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August 31, 2008 (Sunday) Travis

This perch report came in Friday evening:

"Three of us tried perching Friday out of East Harbor. Tried off Lakeside first -struck out. Moved to Red can at Starve. My wife caught an 11-12 incher on first cast. That was it for Starve. Moved around South Bass and saw a big pack SW to NW of Rattlesnake. Tried the SW corner of the pack. My wife caught another 11 incher and that was it. Moved up onto the rattles and started catching Goby. Finally at 1130 we moved to the NW corner of the pack (1/4 - 1/2 mi NW of the rattles. Threw away 2-3 runts for every one we kept. Sat there for 2 1/2 hours and ended up with 35 fish for the three of us until we ran out of very small shiners"

Travis

August 27, 2008 (Wednesday) Travis 

One perch report from today:

"Fished off Rattlesnake in 31 FOW. Location: 41 40.6, 82 52.9  4 person limit in 3-3/4 hours. Most were 8's with largest just under 10-1/2. Lots and lots of throwbacks, <7", quite a few SH, WB and WP. Good bite all the time even if they weren't keepers."

Travis

August 25, 2008 (Monday) Travis 

One steelhead report from the weekend came in today:

"Fished Erieau sat. and sun. 25 steelhead and 9 walleye sat.,caught most of the fish on dipsys 120 on a 1 setting and 175 on a 2 ½ hot spoons were pro king acid rain and copper watermelon.Sunday we figured out we had to shorten the leads off the downrigger balls to 3-5 ft and the riggers caught most of the fish ended up with 25 steelhead and 3 walleye.We had 2 nice 8lb walleye a lot of 10lb steelies too."

It blew pretty hard out of the NE today and it was over 3' at the buoy most of the day.  Based on the last offshore forecast that I saw this afternoon it really isn't going to calm down much until Thursday morning.

Travis

August 24, 2008 (Sunday) Travis 

Two reports came in yesterday, here they are:

"started in 22 ft of water off wards canal. lots of small fish kept 6 fish moved to "a" can nothing but white perch and sheephead  moved to "b" can ended the day with 44 keepers 7-10 inches 10 fish to keep 1."

"2 man limit in 3 hours. Anchored about a mile west of the south tip of Green Island in 28 FOW @ 10 AM Saturday and never moved. 13 pounds. Lots of throwbacks but few trash fish. 4 headboats in the area. 3 hour wait at the fishcleaning station so others must have been doing OK."

Travis 

August 22, 2008 (Friday) Travis 

Here is a perch report that came in yesterday:

Marc, Aaron and other WBSA members are in the MWC at Dunkirk today and tomorrow.  Check out the walleyecentral.com live leaderboard for results later today and tomorrow.

Travis

August 20, 2008 (Wednesday) Travis 

Three perch reports came in today:

"3 people fished Wednesday 8/19, 3:45-6:15, SW of Green Island. 75 Perch, decent size, some sorting, not to many white perch. Usd spreaders with shiners. Bigger minnows caught bigger perch or put 2 small ones on same hook."

"Went out for Perch Saturday just N of a line between B and C can. Only one boat by us. First half an hour was slow and then it picked up. We got our three man limit without ever having to lift the anchor. Most fish were in the 8" range with 15 or so from 10" or bigger."

August 19, 2008 (Tuesday) Travis 

I have two new reports to pass along:

(Toledo perch) "I was out Sunday (17th) for 8 hours and Monday (18th) for 3 hours. Didn't do good at all. Total fish for both days was "7". We were all over the lake. Couldn't get connected with the Perch at all but we weren't the only ones. The fellas at the marina were commenting about the 'lock jaw'. Radio traffic was just about none existant on Sunday. Except for the Coast Guard working cases.. Monday there was some radio traffic from the island area. We were marking fish but nothing biting. The area along the side of the shipping channel from Toledo Harbor Light held fish and from the arches they were good size too. Kroger's is starting to look good better every trip out. I even checked the Lunar Tables as it was suppose to be good prime time fishing. Did notice what appears to be an algea bloom. I could be wrong. Also, the local bait shops were out of Shiners too, but they had fatheads which could be another part of this equation. Lake temperature was 75*f."

(Geneva) "Fishing has been tough! the lake just wont settle down and with a 15 mile run to the walleye lands and chances of thunderstorms almost everyday it was like rolling the dice to see if you would would get caught out in one .anyway we got our fish on spoons all close to the bottom  also wire line 375 back off planer boards stick baits  walleye are from the 03 line all the way to the 07 line once you find a pod it doesnt take long to get your fish,, junk fish have moved in the area now also ,perch has been slow with 51 feet north of the marina the best  and of course minnows are hard to get."

The first report also included a link to a new buoy in the western basin.  It looks like a great source of information, especially since it includes temperature and currents at depth.  If this one works out maybe we'll get more of them in other areas that need them:

http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/res/recon/station-wle.html

Travis

August 18, 2008 (Monday) Travis 

Today two reports came in, one for walleye and one for steelhead:

"We ran over to Wheatley Saturday morning and went 5 for 9 on the steelhead, one was over 10 Lbs. Orange spoons 4 feet behind a ball 36 feet down trolled at 2.5 to 3.2 MPH.  It was another great trip and a beautiful day on the water."

"Fished by myself Sunday 8/17 around NW Reef from 9 am to 2 pm.  Caught 2 nice walleye and a spike the first hour and then nothing except 2 white bass the rest of the day.  Was the slowest day action I’ve had all year.  Trolled with dipsies; spoon on one rod and a crawler harness on the other.  Walleye were caught on a Raspberry Dolphin Stinger soon.  Tried a 30 jet driver and a variety of spoon colors and several different harnesses, but couldn’t get anything going."

Travis

August 17, 2008 (Sunday) Travis 

Two perch reports have come in from the weekend:

"Took a one man Perch limit the other side of B-Can in 29 FoW.  One crank off the bottom.  Nothing jumbo size, but well worth keeping for the frying pan."

"Caught a three man limit 200 yards west of the rattles in 4 hours with MANY throw backs."

Travis

August 14, 2008 (Thursday) Travis 

One perch report came in today:

"Wednesday - Four persons caught 82 perch (18 pounds) in four hours in 29 FOW ¼ to ½ miles west and northwest of Green Island . I think we threw back twice that many as 7” and under. Moved 3 times trying to find larger concentrations of larger fish, to no avail. Lots of boats sitting 3/8 mile west of rattlesnake and strung out from Rattlesnake to Green."

Travis

August 13, 2008 (Wednesday) Travis

Four reports came in today.  Here they are-

"CAUGHT SOME NICE PERCH SUNDAY 8/9/08 @ THE TOLEDO LIGHT HOUSE AREA, FIRST BOUY ON THE NORTH SIDE OF THE DITCH. ALSO FRIENDS OF MINE TROLLED ON SATURDAY 8/9/08 BETWEEN THE TOLEDO LIGHT HOUSE AND THE WATER INTAKE  IN 21 FEET OF WATER AND PULLED 10 WALLEYE IN 3 HOURS ( BIG BOARDS AND DIPSY WITH SPOONS)."

"We got a late start Tuesday afternoon leaving the dock at 4:00PM. This was primarily a search mission for us to find some nice size Perch hot spots. The Gravel Pit has always been good to us and a promising area. So, that became our first stop. Our first line out had a double right off the bat. One was 8.5 inches and the other was 7 inches, then wouldn't you know it, nothing for 30 minutes. We decided to move around the area searching but found nothing. Air temperature was 78 degrees F and cloudy. The wind was out of the Southeast and less than 10 knots but we noticed it started to pick up about 5:30PM. Waves went from 1 foot to 2 feet with an occasional 3 footer. Water temperature was 75 degrees F and clear with an occasional weed.
Our next move was to the Toledo Water Intake area ( 083* 14.680', 41* 41.800') where the fishing improved. We were into more smaller throw back size Perch of abouot 7 inches but did manage to pick up 7 that were greater than 8 inches with two at 9.5 inches. We have a self imposed keeper size limit of 8 inches or greater. The bite was very light and right on the bottom. There were some white perch in the area and an occasional sheephead. We were using both perch spreaders and crappie rigs and minnows with #26 size, Mustad #3777 Central Draught hooks. I tie my own snells. The bottom hook on the crappie rig was probably the most productive. If we would of had more time I am pretty confident we could have taken our limits."

"Tuesday 8/12/08 West of Kelley's. Lots of boats.  Two of us boated 30 perch from 11:30am to 3:30pm. The best action was during the last hour and a half.  There were a ton of trash fish that keep us busy.  All in 35 ft of water."

"Four of us fished 2 spots today.  The first was off the NW corner of Kellys in 30 FOW.
Coordinates: 41d 37.5, 82d 44.4
Results 8 fish in about 1-1/2 hours.  The second was off the NE corner of Ballast in 30 FOW.
Coordinates: 41d 40.9, 82d 46.3
Results 34 fish in about 4 hours.  Size from 7 to 11-1/2.  Lots of SH, WP, WB. a couple of catfish, and a small goby.  The shiners were very small and soft.  We had quite a few bites, but we lost a lot of shiners due to the condition of the bait.  If you got a nibble and didn't get a fish, you had to pull in and put on more bait.  Our average this year is about 12.7 fish per man. This was our 18th trip this year.  Last year our overall average for 33 trips was 17.6, and thru August 14, 2007, our average was 19.9 for 21 trips.  It seems to us that there are less fish than previous years, and they are running smaller."

Thanks for the reports, keep them coming.

Travis 

August 11, 2008 (Monday) Marc

I don't have any reports that Travis hasn't already put up but I do have a response (explanation) for one of our readers and i'm sure there are more that wonder.

The question asked today was why we have lots of walleye reports but don't have many perch reports. The simple fact is that we can only report what we ourselves catch or that you readers send to us and frankly neither Travis nor myself get out as much as we'd like, it's been almost 2 weeks for me. Mostly because of gas costs and other expenses rising with it, same as a lot of you.

If there are no perch reports that simply means that we don't get them. Same for bass fishing and Steelhead. If we get them we report them. Occassionally we get info that is second hand and then it becomes a judgement call whether that gets put on here or not. If we do, it is usually with a disclaimer stating that. We don't take reports from newspapers or other websites. All reports on here come from our readers and we thank those few that do it on a regular basis and also those that don't get out much but always let us know how they did.

These reports aren't real hard to do if we have a good internet connection. Travis spends a small amount of time getting them on here and then has a monthly maintenance move to archive them and he does a great job at it. I'm sure if we got more reports to put up he'd be delighted. Send em if you got em!

Marc

August 10, 2008 (Sunday) Travis 

Yesterday dad and I fished a Huron Lagoons Marina customers' tournament.  We started at the south end of the bar around 32/18 and trolled east with the waves.  We battled way too much junk and ended up around too many boats in the pack, so we ran back up to the same area that we fished last weekend closer to 34/19.  We found less junk and more walleye, but in the end we sorted through 15 fish or so to weigh in 5 that went 20.9 pounds for 5th place.  We never did get a big fish to bite.  For the specifics you can look at last sunday's report, we basically fished the same way yesterday with everything coming on harnesses and 3 ounce snap weights.  If you decide to fish that same area you need to be careful.  Between last week and this week commercial trap nets showed up at the SE end of the area that we were fishing.

Two other reports have come in:

"Two of us fished out of Lorain Hotwaters Saturday morning.  Started trolling with dipsies and Stinger spoons and crawler harnesses about 8 am at the 32/15 line in about 47 FOW and trolled NE with the waves (2-4 footers) from there.  Made 2 long passes and had our limit of 12 walleye ranging from 19-25" in just under 3 hr. plus threw two 16-17" back and lost 2 fish when purchased worm harnesses broke.  Spoons and harnesses caught about the same number of fish and most were caught near the bottom."

Geneva report:
"walleye still north east from the marina out about 10 miles harnessess with power bait natural color crawlers out fished real ones , any willow blade color worked well with watermellon spoons also producing all near the bottom.  we also pulled some perch but it has slowed and schools seem to be scattered. 42 and 63 ft we took perch at."

Travis

August 6, 2008 (Wednesday) Travis 

A report from last Saturday came in today:

"Two of us fished last Saturday out of Catawba from about 8 am to 2:30 pm and ended up with only 7 walleye.  Started out by trolling spoons behind dipsies about a mile N of C Can.  Was very slow going as we only picked up 2 walleye in about the first 3 hr.  Then moved over to the NW Reef area where we had better marks and picked up 5 more there.  As usual, were lots of Sheephead and white bass and a couple of yellow perch, but walleye were hard to come by.  All except one were caught on Stinger spoons.  No spoon color was a standout and most fish were caught down low near the bottom.  At mid day I put a worm harness behind a dipsy on one rod and caught 1 walleye on it."

Travis

August 4, 2008 (Monday) Travis 

Two new reports have come in, one from up north for steelhead and another for perch a little closer to home.  Here they are:

"Wheatly was a blast Saturday. We went 10 for 16 on the steelheads and got a 23" walleye. Several of the Steelhead were over 27 inches with a bunch of 23 to 26 inch ones as well. This was our first trip and time attempting Steelhead and it was every thing I have read and more. The aerial show they put on is nothing short of wild."

"I got a late start this morning leaving the dock at 09:30AM. We motored out to north of Wards Canal at 41* 41.000' and 083* 14.000' for a starting point. Since we were marking a lot of fish we continued east using Jet 20's at 60 to 80 feet back. we had our slide divers out and 75 to 100 feet back in 23 feet of water. We used a variety of colored spoons but gold and pink worked best followed by purple and black. At the start the bite was good but all were under 15 inches. There were so many that we even quit keeping a tally on them. We did get one 19 inch walleye that we kept. I figured we would double back then swing north on the 083* 14.000' line and head for the Toledo Channel #2 Buoy area (aka Sputnik). We were watching the dark sky to the west and it was starting to look threatening so we nixed that idea and headed for the Toledo Water Intake area. About noon the WSW wind picked up and the waves went from 1 foot to 1 to 3 foot. Air temperature and water temperature were both 75 degrees F."

Personally I'm still physically and mentally recovering from the end of the LEWT season.  Now I can focus on a little fun fishing when time permits and start thinking ahead to the September 20 hawg fest.  Dare I start thinking about October/November pig fishing off of Huron and Vermilion?

Travis

August 3, 2008 (Sunday) Travis

The final LEWT event of the year was yesterday out of Lorain.  The weather made fishing a little tough compared to the day before and the weights were less than they could have been if the front hadn't gone through right before the tournament.  Dad and I ended up 9th with 25.5 pounds and it put us in second in the overall points standings.  Congratulations to Tim and Scott for earning their first LEWT championship.  They had a great year and finished it off with a top 5 on a tough day.

Dad and I had pre-fished Saturday, Thursday and Friday north of Avon Point in 66 to 69 feet of water.  We tried that first on Saturday because I looked at a map and realized that the same 68' contour line that we fished over at Ashtabula in the migration open ran all the way to Avon and then headed north from there.  My thinking was that there might be a better grade of fish out in the deep water compared to around the sandbar.  When we ran out to the deep water last Saturday the first spot that we stopped on was loaded.  By dumb luck we stopped on the best school of fish in the entire area.  The marks were great, we caught a lot of fish, and one was 8 pounds.  Based on the marks I expected there to be more big fish, so we fished it again on Thursday and Friday.  We caught fish both days, but the consistent size still wasn't what I was looking for.  We caught them mostly on harnesses with 90 to 130' of line out with a 3 ounce snap weight attached 30' in front of the harness at 1.7 to 2.1 mph.  Our best blades were whiptail blades painted in pink lemonade or pink, white and purple.  We also caught fish on reef runners on braided line and renosky's on 6 colors of leadcore, but the biggest fish came on the snap weights and harnesses.  There were three main areas that we caught fish in.  Here are the waypoints:

N 41 40.921 W 82 02.498
   41 41.433    82 01.428
   41 42.908    81 59.662

We also made a few stops on the horseshoe reef on Avon Point.  We caught fish pretty fast on 1.5 and 2 ounce inlines 25' back with harnesses right on top the arms of the horseshoe, but the biggest fish was 4.75 pounds.  With the wind the day of the tourney we decided not to run north of Avon.  One of our pre-fishing buddies caught good fish on the south end of the sandbar on Friday so we decided to fish it on Saturday even though we hadn't been there yet.  Fishing was fast and furious for the first two hours and then it really slowed down for us.  We had 25 pounds before 10:00 and only had a half pound upgrade the rest of the day.  All the fish we caught basically north or northeast of the shallowest southern lobe of the sandbar.  All my waypoints were between N 33.024 to 33.989 and W 18.874 to 18.070 (middle numbers of the coordinates).  We did end up catching the big fish of the tournament at 8.3 pounds, but only had 3 four pound fish and a 3 pound fish to add to it.  Harnesses did all the damage again.  Our best fish came on a gold wide willow harnesses 110' feet back with a 3 ounce snap weight at 30' in front of the harnesses (80' between the weight and the board).  We also caught fish on whiptail harnesses, colorado harnesses, reef runners and deep husky jerks.  The marks were great.  There were scattered marks in the 45' of water off the bar and stacked marks on the drop off from the 40' of water on top of the bar.  We were east of a good size pack of boats that was working the top of the bar and the west drop off.

Two other reports have come in so far:

"3 of us fished Thursday out of Lorain Hotwaters from 1 to 8 pm.  Was slow going and fish were really scattered, but did end up with 18 nice walleye. Ranged in size from 17 to 26”.  Trolled Stinger spoons off dipsies about 6.5 mile N of Lighthouse in 48-52 FOW.   Most caught near bottom.   Copper Chicken Wing and other colors with orange worked best."

"fished on the outside edge of PIB Harbor. Caught 6 jumbo perch 11  to 12 1/2"  right around sunset on whole minnows. White bass still schooled up off Chimney Point."

Travis