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Lake Erie Fishing Reports "Aboard Denied"
October 2008
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Fishing Reports |
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Send Fishing Report to Erie Reports |
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October 27, 2008 (Monday) Travis |
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I haven't received a single report since my last post, and I can understand why with the less-than-desirable weather that we've been stuck with. Early this morning we had some snow showers and with the gale SW wind the water level dropped 3 feet in the western basin. The water has already started coming back up and the wind is backing off, but if the offshore forecast is accurate we are looking at more wind than I want to see most of this week.
The good news is that some big fish were caught in this past weekend's Walleye Central bragging rights tourney. I decided against fishing it because I didn't feel like getting beat up in the wind and waves. Most of the nearshore water from Huron to Vermilion was muddy and it was rough offshore. I heard second hand that 4 fish weighing around 37 pounds won the tournament and that it took 30 pounds to make it in the top 4. The big fish was over 10 pounds. The big fish are definitely back in the right places. Now we just need some decent weather to go out and get them. A little clear water wouldn't hurt either.
Travis |
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October 20, 2008 (Monday) Travis |
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Four reports came in since yesterday's post:
"Three of us fished off of Kellys Island Airport Reef today. Location 41d 35.785', 82d 39.235'. Limited out in 2 hr and 40 min, (0920 until 1200) 38 FOW. 24# LW, Few throwbacks and few trash fish. About 3 males to 2 females. There were about 7 other boats in this area."
"Saturday was a great Perching Day. Went out on Tibbels' MISS JILL with Capt. Jim (GREAT CAPTAIN). We first went to the Dumping Grounds North of the Cedar Point Amusement Park. Caught a few. Moved out to Kelly Island Shoal not far from the marker. We got a full boat load. Everybody limited out. Lots of 12', 11's and 10's. Tossed back anything less than a 7. Action was steady. Sometimes we were right on them were everybody had one on at the same time. Many doubles, even a few triples. A few Sheephead, White Perch and White Bass. They had great Shinners, no giant ones and no gold ones. It was OK for wind and a good wave action, nothing rough just a steady roll. Tibbels is running until the 31st I think. not sure, Need to call them and check with them to see when they are going out."
"Today was probably my last trip of the year, and best. 2 man limit at just over 18 lbs. Off SE corner of Kellys by our selves. Plus, my fishing buddy got a 27, 7 ฝ lb Walleye on a Perch rig."
"Had a very good day out on the lake today. I didn't burn very much gasoline on this trip. We left the dock about 9:00 AM and headed out to 41* 42.950' and 083* 14.270'. Essentially this is almost the same position northeast of the Toledo Water Intake that we fished last Sunday. We stayed in this one spot all day and had our two man limit of 50 Yellow Perch at 3:30 PM. It was a touch and go bite. About the time we decided to move the bite would pick up. So, we stayed put. We used Perch spreaders and Crappie rigs. It seemed any color worked equally well. The smaller Shiners (1.5") performed much better than the larger (2.5") ones. Sharp hooks were very important. We used Tru-Turn #8 in red and Mustad #28 snells. In many instances the Perch picked up the bait on the drop. Our largest fish was 10-3/4". We kept only fish over 8". Had quite a few throwbacks but no 'trash' fish were caught. Imagine that.
When we started out the air temperature was about 40*F but it warmed up to about 60*F. The wind was from the southeast at about 5 knots and it was clear. Surface Water temperature was 60.4*F. Waves were <1 foot. Water clarity was cloudy. About 2:30 PM the wind shifted to the east and picked up to about 10 knots and the waves increased to 2 feet. The bite also picked up at this time too. Barometer was steady at 30.14"Hg."
It looks like there is going to be a lot of wind the next few days. It's going to mess up the water clarity, but hopefully we get the weather to clear it up within the next week.
Travis |
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October 19, 2008 (Sunday) Travis |
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Dad and I made it out for a very enjoyable afternoon of fishing today. We got our lines in the water before noon and fished until 4. We started at the 30/30 lines north of Huron and stayed pretty much within a mile or two. We ended up landing 8 walleye. 6 of the 8 were west of where we started and the last two (and also the two biggest) were south of where we started. All of them were fat fish over 22", and the biggest two went 9 and 7 pounds. Two of the fish came on harnesses. One of the harnesses fish was on a one ounce snap weight 30' back with an additional 30' from the weight to the harness. The other harness fish was on the same amount of line out, but with a 3 ounce snap weight. The rest came on reef runners. 5 of the 8 fish came with 160' of 15/4 braid out (3 on "lights out" and 2 on gold clown). The other fish came on purple bare naked 20' back on fluorocarbon. The 9 pound fish hit the gold clown 160 back and the 7 pound fish hit the purple bare naked 20 back. Our speed was 1.2 to 1.7, the water was stained although I could still see my prop and skeg, the water temp was 61 on the surface, and the wind was calm. There were still some dead rollers left over from yesterday's NE wind.
Let's hope that this was a good start to a great fall. It certainly was an improvement compared to some of the rough days earlier this summer.
Travis |
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October 15, 2008 (Wednesday) Travis |
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Two new reports to pass along:
"Went out on the Drawbridge Head Boat (Watanna II) on Tuesday. We went out by C-Can all day, never moved. The action was touch and go. There were only 3 other boats (One charter and 2 other private boats) out in that area most of the day. A couple of guys at one spot on the boat were really hot. The rest of the boat was on the slow side. There were a lot of small perch, not many white bass, No sheepheads or gobies. There were some 12's caught and quite a few 10's or so. Lot of fish in the 6 to 8 ranges and a lot of toss backs. They had nice Shiners at Drawbridge. A lot on the big side. Looked like there were some Gold ones mixed in with the others. A cold front came through about 11 and really blew hard and the temp dropped about 15 degrees or so. At about 1 it started to warm back up and laid down a lot. The other boats moved out during the hard blow."
"Lots of nice perch have moved in around several of the Islands. I have limited out 4 days in a row with 8 to 12 1/2 inchers. 30-32 FOW. North and west of North Bass, East and West Points of Middle Bass (Lucy's and Chimney Points), North of Rattlesnake, east of Ballast, NE of Kelleys, etc all have perch stacked up pretty good, with good catches being made. Morning bite was the only thing going for a while, but now it seems like a steady all day bite most days."
Travis |
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October 14, 2008 (Tuesday) Travis |
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Here's another good perch (and steelhead) report from Geneva that came in today:
"we limited on perch again today fished straight north in 42 ft water fish were all nice very few small ones got rough so i was glad we got out early... lots of steelhead being caught inside the marina in the mornings with cleo spoons saw 8 on the bank"
Travis |
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October 13, 2008 (Monday) Travis |
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Here are the reports that have come in the last few days:
Geneva- "took mom and dad out this morning nice limit of jumbo perch and one steelhead on a perch rig 42ft nw of the marina"
"My son and I started out off Catawba Saturday and then went north ending up at C can on the range. All small throwbacks until we got to C where we got our limit of 8-12 inch fish. There were some throwbacks, but not as bad as other stops along the way."
Sunday- "Left the dock at 11:00 AM and returned at 4:45 PM. Barometer was 30.14"Hg and steady. Sky was clear, Air Temperature was 62*F. Wind was from the ESE at 10 Knots. Water clarity was 'murky/muddy'. Water Surface Temperature was 64*F. Waves were 1 foot. (A very nice Autumn day!)
We fished only two spots today. The first was off Wards Canal at aprox. 41* 40.500' and 083* 14.800'. We did mark plenty of fish there but they were (throwbacks) small Yellow Perch, White Perch and Sheephead. We moved around quite a bit but frustration got the best of us and we moved out into somewhat cleaner (not by much) water at 41* 43.000' and 083* 14.200'. After catching a few throwback Yellow Perch we began to have better success with bigger Perch at 8" and greater. The bite was touch and go and we had to work for them. We'd catch maybe two or three nice fish then have either a 10 minute dry spell or the small fish moved in. For the most part the minnows had to be on the bottom then do a slow rise. If you felt a slight weight increase then set the hook. There were also a few times when the bite was very 'rod bending' aggressive. Our best rig was a Perch spreader with Silver Blades and Emerald Green Beads. Other colored rigs (red, orange, chartruese) also produced fish but not as well as the green beads and silver blades. We ended up with a two man limit of 50 perch. Also, during our stay at the second spot we noticed the algea moved in and then out and our somewhat clean water became very murky/muddy"
"4 man limit on sunday 20 at a can the rest at b can caught 300 fish to keep 100 24 pounds. buddys got limit 2 guys 50 perch 2 miles off wards. water is a lot cleaner and fish are hitting in close again"
Geneva- "jumbos are in fished 45 ft up to 13 inchers not super a super fast bite but we got all we wanted"
Travis |
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October 8, 2008 (Wednesday) Travis |
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Here are the reports since Monday:
"Two of us perch fished last Saturday. Started off SE corner of Kelleys in about 35 FOW. Was slow going, but did catch a few nice perch. After a couple of hours moved up off NE corner of Kelleys Is. in 45 FOW. Moved a couple times and ended up on N of large pack of boats fairly close to Canadian line. Again, was slow going as fish never really turned on. Would get a spurt of 3 or 4 keepers and then slow down again. Fished from 8 am to 5 pm. The bad news is we only kept 38 fish (kept 1 for about every 4 or 5 throwbacks). The good news was the size of keepers ranged from 9 to 12.5 with 7 or 8 at least 11."
"Beautiful day! Started east of Kelleys Shoal in 40' of water @ 10:00
AM-Caught 5-6 junk and small perch for every keeper. Moved north of Kelleys
Shoal--same results. Moved again to Gull Shoal same results. Finally went
to the loading dock in 27' of water @ 3:00 and limited. Most were in the 9"
range after sorting with 8-10 being in the 12" range."
Walleye: "Launched at Huron on Monday. No fish west of the pier, but some nice hooks in 30 FoW. Headed east and had nice marks in front of Cranberry. Set my lines and had two right of the bat. Blue/Chrome ripsticks about 100 back."
Travis |
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October 6, 2008 (Monday) Travis |
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Two new perch reports came in today:
Geneva, Sat.-Sun.: "perched both days 45 ft we limited both days but slow and steady bite 4hours each day nice fish lots of 10 inchers"
"Left dock at 730 and ran out to Niagara Bell fished for an hour no keepers. Ran out to Rattlesnake off the runway 2 perch in an hour moved on out to West Reef Zip, moved out to Canadian line zip, started back in at 11 with two perch in box stopped at Little Pickerel Reef had limit in 2 hours (2 guys). Water is clearer in the reefs that it was out past West Reef."
Since I'll be giving a presentation at the WBSA meeting on Tuesday I probably won't be putting up a report until Wednesday or when the next report comes in.
Travis |
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October 5, 2008 (Sunday) Travis |
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It was a windy week and the first reports since Wednesday just came in today. They will follow my report.
I made it out yesterday (Saturday). We started out near the Canadian border just SW of the weather buoy in the same area that I fished the Hawg Fest (see 9/21 report). The area was completely devoid of fish. The screen was totally empty and one pass through what was previously the best area only yielded one white bass. We moved south and found some decent marks around the N 35-36 and W 22-24 lines (just west of the middle of the sandbar in 49' of water). From about 10:00 to 3:00 it was slow going, but we ended up landing 8 walleye and lost a few others. All the fish went 3 to 5 pounds. The hottest set up that took 5 of the fish was a gold size 6 colorado harness with 55' of line out with a 1 ounce snap weight at 25' in front of the harness (30' from the weight to the board). 2 fish came on a Cranberry Crusher reef runner 80' back on fluorocarbon, and the last fish came on a bottom bouncer on the bottom with a harness. Our speed was from 1.3 to 1.6 mph. I had two crankbaits out all day, two bottom bouncers out all day, and the other two rods were harnesses with snap weights. The fish that we kept were puking gizzard shad in the livewell, even though crankbait bites were hard to come by. I tried lots of colors and depths on both the crankbaits and the snap weight harnesses. The only consistent set-up was the 1 ounce snap weight. We missed 3 or 4 decent walleye hits on that same set-up in addition to the five that it landed. The water temp was around 65 on the surface and the water was pretty clear, especially considering the wind earlier this week. I think that it's only a matter of time until the bigger fish start moving nearshore.
Here are the perch reports that came in:
"Two man limit, 4-4 1/2 hrs at numbers from Wednesday's report below (41d 34.685', 82d 41.590'). 20 lbs. which included 1, 14 White Bass. So I figure 18 lbs. Stopped there first and never moved. Fished alone all day. Heard other good reports from Marblehead and SE of Kellys."
"Saturday from 10-2, 4 of us went to West Reef just south of the buoy in 32 FOW. Limited out with 28 pounds. Few throwbacks."
Tuesday I'm going to be giving a work-related presentation at the WBSA meeting. See the WBSA home page for details (www.WBSA.us).
Travis |
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October 1, 2008 (Wednesday) Travis |
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The wind really kicked up this afternoon, but I did get one perch report:
"Four of us ventured out from Mazurik this morning. Fished South of Kelleys at 41d 34.685', 82d 41.590' in 26 FOW. We ended up with 76 keepers in 4 1/4 hours. Few throwbacks and the largest was around 11-1/2". LOTS and LOTS of WP, a few SH and a couple of catfish also. We didn't get rained on, as the showers were East and South of us. The wind started to build after 1300 hrs so we fished until about 1320 and headed back to Mazurik in 4-5 footers. It took us about 25 min to go the 4-1/2 miles. When we went out , we were the only ones in the parking lot. When we got back, there were 2 other rigs parked there. Needless to say, we had the lake pretty much to ourselves today."
Travis | |
