather has been cold and windy, I haven't received any reports, and I haven't been out.  However, after a pretty bad week, this next week looks like it could be pretty good considering that we are in mid December.  The most recent forecast is calling for south or southwest winds all the way through this Friday, and the weather channel is saying that Monday through Sunday the highs will be in the 40's and the lows will be above freezing.

I'm really hoping that the forecast holds up.  I won't be able to make it out during the week, but I'm crossing my fingers for one or two more trips this coming weekend.  If it works out it will probably be the last time I take my boat out until early next spring.  The satellite photos have been decent the last few days when we finally got rid of all the cloud cover.  There is a lot of dirty water out there from the wind, but nearshore from Ruggles to Vermilion is extremely clear.  The entire area from Cedar Point to Vermilion should really continue to clear up with this week's forecast.

The Vermilion weather buoy has been pulled for the season.  The latest observation at the South Bass weather station has 20 knot S-SW wind, 45 degree air temperature, and steady barometric pressure.  The nearshore forecast has a wide range of surface temperatures with a chilly 34 off of Toledo and a mild 46 off of Cleveland.

Travis

We don't have much to report due to weather but there have been some fish caught off the piers with better reports coming further east toward Cleveland. There have also been a few brave souls fishing the shoreline from boats that have just started to do well north of Ruggles and toward Vermilion. Standard Night trolling techniques are working but it is still a hit or miss action after last weeks big blows and rain.

Below is a plea for action from me (Marc). Due to Travis' occupation he can't delve into the political side of fishing  very far. I however have no such restrictions and will present my take on it below. If your not interested you can move to another page now. It's long!

The Senate and House bills to purchase licenses of the Ohio Lake Erie commercial netters have been in the news much lately. The battle between proponents and opponents is reaching a critical stage right now. For a bill to be passed during this legislative session, it will have to be passed by the Senate and then relooked at by the House before the session ends sometime next week.

It appears that there is a majority of legislators that are willing to pass this bill (SB351) (in the senate) either as is or with a compromise that would save the licenses of those that have played by the rules and not been habitual offenders. I think most sportsmen could live with that compromise, I know I could.

The problem as I see it is that the house bill (HB609), will not be forwarded for a vote and that the Chair of the committee holding sessions on it will let it die unless their is action from a substantial number of sportsmen or other legislators.

There are rumblings about the perch stock in the Lorain to Michigan Basin, being at a critical point this year. Figures quoted yesterday in the Senate hearing were only 29 and 30 percent of the quota  for Ohio TAC was met by commercial and sport fishermen this year and that DOW has no good answer why except for possibly bad figues caused by inaccurate reporting by the commercial netters during the last few years. They won't come out and point fingers but their biggest concern is that without correct figures on harvest that they can't predict what the real populations are and then set TAC's that would allow for a sustainable harvest

The only option for those of us that would like to see action on these bills, is to mail or email the House and Senate leaders with our concerns and to do it soon before the current session expires.

I am no politician and have never before called for action at any level of government but if any of you are concerned about what is going on with the scofflaw attitude by a good portion of the Commercial industry and about the possible collapse of a perch fishery that just recently became healthy then you owe it to yourselves and to all your fishing buddies to take a few minutes and contact at least the 2 house and Senate leaders and anybody on the committees hearing the bills.

Link to the bills

SB351

HB 609

The Speaker of the House is:

Jon Husted (R)
District 37
Speaker of the House

Address:
district37@ohr.state.oh.us

14th Floor
Columbus, OH 43215-6111
Telephone: (614) 644-6008
Fax : (614) 719-3591
Email Address:

Committee members:

Rep. Jim Aslanides  Chair   Email Address: district94@ohr.state.oh.us

Rep. Jim McGregor Vice Chair   Email Address: district20@ohr.state.oh.us

Rep. Clyde Evans   Email Address: district87@ohr.state.oh.us

Rep. Tony Core   Email Address: district83@ohr.state.oh.us

Rep Matthew Dolan   Email Address: district98@ohr.state.oh.us

Rep. Bob Gibbs   Email Address: district97@ohr.state.oh.us

Rep. Steve Reinhard   Email Address: district82@ohr.state.oh.us

Rep. John Schlichter   Email Address: district85@ohr.state.oh.us

Rep. Arlene Setzer   Email Address: district36@ohr.state.oh.us

Rep. Jeff Wagner    Email Address: district81@ohr.state.oh.us

Rep. Chris Widener   Email Address: district84@ohr.state.oh.us

Rep John Domenick   Vice chair   Email Address: district95@ohr.state.oh.us

Rep. Timothy Cassell   Email Address: district63@ohr.state.oh.us

Rep. L George Distel   Email Address: district99@ohr.state.oh.us

Rep. Jennifer Garrison   Email Address: district93@ohr.state.oh.us

Rep. Mike Mitchell   Email Address: district26@ohr.state.oh.us

Rep. Allen Sayre   Email Address: district96@ohr.state.oh.us

Rep.  Tyrone Yates   Email Address: district33@ohr.state.oh.us

The President of the Senate is:

Senator Bill Harris (R)

Address:
Statehouse
Room #201, Second Floor
Columbus, Ohio 43215
Telephone: 614/466-8086
Email: SD19@mailr.sen.state.oh.us

Senate committee members are:

Senator Tim Niehaus- Chair   Email: sd14@mailr.sen.state.oh.us

Senator Jay Hottinger Vice Chair   Email  SD31@mailr.sen.state.oh.us

Senator John Carey   Email: sd17@mailr.sen.state.oh.us

Senator Timothy Grendell   Email: SD18@mailr.sen.state.oh.us

Senator Larry Mumper  Email: SD26@mailr.sen.state.oh.us

Senator Robert Spada Email: rspada@mailr.sen.state.oh.us

If you made it this far, Thank you for at least caring enough to read it and if you somewhat agree or even disagree now would be a good time to send out some emails to those that can actually do something to help stop this poaching activity. Time is very short!

 Marc

The forecast was right and we are getting our first dose of winter with some incredible wind.  This afternoon at the South Bass weather station the 2 pm reading had 48 knot sustained wind with 55 knot gusts.  Wow.  The only good news is that it was from the SW.  While the weather and wind forecast is not good for the foreseeable future at least the bad winds are from directions other than NE.

I haven't received any more reports and I wasn't able to make it out this week.  I assume that it continued to be pretty good through Thursday morning until the front got here.  The season is probably over for many people.  I am optimistic about getting out a few times in December, but only if the conditions are reasonably safe.  It would be great to catch one more monster before putting the boat away for a few months.

The Vermilion weather buoy has been pulled for the season.  The latest observation at the South Bass weather station has 35 knot W-SW wind, 36 degree air temperature, and rapidly rising barometric pressure.

Travis