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I just had a great three day weekend of fishing.  Each day was very different.  Friday I spent a long day with a friend from work fishing north of Kelleys.  We didn't have a single bite from 7:30 to 12:30.  From 12:30 to 6:30 we caught 10 fish with the largest two over 30", two more over 26", and the others in the low to mid 20's.  The best area was 38 to 41' of water from the NE tip of Kelleys Island and back to the west to about the middle of the island.  We caught fish at 1.4 to 1.6 mph on a nickel colorado blade (size 7 with purple tape) 55' back with a 1.5 ounce snap weight snapped on at 20' in front of the harness, but 3 of the best 4 fish all came on a pink lemonade ripstick 60' back with a 1 ounce snap weight 20' in front of the lure.  They really started hitting hard and got hooked good.  Friday was a blast.

Saturday I did something that I hadn't ever done before.  I jigged for walleye on Lake Erie.  I went with my friend Mike west out of Turtle Creek down near Crane Creek.  We were in 10 to 12' of water nearshore.  The wind was screaming out of the southwest and we didn't want to get very far out.  We caught 8 males in 4 hours from about 7:30 to 11:30.  The first 3 came on purple/green hair jigs, but the last 5 came on orange hair jigs.  When the sun came out and the wind picked up it shut down. I got a report from Niagara that said jigging was tough Saturday, and I believe it with the wind.  It had to be rough out there.

Today was a comfortable, relaxing day on the lake with Dad, but the fish didn't turn on like I thought they would.  I thought that the calm, partially cloudy day would get them going.  We went back to Kelleys Island and found it tough going.  The fish at the NE corner just weren't there like they were Friday.  The best marks were in 35 to 38' right at the NW corner and west towards the S. Bass monument.  We got three bites and landed 2 walleye around 24" or so.  All three bites came on harnesses.  A size 8 gold colorado got two hits and a whiptail blade got the third.  Two hits came at 60' back with a 1.5 ounce snap weight at 20' and the last was 60' back with a 0.75 ounce snap weight at 20'. Our speed was about 1.2 to 1.5 mph.

All in all it was a great weekend with good friends.  The two big fish on Friday were awesome.  We didn't have a scale on the boat, but conservatively one was around 9.5 and the bigger one was over ten.  They were both post-spawn, but healthy.

Surface temps are as high as 60 degrees west of turtle creek and from 51 to 54 north of Kelleys.

Travis

Two more reports have come in.  Last weekend fish were caught by one of our reporters in the following locations:

North of A and B cans, between C and D cans, between North Bass Island and Middle Bass Island, and west of North Bass Island.  Most came on reef runners 50 to 60' back from 1.4 to 1.7 mph.  Best colors were Bare Naked, Purple Bare Naked, Tequilla Sunrise, and Bubblegum.  On the last day of fishing some were caught on spoons on Jet30's 100 feet back.  Stinger spoons in Happy Hooker and Kevorkian caught the fish.

Yesterday fishing was tough outside Maumee Bay in Michigan waters from the outer light to Turtle Island.

Friday and Saturday the Cabela's MWC walleye tournament will be going out of Catawba State Park from 8 to 5 with the weigh-in at Port Clinton.  This is a 100 boat tournament and Sunday is a blow day if weather gets in the way.  Look for this tournament to be just as competitive as the FLW as long as the weather lets them get where they want to go.

Travis

Lots of reports from the weekend to get to.  Here it goes:

Friday- Turtle Creek was slow in 12 to 15' of water.  Up NW of North Bass 3 walleye were caught on reef runners from 60 to 100 back at 1.3 mph.

Saturday and Sunday it heated up.  Jig fishermen were catching fast limits in 15' of water off of Wild Wings, at K can, and 200 yards off of Turtle Creek.  Hair jigs with stinger hooks and shiners were the ticket with purple/green and pink/purple being mentioned.

Trollers caught fish, some giant, west of Gull Island Shoal and SW of Northwest Reef.  West of Gull one group caught 5 fish OH's over the weekend with the biggest going 33" and over 12 pounds.  The big fish were caught on reef runners and also some spoons.  The fish SW of northwest reef came on reef runners 60 to 100 feet back with purple demon and pink lemonade working.

Big yellow perch were caught Monday north of Kelleys Island at N 41 37.486 W 82 43.123.  5 anglers caught 87 perch that weighed 41 pounds and the longest was 13.5 inches.  They were caught from 8:45 to 1:15.

I haven't been out since our April 5 tourney and I can't wait to get back out again to chase some big fish.  This weekend is the Cabela's MWC tournament with around 100 boats.  Expect them to be trolling all around the islands.

Travis

The FLW tourney proved how great Erie can be in April.  It took over 30 pounds per day (5 fish) to make the top ten and it took over 25 pounds per day to cash a check in the top 50.  The heaviest single day weights were around 45 pounds.  It sounds like most of the fish came from around North Bass, from North Bass to Gull Island Shoal, and from Gull Island Shoal to Kelleys Island.  A mix of crankbaits and worm harnesses caught the fish, trolled anywhere from 0.9 mph up to as high as 1.8 mph.  Most of the big fish came early in the day and by the last few days a lot of fish were being caught as high in the water column as 6 to 10 feet down regardless of water depth.  Reef Runners were a popular crankbait with the hottest colors being Wonderbread, Pink Lemonade, and Pink Squirrel.  I thought it was interesting that the winner mentioned fishing "Lights Out", a black reef runner with pink spots.  I've fished the color a few times, but have yet to have success with it.  Maybe I'll have to give it more of a chance.

Two reports have come in.  One from late in the week mentioned jigging limits on Locust Reef and just off of Turtle Creek on hair jigs.  The other report was in Michigan 5 miles out of Bolles Harbor.  Two fish came on a Hot Tamale ripstick trolled 90' back at 1.25 mph.

Travis

Two reports came in today.  One was from yesterday.  Fishing was really tough jigging and trolling on and around the Camp Perry reefs and the water is really muddy.  No fish were caught in a few hours.  A move to the cleaner water north of Rattlesnake Island also didn't produce any fish.

The second report was from today.  A friend of mine trolled between Rattlesnake Island and Northwest Reef (west of West Reef).  He only caught 2 fish, but they were 6 pounds and 10 pounds.  The big fish came on a bottom bouncer and harness and a Reef Runner 60' back took the other fish.

More 40 pound 5 fish limits were weighed in today in the FLW tournament out of Port Clinton.  Right now the two day leader has 10 fish that weighed a total of 76 pounds.  Local angler and WBSA member Tom Sibert weighed in over 44 pounds today for the biggest 5 fish of either day.  It moved him up into the top 50 after a tough day one.  Friday is the final full field day and then the top 10 fish Saturday.

Travis

The FLW started today out of Port Clinton and proved that the tough fishing on Erie is about to get really good.  Although it wasn't a free-for-all catch fest yet, there were plenty big fish caught.  The top three weights were over 40 pounds for 5 fish, and it took over 35 pounds to be in the top 10.  The big fish of the day was over 11 pounds.  As you might imagine there wasn't much information given out since this is the first day of a 4 day tournament, but most of the top finishers caught their fish on a combination of crankbaits and worm harnesses.  Spawning is clearly well under way because nearly all the females weighed in were post-spawn.

With the weather forecast we could be looking at some great fishing well into next week.  It's still muddy out there, but it will get better every day.

Travis

I received a report from one of the anglers that fished the tourney this past Saturday.  His boat landed one fish trolling husky jerks north of Rattlesnake Island.  He said that the water was much cleaner there than anywhere else and that some of the top finishers were fishing the same area.

There is a decent satellite picture up today.  The western basin is still a muddy mess, except for some limited areas up around North Bass.  We need a good run of calm weather to clear this all up.  Hopefully the forecast is right.

Travis

The weather made it another tough weekend of fishing, at least based on the results of the FLW tourney on Saturday.  The 70 boat tourney out of Port Clinton was won with 16 pounds.  Marc fished it and did well in 16th place.  He has a report on one of the WBSA message forums.  I was supposed to go out Saturday, but decided against it with the weather.  Today was even worse with upper 30 degree temps and snow squalls.

The FLW Tour is in town this Wednesday through Saturday.  If the forecast is right they will be hitting it perfectly.  We're supposed to be in the 60's most of the week with reasonable winds.  If the water starts to clear we will see some heavy weights at the weigh-ins.

Based on the nearshore forecast it is 46 off of Toledo and 39 off of Cleveland.

Travis

I'm still hearing the muddy water blues from most people that have been out.  It sounds like the jigging has been decent around K can on the SW side of the camp perry range with the old standard hair jigs catching fish.  Trollers are seeking fishable water that just doesn't seem to exist yet.  If you didn't see it already Marc put up a report on the Denied forum of the WBSA message board.

Over the weekend the walleye state record was nearly broken.  An angler jigging at the Sandusky Bay railroad bridge caught a 31.5" 16.13 pound walleye.  This isn't a hoax, it was weighed on a certified scale in Marblehead and the fish was taken to Don's Hi-Way Bait for pictures and a measurement.  For me it just proves that there are undoubtedly record fish swimming around out there.  Fish up to 33 or 34 inches, while rare, aren't uncommon.  One of those fish full of eggs could easily break the record.  The state record was a fall fish that was around 33.5 inches and weighed 16.19 pounds.  It surprises me that we don't hear about a few of these near misses more often.  It seems like each year there are one or two 15 pound fish, but fish around 16 pounds just don't show up much on Erie.  I guess that record fish just do something different than the rest of the fish, that's why they don't get caught every day.

Travis

Open water is finally here and it was great to get back out on the lake.  The first Lake Erie Walleye Trail event was welcomed by cold water, mud, and horrible pre-fishing weather.  Dad and I fished all day Thursday and then fished a short, cold, miserable morning on Friday.  Thursday produced one nice 7.5 pound pre-spawn female right at D-can of the Camp Perry range.  She hit a firetiger size 12 deep husky jerk 40' back at about 1.3 mph.  We checked out F and G cans and there were nice marks, but the water was too muddy.  D can was the best combination of good marks with muddy, but fishable water.  We also checked out the south passage (south of Green Island) and Clinton Reef on Thursday, but neither area looked as promising as D can.

Friday brought miserable weather.  We went back out to D can early in the morning and made one pass without a hit before it got really rough.  Then we ran over to the protected south shore of Middle Bass.  The water was a little less muddy and there were good marks, but no takers.  At 12:00 we had enough and called it quits for the day.

The weather for the tourney Saturday was beautiful with a light SW breeze that eventually turned into a dead calm afternoon.  The sun was out and the lake was flat.  We spent the entire day trolling right around D can.  Most of the day we could have thrown something and hit the can.  Good marks were still there, but with the mud they were very tough to catch.  Between 10:00 and 11:00 we had four bites.  Every bite came on a size 12 deep husky jerk 40' back from 0.9 to 1.2 mph.  Two of the hits were on firetiger the other two were on clown (the old chrome clown, not the new glass clown).  We landed 3 of the hits and the fourth was gone before I picked the rod up.  One of the fish was decent, but combined the 3 only weighed 10.2 pounds.  The day was so tough that it was good enough for 6th place in the 42 boat field.  Something like 22 boats didn't catch a fish.

For the first time (as far as I can recall) jiggers won a LEWT tourney.  Hair jigs in warm, muddy Maumee Bay produced the winning weight over 15 pounds.  One other team reported jigging in 4' of water west of Turtle Creek near Crane Creek.  Even though those areas were very muddy the mid 40 degree water temps must have been enough to get the fish going.  Out at D can it hit 41 degrees by the end of the day, but was as cold as 36 on Thursday morning.

Right now there are plenty of fish out there to catch based on my sonar.  Hopefully the water will continue to clear because from the islands to Toledo it's about as muddy as I can remember in the 5 years that I've been up here.  There is also a ton of floating debris out there.  Not just sticks and trash, there are literally tree trunks, chest freezers and 55 gallon drums, to name a few of the unique items that I personally saw.  Be carefull until this stuff clears itself.  There are some logs out there that would ruin your day if you hit them.

If you hadn't noticed there are tournaments every weekend this month.  The LEWT kicked it off yesterday, followed by the FLW League this coming weekend, the FLW tour the following week, and then the Cabela's MWC to close the month out.  There will be a lot of tournament boats in town for the next month.

Travis