Fishing Reports

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I am taking the lazy way out the rest of the week while Travis is gone and putting our perch and walleye reports on the Denied section of the WBSA message board. You can find them here

Those of you that sent me some starting points for fishing west of the Islands, Thank you. I'm gonna try to get out there the next few days and will let you know how it went. After 2 months of Hawg Fest preparation I am again getting in fishing mode. Whew! So glad it's over but so proud of how well it went!

Thanks, Marc

Man, I apologize for not getting on here and making a report sooner. My ambition and attention span haven't been very good since Friday before the Hawg Fest and now with some controversy over a rules  penalty we had to make everything is in turmoil. With the lack of walleye reporting I may have to get out and generate my own just for therapy.

I wish I could give you a detailed review of the tourney and specific information but there was just too much going on for me to catch it all. I will say though that almost all techniques worked and in many different areas. It sounds like most of the money winners were getting their fish really deep with leads of 160 to 180 feet with 2 and 3 ounce snap weights and inline Bass Pro weights in front of a leader with Reef Runners but dipsy's and spoons and worms also produced. It was mentioned by several teams that worms were hard to keep on becasue of short biing smaller fish.The main areas that were productive were north and northwest of Vermilion from the 29 line out to the 35 line. We were out in that area taking pictures and stopped to look at the fishfinder a few times and the screen was loaded with a lot of big hooks indicating walleye. The bite wasn't fast though and a couple teams that cashed mentioned that they got there last kicker fish right at the end of the day.

Here are the reports that came in since last week. There are quite a few perch reports and I'll start with them. 46 Feet off Beaver Park limits, Another stated anywhere off Lorain in 46-48 FOW, N 41* 45.260 and W 083* 15.500 had 3 limits of perch in 5 hours or less with very little sorting and then the next day several throw backs and other junk fish at the same spot but more 10-11" perch, Perch spreaders with Gold, Silver, Fire Tiger, and Bright Red blades took the most fish but a copper bladed crappie rig took bigger fish. They also caught a couple 9" walleye. Huron last Friday was slow going but one of our readers got there biggest perch ever, 14 1/2" a 1/2 mile west of the pier. this reader also reported doing well at Niagra Reef with over half his fish at 9-11 1/2" but no limits.  A one hour trip for perch at Starve Island proroduced 23 9-12" perch a 5 hour trip by 5 guys produced 118 perch 4 miles out of Wards Canal. N 41* 45.260 W 083* 15.500 (just west of the Gravel pit) produced a nice catch of fish after making 3 moves to catch any over 7 inches. most of theier fish were 8-9" but they had a few at 10" and 1 at 11", the perch were biting very lightly and the minnow needed to lay on the bottom on this trip.

Now for Walleye and there really aren't many of them as the fishing overall has been tough in the popular sandbar area. SW of West Reef produced a slow 4 fish with 1 throwback but they did get a 7 pound and 4 pound for their efforts, Dipsy's with Kevorkian and confusion spoons produced their fish. Weeds were a problem.

I've had some second and 3rd hand reports of nice fish being caught in the flats between the islands and West Sister. I don't think I've fished this are for walleye ever at this time of year before but have a hankering to do so later this week. Can anyone help me get a starting position out there in that huge area?

I have some new reports to pass along.  The only walleye report that came in was from Vermilion on Sunday and Monday.  Sunday was good with limits coming from the 37/25 lines 14 miles out of Vermilion.  Trolling confusion and PA's bullshark spoons worked best at 2.5 mph 30 to 36' down in 46' of water.  Monday was frustrating as the same group went back out to the same area and just couldn't find them.  Welcome to the early fall where they're here one day and gone the next.

The rest of the reports that came in were for perch.  One of our regular reporters was out Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.  On Sunday 3 of them got 40 perch from "A" can to "B" can of the Camp Perry range.  On Monday they got 90 perch at "B" can.  Yesterday they tried 3.8 miles off of Ward's Canal (Metzger's Marsh) and they got a four man limit.

A perch report from today didn't quite limit out, but 2 anglers came up with 48 nice perch up to 11" without much sorting.  They tried in the Gravel Pit to start with, but when it was slow they ended up just west of the Gravel Pit at N 41 45.260 W 83 15.500.  Their best set-up was crappie rigs with either firetiger or gold blades.

This will probably be my last report this week before I head north to Leech Lake on Friday.  Marc will be taking care of the reports.  He'll be busy with the Hawg Fest the next few days and through the weekend.  I doubt that many people realize how much work Marc handles behind the scenes for club events and tournaments.  The WBSA is where it is because of Marc and we all owe him.  I'm sure when Marc finally catches his breath he will fill everyone in on what worked for the winning teams in the 105 boat Hawg Fest.

Travis

1st off, since the rest of my week is gonna be a little hectic getting ready for Hawg Fest IV, I want to wish Travis a nice and rewarding vacation, I know how he looks forward to these getaways.

The main reason for me stepping on Travis' report today is that I want to remind any of you that are interested, that our Cleveland Cav and fishing trips raffles are going to be drawn on Saturday night at the Vermilion Hawg Fest party. We haven't had much action on them yet but expect that to change at the raffles at the party. You can get in on these raffles by going to the CAVS RAFFLE webpage and the TRIPS RAFFLE webpage and use PayPal to purchase tickets. The Cavs tickets are outstanding value and something most of us would never have a chance to see again. The trips raffles are with well known and outstanding Lake Erie fishermen and an avid Lake St Clair Musky fisherman. Both raffles are good value prizes and 2 winners will be drawn for the 2 sets of Cavs tickets (I bought these myself) and 6 winners will be drawn for the trip raffles. You can also buy tickets at the Hawg Fest if you attend.

I've also changed the link to the Camp Perry weekly firing notices. They will now be posted weekly on the WBSA message board under the Denied section. It is just so much easier to do it there rather than change the HTML on the website each week. It won't be quite as easy to read but once you get used to it, it shouldn't be a problem.

We are also looking for someone to do drifting/casting reports. Travis and I are almost strictly trollers and even in trolling we are geared more toward big fish, small boat tournament style trolling. The majority of the fish caught this summer have been on spoons/jets and spoons/dipsy combos. We simply don't use them that often even though those methods are typically going to put more fish in the boat for you. We're looking for helpful hints for multiple line dipsy and big board users as well so if anyone wants to put something together that will help the rest of the Denied readers we will certainly hang it on the Helpful hints pages and give you acknowledgement for it.

Anyway, Have a good trip Travis and hope to see at least a few of you Denied readers at the Hawg Fest this weekend.

Marc

So far 3 reports have come in from the weekend and end of last week.  For walleye, a report from Thursday produced a limit and a few extra released out on the sandbar.  The first stop was at the 31-34/20-22 lines.  In 3.5 hours of fishing 6 walleye were landed.  The next stop was up near where I had fished in the last LEWT tourney near the weather buoy at the 41/20 lines.  There 6 fish were landed in just 1.5 hours.  All fish were caught on dipsys fished near the bottom at 2.5 mph and the largest was around 24".  The best spoon colors were killer bee (silver back) and monkey shine (copper).  The reporter mentioned that he later ruined his day by not properly putting away his fillet knife.  The knife ended up un-covered in a bag and when he reached back in the bag for something else it ended up taking 15 stitches on one of his fingers to fix the damage.  It was a bad way to end a good day.  The reporter thought that it was worth reminding everyone to properly take care of their fillet knives when they are finished with them.

The two other reports were from perch fishermen, both on Sunday.  2 miles north of the Toledo water intake in 22' of water 2 anglers caught 43 perch in 4 hours.  Although it wasn't a limit the perch size was "decent", up to 11".

A little better report came from 1.5 miles north of Kelleys Island in 48' of water.  2 anglers caught their limits by noon with the fish running 8 to 11".

At the end of this week Marc is going to take over the report page for a while.  I get to take my annual muskie fishing trip up to Leech Lake Minnesota starting this weekend.  I can't wait to get up there.  This is the latest in the year that we've made the trip and I hope it pays off with some big muskie.  I can't complain, last year between 4 of us our biggest two muskie landed were 46.5 and 52.5".  Maybe this year will bring a little more consistency with a few of those big fish mixed in.

Travis

As you can probably tell there haven't been any e-mail reports this until the two that I just received.  Two excellent perch reports just came in.  One was from 1 mile east of the Toledo water intake.  A 3-man limit was caught in 5 hours with plenty of sorting.  An even better limit report came from the Kelleys Island airport reef on the east shoreline of the island.  The fish were caught just off of the reef in 41' of water.  The fish were mostly 9 to 12 inches with very few throwbacks and not much junk.  I think that fall is here.  The perch fishing seems to be picking up and big walleye are showing up on the sandbar.

Travis

One perch report from today just came in, and here it is word-for-word:

"On Monday five people caught 150 perch in 4.5 hours in 29 FOW WNW of Green. Had a throw back ratio of about 25% as 7” and under. Not very many white perch, etc."

Travis

As Marc mentioned yesterday everything came together for Dad and I in the final LEWT tournament.  We got our first win and barely beat our good friends Mike and Mike for the team of the year title.  On top of that we also caught the big fish of the day.

There are some really great fish all over the sandbar between Vermilion and Lorain right now.  I have only fished over there for a few years now, but it seems to me that there are more big fish that have returned to the area than would normally be there this time of year.  It seemed more like late September or early October.  It's a shame that the weather didn't cooperate for the tournament because it would have taken over 40 pounds to win if the tourney had been two days earlier.

We had a great day on Thursday.  Our first stop was in the middle of the bar on the west side.  We caught some decent fish and one that was 7 pounds, but for me there was too much junk (mostly white perch).  The fish that we caught were centered around N 41 34.282 W 82 21.793.  The fish there came on worm harnesses 120 to 140' back with a 3 ounce snap weight at 20'.  We also caught one or two on a bare naked reef runner 160' back.  After that we made a stop at the 35/20 lines and didn't mark anything, but we did catch one 6 pound fish on an emerald shiner reef runner 160' back as we pulled the lines to make another move.  Our last (and best) stop was 17 miles north of Vermilion within a half mile of the weather buoy.  We really caught some quality fish there.  The best set-ups were harnesses 80 to 100' back with 3 ounce snap weights at 20 or 30', and reef runners 160' back without any weight.  Our best five fish went a conservative 39 pounds and all but the one 7 pounder came from the weather buoy.  The best part was that there weren't any white perch and we only caught one drum even though we had 2 worm harnesses out at all times.  The biting fish were in a relatively small area bounded by the N 40.3 to 40.48 lines and the W 22.9 to 23.3 lines (it's slightly SE of the weather buoy).  Our speeds all day were generally 1.4 to 1.8 mph gps, emerald shiner reef runner was the hot crankbait, and gold blades on the harnesses worked best (green blades caught drum and silver blades didn't catch much of anything).

On Friday with the near gale SW winds we decided to try nearshore for a tournament back-up area.  We caught 2 fish in front of Sherod Park west of Vermilion in 18' of water, and then caught 6 or 7 more fish between route 61 and ruggles reef, but we couldn't make anything bigger than 4 pounds bite.  The marks at route 61 are pretty impressive from 20' all the way out to at least 32'.  Deep husky jerks (glass purple perch and chrome clown) 100' back was one of the hottest set-ups, but over all we really didn't do that great.

On Saturday the weather cooperated enough to let us get out to the weather buoy in less than 30 minutes, but as soon as we got there the wind went N or NE and the bite was tough.  We were glad to find that our fish were still there, but they had lock jaw compared to Thursday, not to mention all of a sudden trophy drum were active, along with a few decent channel catfish.  By noon I think that we only had three 3 pound fish in the livewell and I was wondering if we made the right decision to stay.  It turned out that we did and from 12 to 1 we caught 3 more decent fish.  At around 1:00 we caught the big fish of the tournament (10.74 pounds) on a chartreuse head wonderbread reef runner 180' back, and then got another good fish around 7 pounds at 1:30 on a blue  hawaiian reef runner also 180' back.  It was barely enough to win the tourney at just under 29 pounds.  The other fish that we caught came on an emerald shiner reef runner and on harnesses with gold blades.  We played around a lot with the lead length on the harnesses.  We tried everything from 80 back to 140 back with the 3 ounce snap weights at 20 to 40'.  140' back with the 3 ounce weight at 40' worked later in the day.  With the waves our speed was 1.5 to 2.4 early in the day and then we were able to slow down to 1.2 to 1.6 later in the day, and that's when we caught the 2 bigger fish.  The best area was in the same coordinates that I gave from Thursday, although it seemed like the best marks moved a little east off of the bar.  Our farthest east starting point for a trolling pass was at the 41.018/22.230 lines and then heading SW with the wind.  The area that we fished ended up being the hottest area on the bar as it produced 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in the tourney.

It was a lot of fun catching some big fish again.  Winning the tournament and pulling out the team of the year race was icing on the cake.  Dad and I are really proud to be having success fishing against teams that we have so much respect for.  We've learned more from fishing these tournaments than we could have learned anywhere else, and that's because of how open all the teams that fish the LEWT are.  After the fishing is over everyone is willing to share information.  We are definitely better fishermen than we were 3 years ago and the LEWT has a lot to do with that.

Marc took care of filling in a lot of recent fishing information in the report below.  Please keep sending us information if you get out.

Travis

Travis asked me Weds or Thursday last week to add to the Denied site if reports came in and a few did and I'll post them after this but I really wanted to congratulate Travis and his dad on another solid tourney finish today in the final LEWT event at Bulans Marina in Vermilion. He won the tourney today in a photo finish race with Mike Robertson's team and also the team of the year award by the same type of finish Mike. I'll let him fill in the details but Congrats Travis!

I don't normally post these results until we've had time to collate results and make sure things are accurate and get them on our website but someone else looked like they were going to scoop this honor and I thought it belonged here first since he puts in so much effort to keep this site accurate and honest.

Now the fishing reports that have come in. Some good limit catches of perch and walleye are coming in in the west basin. Perch are overall smallish but some perserverence will get good sizes and limits. East of Kelleys, south of Kelleys, NW of Green Island and in the flats north of Niagra and also West Sister are producing but lots of sorting too. The prized good sized shiners have been a little hard or impossible to find but golden and pinheads will work. The perch in the Vermilion area finally fired up again Friday after slowing down for the last couple of weeks. Straight out the river in 32-35 FOW was what I heard mentioned the most.

Walleye have been on fire mostly north of Vermilion and then all the way to north of Lorain. They did slow down somewhat today though and made for a tough tournament for quite a few teams. Most people are trolling deep for them but on a good drift, casters are doing well too. The fish are moving around though so a little help from local bait shops is recommended. There was also a good bite in the Rt. 61 area with some big fish being caught there as well. 18-23 FOW.  North of Niagra has been producing limits and big fish for some of the charters still running the area. I think it's got some of them wondering if they should move to Huron/Vermilion or not. Weeds can be a challenge in this area though.

Some of these reports aren't from Denied readers and Travis may not have them but they are coming from sources I trust and they don't mind the sharing of them so here you go. This should be a stellar fall fishing season. All we need is just a little good weather! Reports from Denied readers have been slow overall, we are getting some good perch info but not lots of it. We can use your help.

Thanks, Marc

In the western basin a 35 minute walleye limit was caught between "C" can and Northwest Reef at the 43/57 lines.  Jet40's 50-60' back with both large and small watermellon and confusion spoons caught the fish.

Over at the sandbar a 5.5 hour 3 man walleye limit was caught.  After an unsuccessful stop on the SE corner of the bar at the 33/17 lines a move to the middle of the bar at the 35/20 lines produced the limit.  Purple Pooh Bear and Chicken wing spoons trolled at 3.0 mph worked best.

Yellow perch limits were caught on back to back days 2.5 miles off of the Marblehead lighthouse towards Kelleys Island.

The Toledo Light #2 has 11 knot south winds.  The Vermilion buoy is still down and I'm starting to wonder if it will be repaired this season or not.

Travis

So far two reports from the holiday weekend have come in.  For walleye 2 anglers out of Lorain found it rough going on Saturday.  They fished two areas and boated 8 walleye.  5 of the fish came from the 33/12-17 lines, while the other 3 came from 18 miles NE of Lorain in 65' of water.  The two best spoon colors were Killer Bee and Christmas Tree.  The fish were caught 5 to 10' off of the bottom.

The other report was a 3-man limit of perch from "B" can of the Camp Perry range.

Marc put a report on the Denied section of the WBSA message forum.  It sounds like it was also tough off of Geneva for walleye.

I'm planning to fish Thursday and Friday to get ready for the last LEWT of the year this Saturday out of Vermilion.  Hopefully I'll have good information for you on Sunday.

Travis

Thursday and Friday were windy and rough, but it looks like it's going to get better over the next few days.  As you might imagine I haven't received any new reports with the rough conditions.  I wanted to wish everyone a happy Labor Day weekend.  I'll post again in a few days when reports from the weekend start coming in.

Travis