Fishing Reports

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June 30, 2008 (Monday) Travis 

Two reports came in today.  Here they are:

"Went on annual charter trip out of Lakefront Marina June 27 - 29. Sorry, I don't know the names of markers but we fished straight out of Port Clinton a bout 1-2 miles and started in 13' of water.  We cast weapons with fair success. Each day provided an average of about 3 walleye per hour with size average of around 20". We were told by locals to use gold everything but we found that 3/4 gold sinker was a must but the blade of choice was gold back Chartreuse front with red dot made by Northwoods. Most hits came very near the boat after a 7 count. Fair amount of junk fish with more cats than usual if you went low."

"Fished Sat and Sun east of Kelleys in 40 to 45 fow. Trolled spoons 2 mph. got to fish 3 hours Sat. stopped at noon with 8 big walleyes before storm blew us off.  Repeat Sun with storm making us quit again at noon.  We got one 29 1/2 inch steelie and a smaller one with two walleyes."

It's really interesting to me that the area 3 to 4 miles east of Kelleys Island has been so good recently, not to mention all the non-target steelhead getting caught.  It sounds like the fishing has really been good all the way up to the Canadian line near where the old "C" can used to be.  To me it's one more indicator that everything is behind where it would normally be right now.

Travis

June 29, 2008 (Sunday) Travis  

Dad and I had 3 great days of fishing over at Geneva despite the weather.  We caught plenty of 3 to 4 pound fish each day and we caught bigger fish on the right day (Saturday, the day of the tournament).  Thursday we fished 68 to 74' of water from Fairport Harbor to Perry.  We caught fish all day, but nothing was over 4.25 pounds.  Pretty much everything that we tried worked.  3 colors of leadcore with Rapala Minnow Raps, 6 colors of leadcore with husky jerks or renosky's, chrome perch deep tail dancers (TD-11) 175' back, and harnesses with 3 ounce inline weights (130 out', weight at 30') all worked.  Friday we fished NW of Ashtabula in 71 to 73' and north of Geneva in 68 to 71'.  Again we mostly caught 4 pound fish, but we did get one fish over 7 pounds NW of Ashtabula.  6 colors of leadcore with shallow renosky's was the best setup.  Harnesses were more difficult to fish because of all the big yellow perch.  On Saturday for the tourney we fished two areas NW of Ashtabula.  In the morning the best waypoint was N42 00.682 W80 52.866.  We caught 3 of our weigh fish on 6 colors of leadcore with a purple back/pink belly shallow renosky around that waypoint.  In the afternoon the best area was farther W at the 00.923/54.417 lines (middle numbers).  Two of our weigh fish came from that area, 1 on the leadcore setup and one on a 4 ounce bottom bouncer 150' back with a harness.  The harnesses on the bottom turned on when the sun came out and the leadcore quit catching fish.  In the morning when it was cloudy the leadcore was on fire and the harnesses only caught perch.  Our best blades seemed to be gold blades with pink, mostly size 6 colorados and a gold wide willow with pink also worked.  When we fished stickbaits on leadcore we always had an entire nightcrawler hooked once through the head on the back hook of the stickbait.  All three days we kept our speed around 2.0 and under on average.  We ended up weighing in 30.8 pounds and it got us 4th place in the tournament.  The winner weighed in 36 pounds and it sounded like he couldn't have been too far from where we were fishing.

The fishing over at Geneva is great and should only get better this year as more big fish show up.  I would highly recommend going over there if you haven't tried it yet.

Two reports came in from the weekend.  On Friday a limit was caught 3 miles E of Kelleys at the 39/35 lines.  The best setup was 2 ounce inlines 20 to 26' back with harnesses at 1.4 mph.  On Sunday the 37/36 lines NE of Kelleys produced a limit on 2 ounce inlines 22 to 28' back and harnesses with purple blades.  One walleye and a bonus steelhead was caught on a dipsy 85' back with a purple chicken wing spoon.

Travis

June 25, 2008 (Wednesday) Travis 

I'll be fishing over at Geneva the next few days to pre-fish for Saturday's migration open tournament, so I won't be putting any reports up until Sunday evening or Monday.  Make sure to send me the details of your weekend trips.  One report came in since my last post, here it is:

"My partner and I have fished the last 5 weekends (actually Thursday evening thru Saturday noon). We only troll.  We have boated our limit each trip for every day fished.  This past weekend we fished the area around North Kelley’s between North Bass 33 ft to 45ft depth (as did 300 other boats I think)  We trolled the small dipsey divers and Jets 30’s with Double Orange Crush & Raspberry Dolphin (Large size) being our hottest producers.  125’ on jet 30’s & 150 to 175 on the small dipsey’s (1 & 2 setting) 2.6 to 2.8 speed.  Several large fish caught. Anything over 6.5 lbs we release. Largest fish went 7.2lbs  Most averaged in the 3.8 to 5.3lb range (we weigh them not measure them) Most of our fish come off the bottom.  The key this year to trolling has been Gold backed spoons and finding an active school then staying with them.  We might make 10 passes over an area 3 tenths of a mile long before moving on.  In 9 years of fishing the lake we have never had to work such small areas."

The Vermilion Hawg Fest is getting close to filling up.  Make sure to check the OGF web site if you're planning on fishing the tournament and you haven't signed up yet.

Travis

June 23, 2008 (Monday) Travis

I finally got up to the Detroit River for some casting on Saturday and although it was a slow day I did manage to land a 38" muskie and one smaller one around 20".  Both fell to a sledgehammer jerkbait east of Grosse Isle.  I hope to get out more for muskie this summer, but it might have to be up on Lake St. Clair since the river fishing doesn't last more than 4 to 6 weeks once the season opens in early June.

Two reports came in today.  Here they are in full:

"Drifting Weight Forwards

Fished Friday and Saturday within 0.7 miles of the Red Can on Gull Shoal.  We set up W-SW of the can and drifted up to the can.  We were on the far southern edge of the pack both days.

Fish on a 15 to 18 count on Friday and Saturday.  Saturday bite stopped and boats left pack, found fish moved to 30 count.

No fish caught on a harness this weekend.  The weight forward worked by ripping the lure then reeling up the slack as the lure fell.  Actually I never had to move weight forward this fast.  The really fast blade action triggered nice hits.  As always when drifting, when the wind stopped, the action stopped. 

Fish ranged mostly from 22 -26.5 inches with about one 17-18" fish for every five larger fish. 

Five fish per man in just over four hours."

"Got 4 Saturday all 21 to 24 inches, Red and white and gold/brown harnesses 20' behind a ball 35' on a downrigger and two on a black and white spoon 55' back on a big Dipsy set on 1.5, 1.5 to 2.3 MPH around Gull Island."

Thanks for understanding as I get used to this new editing panel.  Already it seems to be much better than the last web host.

Travis

June 19, 2008 (Thursday) Marc 

No reports today but wanted to let everyone know that I talked to Dean yesterday. He's got some health issues but doesn't everyone my age and older. He's riding his Harley and enjoying life with the exception of the doctors visits and still goes religeously to have skin cancer check ups and they are still find them. You may want to dig into the archives and see what Dean posted about the sun fishermen get and skin cancer resulting from it. It's a good read and a reminder is in order. 

Anyway, He's doing OK, gas prices are keeping him from doing a few things that he'd like so he just does them in smaller episodes now. It was good to talk to him!

 June 17, 2008 (Tuesday) Marc

Travis is having connection issues so he asked me to post his report for him. Here it is:

Travis"

My comments:

I'd like to add another report that was sent to me personally by one of our club members. It is second hand info but trustworthy.

One of our club members had a hot trolling bite going on last Friday and Saturday east of Kelleys and Kelley Shoals. Very fast and very steady with all 21-22" fish. He called his father in law onto the bite and he caught less fish but bigger fish drifting and casting and also ran some bouncers. no limit but all nice fish.

While I'm at it I'd like to invite the Denied readers to the WBSA/Cranberry Creek Marina 5th Annual fish fry. This is a social event and the food is always great. The fish is supplied by the tournament anglers in the LEWT. The rest we collect goes to several charities. If you can make it please come and meet some of the best fishermen on the lake and also some of the biggest eaters anywhere.

This is always a fun day and the Cranberry Creek crew always does a great job. This is a fishermans marina and they know what we fishermen like! Please let me know if you can make it by using the reporting link above. BYOB! Sides are welcome but not necessary and is open to guests. Dress is casual and fishing hats and clothes are welcome! There will be a nice door prize raffle and a 50/50 for you gamblers out there! See our front page for info and directions

I put some pictures of the WBSA Stone Lab Trolling day on the message board. You can view them here:  Stone Lab Trolling Day. I think we have 12 new trollers in the making after a great fishing and catching day near the islands.

Marc

June 15, 2008 (Sunday) Marc

For those that didn't see it below is Travis report from last Friday that was posted on the WBSA message board Denied thread.

We have been having much trouble with our web host Ipowerweb over the last several months. We pay good money to attempt to have the best service available and Ipower used to be a very good company to work with. However that has changed in the last year or so. They are impossible to deal with, tell you anything to get you off the phone if you can even get through. They are going through major upgrades and will probably be a good company again someday but last week we pulled the plug and bought bandwidth and service elsewhere. At the same time, since we were down anyway we upgraded our message board, added another and just generally tweaked the site for better performance. Hope it all works the way we want when we are done. the only issue we have left I believe is the Photo page. there is some type of software issue from changing hosts but we haven't figured it out yet. The rest of the site is working. If you have trouble accessing our message board, you will need to delete your cookies. Some people have to and some don't but it always resolves the problem of not being able to log on.

While I'm on here I want to apologize for disappearing after my tirade about government lack of action back in late March and early April. Right after that i got sick and really never recovered completely but am feeling pretty good now.

 The gists of the issues are this:

1. Water compact bill. Senator Grendell from Ohio was concerned about water rights and not only held up a vote on the bill but introduced another bill that would have set the compact agreement back years. Since that time he has had a change of heart and has compromised to sign the bill and help get it through the Ohio legislature. There was a similar effort made in Wisconsin but that too was resolved and the compact is near to becoming law.

2. Border crossings and Charter regs. The LECBA somehow got USA Today’s ear and the story was reported in such a way and on the front page of USA Today that it pretty much embarrassed Homeland Security into backing off the outlandish rules they had come up with for fishing across that imaginary line that marks the Canadian boundary. Thank you LECBA. LECBA is one of the foremost sportsman’s activist groups in the state and they are worthy of your support. Go to their website and check them out and then sign on as an associate member to help them keep up the good work they are doing.

3. Invasive species and ballast water. There have been bills brought forth and passed in the federal legislatures to force ocean going vessels to treat ballast water. The bills haven't been finalized but there is good support in both the house and Senate to "Git r dun". My understanding is that the rules will go into affect in 2011 or 2012 and all ocean going vessels will be required to treat their ballast waters for the removal of all critters.

4. EPA permit requirements for recreational water users. This issue is probably going to cost us more immediately than any of the others. There is good support in both the house and senate but time is running out to get them passed. Here is a link with info on where to go to find numbers, emails and addresses to send your info. They need continuing pushing to get this done in time before it goes into effect at the end of September this year.

Travis told me that he will be busy for a few days but will try to figure out the new software to post these reports in the next few days. I fished Tuesday off huron and didn’t do all that well but marked fish well and didn’t try too long. I also went out Thursday with 4 other boats including Travis on the OSU Sea Grant trip. I trolled the area immediately west of north Bass and did very well pulling cranks and harnesses. The cranks were at 80 back and the Cranberry Crusher full sized Reef runner hasn’t pulled anything but Walleye fro me yet this year and believe me I’ve caught plenty on everything else. Is it luck or is there something to it. I think it’s just luck but do think this lure will be one of the top producers of Walleye for years to come. I also pulled a 30 jet at 60 back with both spoons and #5 blades. The harnesses pulled the majority of our fish with cranks second and the spoons pulling lots of Sport Fish. I have heard no reports whatsoever on the drift/cast bites. If you are having any luck please let us know so that we don’t sound like we only care about the trollers. Also Steelhead ought to be firing up real some in the Lorain/Avon area. Let us know that too!

Good luck, catch some fish and be safe, there have been way too many drownings out there already this year, including one of our club members. Almost all could have been prevented with either some fore thought or by being more alert to their surroundings.

Marc

 June 13, 2008 (Friday) Travis

 I have to talk to Marc about editing the Denied web page with the new site. I haven't taken the time to figure out how to log in and edit the page. In the mean time I thought that I would post a Denied report here.

Thursday was the annual OSU/Stone Lab-Sea Grant trolling day for the one week fishing course. Marc, Matt, Aaron, Mike and I had the privelege of taking OSU students out for some walleye trolling. Everyone ended up catching fish. The best areas were West Reef, the North Bass shoreline, between West Reef and Rattlesnake Island, and between West Reef and Northwest Reef. I primarily fished the north drop off of West Reef in 25 to 30' and then right on top of West Reef in 13 to 16' of water just north/northwest of the 3 shallowest humps of the reef. We pulled inline weights and crawler harnesses mostly with 1 ounce 15' back and harnesses with fluorescent green blades (size 6 and 7 colorado with chartreuse beads). Our speed was generally from 1.0 to 1.5. We had 15 or 16 eyes by 12:30, along with smallmouth bass, white bass, white perch, drum and channel cats. The non-targets weren't as bad as it sounds, there were just a lot of different species. I even think that I had a muskie bite harnesses off. It might not have been, but we got a really hard hit and then the harness was cut clean. Either a big walleye dove right into some zebra mussels or a muskie got us. The biggest fish were in the 5 to 6.5 pound range and most were 3 to 4 pounds. The bigger fish came from the reef top, the eater fish came from the deeper water on the north drop off. After a short lunch break back at Gibraltar we made a few last passes along the Middle Bass Island shoreline right in front of the Lonz winery. Normally I fish there in late April, but I thought that we'd give it a try since we were right there. It was well worth it as we caught a 28" 8 pound 10 ounce fish and one other smaller walleye (along with drum, white perch and a channel cat). The big fish came around 26' of water on the main shoreline drop off on a 1 ounce inline 20' back with a size 5 gold colorado blade at 1.0 mph. There was a really weird current/wind condition going on. We were trolling with the east wind along the shoreline, but current was obviously still traveling from west to east against us, despite the wind. I had a hard time going much over 1.0 without really cranking up my electric engine. There were great marks in there. I think if we would have hit it at the right time it could have been really good.

All in all it was a great day. Our biggest five fish were just under 31 pounds. Everyone got to catch fish and seemed to have a good time. Thanks to Fred and the OSU/Sea Grant crew for having us.

Travis

June 9, 2008 (Monday) Travis

Thanks for all the reports the last few days.  Their information will be summarized just below my trips.

Saturday me, dad and a friend from work pre-fished for Sunday's open tournament out of Huron.  We mostly fished from North of Beaver Creek Marina to Lorain.  We started in 25' and didn't hit any decent walleye until 35'.  We kept heading NE until we were in 40 to 45' of water.  When we hit the deeper water we started catching some nice fish.  We only landed 8 walleye on the day, but the best five that we caught in the 40 to 45' weighed around 39 pounds with the biggest two going 9 pounds 6 ounces and 10 pounds 5 ounces (30 inches).  It was really nice to catch some big fish again.  We caught them on both crankbaits and crawler harnesses trolled from 1.2 to 1.4 mph.  A Cranberry Crusher reef runner 80' back on fluorocarbon caught the 9 pound fish and a few other decent fish, and a size 7 fluorescent green colorado harnesses on a 2 ounce snap weight at 30' with 60' total out caught the 10 pounder.  2 ounce inlines 20 to 30' back with harnesses took a few.  Later in the day we tried in close at Sherod Park west of Vermilion and between boat traffic, other boats fishing, and drum it was a waste of time.  We finished the day in 25 to 30' of water off the Vermilion breakwall.  We caught one and the marks looked great, but we didn't spend much time there.

In the tournament Sunday we spent most of our time in the 40 to 45' of water between Beaver Creek and Lorain.  We caught two more good fish, but couldn't find 3 more quality bites.  We caught more fish than Saturday, but our best 5 only went 28 pounds.  The wind and waves made it a tougher day and we ended up finishing 9th in the tourney.  Congratulations to the winners that figured out how to scratch out 5 big bites.  Two teams weighed in over 40 pounds and they were fishing the same general area that we were.  Our biggest fish came on the Cranberry Crusher reef runner 80' back on fluorocarbon and the other good fish came on a 2 ounce inline 20' back with a fluorescent green blade.  Only the one big fish came on the crankbait and the rest came on fluorescent green blade harnesses with inline weights.  Our speed was 1.0 to 1.5 mph.  Most of the hits were on the starboard (inshore) side of the boat as we were always in a slight inshore turn to stay on the course that we wanted to be on with the SW wind.  I imagine most of the time those inshore boards were running less than 1 mph since they were basically on the inside of a turn.  We fished the last half hour in 20' of water east of Old Woman Creek.  It was a catch-fest in the short time that we were there.  Unfortunately the 3 or 4 that we caught just missed our 5 fish cut.  2 ounce inlines 20' back took the fish in there.

Here are the weekend reports in no certain order-

Saturday-

Starve Island to Perry's Monument- near limit up to 27.25" on Jet40's fished on 40 pound power pro with stingers (color didn't matter) at 1.9 to 2.1 mph.

1 mile S of "A" can- half limit on bottom bouncers and weapons

NE of West Sister- Limit

19 to 22' of water off of Fermi plant (MI)- limit trolling bottom bouncers and harnesses with clown and boy-girl copper blades from 1.5 to 1.7 mph.

0.5 miles S of "A" can- 2 walleye on bottom bouncers with gold harnesses.  Lots of white perch.

Sunday-

19 to 23' of water between Catawba, South Bass and Kelleys Island- 7 fish on copper watermellon spoons and harnesses, then 4 fish in 28 to 35' of water off of Middle Bass Island.

Mouse Island Reef- 6 fish (half limit in 3 hours) on gold/chartreuse mayfly rigs.

American Eagle Shoal- 2 fish, then 2 miles NE Ballast Island 2 fish, then 4 miles W of Green Island 4 fish.

Thanks again for all the reports.  Keep them coming.

The surface temp is now up into the mid 60's depending where you are.  The weather over the next few weeks might determine how quickly the bigger fish head east and north.

Travis

June 6, 2008 (Friday) Travis

This week there has been a shortage of reports, and it very well might have something to do with Sunday's tournament out of Huron.  I'll be out Saturday and we're fishing the tournament Sunday.  I'll have a full report about both days either on Sunday evening or Monday evening.

Travis

June 2, 2008 (Monday) Travis

Two reports have come in from the weekend and today.  Here they are:

"... got 12 on Friday 19 to 24", Purpledescent Deep tail dancer 200 back, Copper Confusion Reef Runner 160 back, Red and white harness 125 feet behind 3oz Bottom Bouncer.  Saturday got 5 from 21 to 26", Red and white and chartreuse  harnesses 20 feet behind a ball on downriggers 33 and 38 feet down and big dipsys on a 3.5 setting 85 feet back.  Got 4 Sunday morning 18 to 24" on same downrigger program and 2 on a big dipsy 55 back on a 0 setting with a copper confusion spooon.  Fished between Lucy's Point and Middle Island all 3 days, 1.3 to 2.7 MPH. Wind put a little adventure in the sport Saturday and Sunday."

"Three of us fished NE of Kelleys and NW of Kelleys today (Monday).   We picked up 12 walleye, 6 shy of a limit.  Last Thursday 2 of us picked up 12 walleye fishing the same area and those went 39 pounds at Bomba's.  Today's fish went 31.5 pounds so they ran considerably smaller.
 
We fished crawler harnesses behind 1.5 oz bottom bouncers behind in-line planer boards at 1.5 mph plus or minus.  Colors didn't seem to matter.  We caught fish on all of our lines.  However, the port side outermost position caught the most fish.  We swapped in and out other colors, lines, poles and it didn't seem to make any difference. If they were in the position (outermost port) then they were most likely to catch fish."

I forgot to mention in my report yesterday that the surface temperature is still about 60 around the islands.

Travis

June 1, 2008 (Sunday) Travis

Yesterday's LEWT was interesting.  Tournament boats were scattered from the islands to Lorain and good fish were caught in all areas.  No matter where you fished everyone had to deal with rain storms and horrible wind and waves for the trip back in to Catawba.  We finished the day at Gull Island Shoal and it took 50 minutes to go just over 10 miles.  We only made the check-in by about 3 minutes and I really didn't think that we were going to make it.  We weighed in 27 pounds and ended up 13th.

We spent the first half of the day on the east shoreline of North Bass Island in 13 to 17' of water.  The north half of the shoreline was best.  Gold or fluorescent green colorado blade harnesses 15' back on 1 ounce inlines caught all of our fish there.  We left North Bass at 11:15 or so with 5 fish that weighed over 23 pounds.  On Friday our best five from that same area went around 32 pounds.  The second half of the day we fished around the red buoy at the SE corner of Gull Island Shoal.  We only caught 3 fish, but one was 7 pounds and got us up to 27 pounds for the day.  Out there 2 ounce inlines 25' back with the same harnesses caught fish in 30 to 45' of water.  On Thursday we fished Gull and had 31 pounds.

Thursday and Friday were both incredible days of fishing.  While we didn't find the huge fish we were looking for we caught fish all day long both days.  Although I didn't keep track of numbers since we were catch and releasing, we caught about 25 fish on Thursday at Gull and 35 fish around North Bass on Friday.  In addition to all the fish that we caught we also missed a lot of hits as fish were hitting short and not hooking up.  In general our speed was around 1.0 to 1.3 mph gps at all times.  Around North Bass 13 to 18' feet of water seemed to be best with one ounce inlines 15' back.  Over at Gull on Thursday the east drop off and south drop off were great and the west drop off was dead.  We caught fish in 15' out to 35' of water, but the best was about 25'.  At gull we ran 1, 1.5 and 2 ounce inlines set back at the depth of water (for example 25' back in 25' of water).  On Thursday and Friday the fluorescent green colorado blades caught the most fish, but on Saturday gold blades were best.  All the blades that we ran were size 6, 7, and 8 colorados.  All caught fish, but size 7 seemed to get hit the most.

Over all it was three great days of fishing that ended with quite possibly the worst boat ride that I've ever had on Erie.  Add in the fact that we had a deadline to make and the trip got even worse.  The 2 to 5 feet waves piled up on each other were relentless and the driving rain didn't help much.  The timing of the wind couldn't have been much worse.

A few other reports have come in.  On Wednesday fishing was good west of Middle Island on the line.  Bottom bouncers with gold harnesses caught a near-limit.  On Thursday fishing was good north and also NW of Kelleys Island.  1.5 ounce bottom bouncers with gold harnesses and green beads fished 100' back at 1.5 to 1.8 mph caught a limit NW of Kelleys.  N of Kelleys dipseys 75 to 105' back with spoons (gold monkey puke and blueberry) caught a near-limit.

A tournament team reported catching their fish Friday and Saturday off of the Kelleys Island airport reef in 34 to 43 feet of water on reef runners trolled at 1.5 mph.  Their leads were 125' back on 10 pound mono and 18 pound braid, and 200' on 15 pound braid.  The best colors were chartreuse head wonderbread and barbie.

Travis