December

Fishing Reports & News

Send Fishing Report to Erie Reports

December 21, 2008 (Sunday) Travis

As I'm writing this the temperature at the South Bass Island weather station is 1 degree, and the wind chill is (-26).  As mild as our winters have been lately this is really a surprise this early in the season.  The last few years we really haven't seen winter until January or February and this year it arrived in early December.  November was a great month of fall fishing and it looked like it could go right through December.  So much for that.  It basically ended the week after Thanksgiving.  It's interesting how unique each year can be.

I haven't reported lately because there just hasn't been anything to report.  Marc mentioned our Cleveland boat show presentations in the report below.  If you're interested come and check them out.

I hope that all of you have a great Holiday season and a good start to the new year.  2008 was another great year for my family.  We're all healthy and we added our second child, a little girl to go with her big brother, last month.  Although the weather didn't always cooperate during the '08 fishing season it's still apparent that we are extremely spoiled here on Lake Erie.  We have come to expect limits and 20" fish are starting to look "small".  I recently saw a report on walleye fishing on inland Wisconsin lakes.  They were comparing one of their better lakes to one that didn't have much reproduction.  When I saw the distribution of lengths of fish harvested I had to take a second look.  Much of there harvest was in the 10 to 14" range and 20+" fish were few and far between.  I don't say any of this to insult Wisconsin fishing, they certainly have some good fishing up there, but it reminded me of how truly spoiled we are.  Sure, you don't catch your limit every day.  No, you don't catch a 30" 10 pound fish every trip.  However, if you bother to keep track of your catch rate over the entire season, or the lengths of all the fish you end up catching, you'll probably have a hard time finding a freshwater system in the world that can compare.

Here's to one more good year in the books and another good one on the horizon.

Travis

December 12, 2008 (Friday) Marc

As 2008 winds down to a close, I'd like to wish all the Denied readers a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I'd also like to thank Travis for keeping up on the Denied pages and you guys for visiting the site often and sending in your reports. I also want to announce a couple winter events that Travis and I are involved in that may interest some of our Cleveland area readers. 

WBSA is having their first ever Cleveland meeting at 7PM, on Monday, Jan 12 at Skully Jaxx in Brunswick, Oh. Our speakers will be Travis, Don Peterson from Ole Pete's Tackle and Max Syvuk from Maxed Out Enterprises. Travis will more than likely do some Walleye hatch updates and population and fish catching statistics and will have an awesome Powerpoint presentation to make it all interesting and understandable. You also might be able to coax some questions out of him about fishing techniques and presentations. He never blows his own horn but he has quietly become one of the most proficient structure and open water trollers on the lake and is not shy about sharing techniques when asked. 

Don and Max will be a tag team with Don talking about Worm Harness issues and will answer any questions about tying and performance of different types of lures including jigs. We may even design a few lures that night , if anyone has some ideas but no way to put them in action. Max will make a great presentation about colors and about when and why you should change them. They will also discuss the various tackle storage ideas they have come up with and that more and more people are using.

Travis will also be doing the Cleveland Boat Show. I don't have his schedule but I do know he will be there on Sat Jan, 17th twice because I have been invited to speak about advantages of club membership and tournament fishing, in between his 2 shows at 4 PM. Please come up and introduce yourselves if you happen to be there.

I do plan on doing some fishing this weekend, I have a feeling that the rapid water temp drop will have shut down the trolling bite so I am taking some minnows with me to do some jigging (ice fishing from my boat). I'll let Travis know how I do.

Take care everyone and "Thank You all" for your support during the year!

Marc