Fishing Reports & News

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June 29, 2009 (Monday) Travis 

Two reports came in today, on with limits and one slow report.  Here they are:

"All I can say is BAD BAD BAD - 3 guys - went 15 miles out on Canadian line by middle sister trolled the line west and then turned toward West Sister - trolled for 6 hours - 2 walleye and too many sheepshead and white bass to count.  Pulled spoons, harnesses, cranks, divers, jets, snap on weights, in-line weights, stickbaits, J7's  - nothing worked.  The worst outing of the year."

"Fished  Sat. afternoon about 4-5 miles east of Kelley's from 4 to 6 PM and caught limit of walleyes trolling gold crawler harnesses with two ounce inline sinkers about sixty feet behind boards. All large fish including a 29 incher."

Travis

June 28, 2009 (Sunday) Travis 

The past ten days have reminded me how lucky I am to live in this region.  I spent 8 of the past ten days fishing, 4 days last week and early this week fishing for muskie on the Detroit River and 4 days this week fishing for walleye on Erie.

Thursday and Friday dad and I pre-fished off of Geneva and Ashtabula for yesterday's Migration Open tournament.  Thursday we spent fishing mostly off of Ashtabula.  Fishing was great early and then slowed down mid-day, and then picked back up at the end of the day.  In the first hour and a half we had 5 fish that weighed 31 pounds, with the best two at 7 and 8 pounds.  We caught them in 68 to 71' of water along the W 53 line slightly NW of Ashtabula.  As in past years our best set-up was 6 colors of leadcore line with a chrome, pink and purple Renosky J-plug at 2 mph.  We also caught fish on 4 ounce inline weights 30 to 50' back with willowleaf or whiptail blade harnesses.  Pink, purple and yellow blades with purple or chartreuse beads were best.  Later in the afternoon we fished N-NE of Geneva in 68 to 71' and had a few upgrades getting us to 33 pounds for the day.  Reef runners (purple bare naked) 160' back on 15/4 braid caught 4 fish.

Friday was slower for us with our best five fish weighing 26.5 pounds.  We really struggled to catch fish off of Ashtabula.  We fished the same area but the marks were gone and we only caught four fish.  We went back to the area N-NE of Geneva where we caught fish on Thursday and we started catching fish again.  4 ounce inlines 40' back with the previously mentioned harnesses at 2 mph caught most of the fish with leadcore not catching anything.

For the tournament on Saturday we had our lowest weight of the three days weighing in 25.14 pounds for our best five fish.  We actually had our best day of fishing as far as numbers of fish.  We must have caught over 30 fish and from 1 to 3 pm we couldn't keep lines in the water.  We started out the day N-NE of Geneva and caught 6 quick fish, but none were over 5 pounds.  Since we had our five fish so early we took a chance and ran back to Ashtabula thinking that maybe the bigger fish had moved back in there.  In hindsight we should have just run west even though we hadn't pre-fished down there.  We really got into the fish at Ashtabula, but only two of them were 5 pounders and we spent the whole afternoon upgrading ounces.  Leadcore with the Renosky caught fish, but the 4 ounce inlines with whiptail harnesses kept us really busy.  In the end we just didn't figure the bigger fish out.  It's a shame to be down about such a great day of fishing, but it certainly wasn't a good tournament day for us at the weigh-in.

Today I fished off of Lorain and Avon in a friend's boat.  Four of us caught 19 walleye in 49 to 56' of water basically from west of Lorain to nearly N of Avon.  3 ounce inline weights 60 to 70' back at 1.7 to 2 mph got most of the action.  1 to 4 pm was the best fishing.  Early we battled wind and rain and then the wind came back late in the afternoon.  All in all it was a fairly rough day on the lake and I was thankful to be in a bigger boat.  The best harnesses were willow, whiptail or Indiana blades in pink panties and barbie.  Two of the fish were in the 6 to 7+ pound range, with most being 3 to 5 pounds and a few in the 16 inch range.  A pink lemonade reef runner 65' back caught one of the fish and we fished bottom bouncers off the corners of the boat all day with very little success.  We never really found a huge school of fish.  There were just small groups of fish scattered everywhere and when we were on them we caught a few.

I really expect Fairport Harbor, Geneva, Ashtabula and Conneaut to fire up in the next few weeks, big time.  With water temps warming fish are going to be migrating down there in mass.  The numbers of fish caught Saturday proved that many of them are in the area already.  It still amazes me how great the fishing is down there relative to how few boats are fishing.  You can literally find groups of fish with no other boats in site.  We rarely ever had more than 2 to 5 boats within site, including tournament day.  It is really excellent fishing without the big packs of boats to deal with, especially at a time when things are getting tough around the islands.  Although the water depths can be intimidating, you are still basically fishing for fish 30 to 40' down.  Many of the same techniques that work over west also work in the east.

Travis

June 24, 2009 (Wednesday) Travis 

A good report came in today.  This will be my last post until I get back from Geneva this weekend.

"Just got home from a great weekend on Lake Erie, got our 3 man limits the last 3 days. Saturday it took about 4 hours, Sunday about 3.5 hours and today about 3 hours. Yesterday and today we fished a few extra hours just releasing some nice walleyes. Our fish probably averaged between 4.5 and 5lbs, largest being over 8lbs. We were 14 miles east of Kelleys Island near the Canadian line. Best producers were 2oz weight from 45' to 55' back from the boards, harness colors didn't seem to matter."

Travis

June 23, 2009 (Tuesday) Travis 

Two new reports came in today.  Here they are:

"Had a great fathers day, took the family to South Bass with bikes. On the way out I noticed the pack of boats SW of Green Island. On the way back my family let me have a couple short drifts in that area. 7pm to 8pm. I caught 1 walleye and lost another at the boat in 50 mins drifting. Also caught 4 sheep and 1 white perch.

The caught walleye took a green harness with mixed veggie silver blade 3 feet off bottom drifting .8 mph. I was experimenting a bit, I knew the mayflies were starting to move up to hatch. The rig above was in the holder while I casted a gold erie derie on a second rod. The first drift I was casting with the wind, counting to the bottom, then lifting and reeling it in almost straight up. I caught the sheep and white perch.

The second drift I casted out the back and lifted, reeled until it came in. I was basically fishing the swing off the back of the boat. Third cast I hooked a good one and got it to the surface, it dove and broke my line. Maybe this is a better method to imitate the mayflies since the lure would have been moving the same direction as the wind and coming up.

I was about 3/4 mile SW of green island. The wind was out of the east. There were good consistent marks from 10' down to the bottom at 30' and I was occasionally marking mayflies too."

"Two of us went out yesterday from 8-4 PM, fished from Kelley's to Lorain and caught 4 nice eyes. The bite was super slow , lot's of sheephead, they must be full of mayflies and not hungry. We tried everything worm harnesses, spoons etc. All 4 eyes were caught on the spoons using dipsys 65 and 104 ft back at about 1.9 to 2.1 kts."

I'll be heading to Geneva at the end of this week for Saturday's migration open.  If any reports come in by Wednesday evening I'll put them up.  Otherwise I'll be back at the end of the weekend to catch up with what has come in.

Travis 

June 22, 2009 (Monday) Travis 

I just got back from a long weekend of casting for muskies up on the Detroit River.  It was a great trip.  In 3.5 days of fishing we saw 38 muskies and landed 11 of them.  Sunday was by far the best day with 5 landed, and 3 of them were over 41".  We had a great time.  I could spend a lot more time fishing for them.

Here is the only report that came in while I was gone.  Based on the lack of reports and the slow report that came in, I'm guessing it was a tough weekend:

"We fished Saturday and Sunday 3 to 4 miles east of Kelley’s Shoal.   Caught 4 walleyes in two days, lots of sheephead and white bass.  40 Jets-70 back in the morning- 85 back in the afternoon and were even catching them at 140 back.  Pretty slow two days.  Weather was beautiful yesterday."

This weekend is the Geneva migration open.  I'm looking forward to going down there to fish for some big migrators.  This could end up being a great week between the muskie fishing and trip to Geneva.

Travis 

June 18, 2009 (Thursday) Travis 

A good perch report came in today.  Here it is:

Travis

June 17, 2009 (Wednesday, report #2) Travis 

See Marc's fishing report below from earlier this evening.  Here are two new reports that have come in:

"4 men trolled 14.5 miles out - N / NE of Niagara - 1 fish in 5 hours - dragging jets and spoons and plastic.  The mayfly hatch is very very heavy boats and buildings are totally covered with the East wind."

"The fist week in June we did well NW tip of North Bass Island right by the red border can. # 5 Fire tiger blades, 2oz inline weights, let it hit bottom then 2 cranks up 1.5 mph."

Travis

June 17, 2009 (Wednesday) Marc  

I spent 3 days on the water Sunday, Monday and Tuesday after a 2 week layoff.

Sunday after hearing some great reports about the 31-15 lines in Lorain, I went over there for the first time of the year but we struggled to put anything together. We struggled with harnesses trolled slowly all morning and switched up to jets and spoons in the afternoon to salvage part of the day but it was pretty slow overall with 9 fish caught.

Monday we lucked into a good bite ate the 37-36 line that produced 18 really nice fish up to 8 pounds on an 2 mile troll. We stopped a few miles short of the big pack out by the border becasue fish marks were decent but there was hardly any bait to compete with. We had several much bigger fish on but they were coming off while removing the board and right before the net. None of our fish were hooked very good. Best program was a double willow watermelon at about 1.5 to 1.8 MPH, 45 back with a 2 ounce inline. 1 1/2 ounce weights, 45 back, also pulled several fish along with a 4 ounce bottom bouncer off the rear corner.

Tuesday things toughened up again. We only had a very small spot that produced and with the waves it was hard staying on them We did wind up with 12  cooler fillers though that made us grunt to pick up. Same program as Tuesday except a Chartreuse Pa's diving weight forward took about half our fish. The corner bouncer let me down for the first time this year, only pulling sheep and white perch.

This coming Friday is our clubs annual outing with Ohio Sea Grant/Stone Lab's accredited trolling class. We'll probably be fishing around the Rattles to NW reef. We haven't heard much good about this area, so if any of you have any tips that would help us put those college students on fish, it would be well appreciated.

Marc

June 16, 2009 (Tuesday) Travis 

Three new reports have come in.  Here they are:

"Fished Friday 6/12/09- Started out hiding out of NE wind south of rattlesnake and trolled towards SW Green Island.  No walleye in 1 hour.  Moved east of islands later morning and started trolling NE or Middle Island towards Gull Island Shoal.  Caught 6 fish all day, ended up throwing in the towel around 2:00.  The six fish came 70 back-40 jet/spoon in 34 feet of water in the same area but when we would turn around to try and stay on fish they would mark but would not hit again.  Nice day on the lake but just couldn’t seem to get a program together.  West of the islands we marked a lot of fly larva in the water with hooks mixed in."

"I fishing the same area on Friday and Saturday that you fished on Sunday (NE of Kelleys Shoal) and found some great marks.  We had nearly the same experience with drum on the crankbaits, nothing on bottom bouncers and we caught all of our walleye on the boards with 2 ounce weights.  I was trolling around 2 mph and I did not use 3 ounce weights but I should have tried a few.  We fished the harnesses around 45 feet back in 42 to 45 feet of water.  Most of the fish came on harnesses with purple, chartreuse and gold blades with red or gold beads.  We also lost a lot of fish near the boat.  I thought it was just us and it is good to hear the experts also lose a few."

Travis

June 14, 2009 (Sunday) Travis 

I ended up having two pretty good days of fishing this weekend.  On Friday I had a decent muskie fishing trip on the Detroit River.  It was slow for Detroit River standards, but in the end we landed 3 fish and two of them were around 40".  Saturday my dad and I fished the Huron Lagoons marina customer appreciation tournament with my friend Eric.  It was a frustrating day in the respect that we had a lot of short hits and fish that we lost half way to the boat, but in the end we weighed in 5 fish over 27 pounds and it was enough to win.  We also had the big fish, our only fish over 4.5 pounds, but it was a big one at 30.75" and 10.9 pounds.  That was our biggest fish of the year so far.  All of our weigh fish came from E and NE of Kelleys Island Shoal.  We fished within a few miles or so of the shoal kind of on the E edge of the big loose pack that was up there.  All the walleye that we caught came on 2 or 3 ounce inline weights with crawler harnesses.  The big fish came on a 3 ounce weight 45' back with a size 5 gold colorado blade and transparent green beads.  We generally ran our weights 40 or 45' back depending on the depth.  Our deeper passes were in 46 to 48' of water (inlines 45' back) and our shallower passes were in 40 to 43' of water (40' back on the inlines).  Gold colorados in size 5, 6, and 7 worked, and so did a large barbie indiana blade.  Our speed was 1.1 to 1.4 mph with only a few fish coming at speeds over 1.5.  As I mentioned there were a lot of missed pull backs and lost fish.  The five fish that we weighed in were the only five that we caught over 4.0 pounds.  We caught a total of 15 fish or so, but most were under 4 pounds.  The biggest bites that we had were right as soon as we got out there around 9:30 or so, after making and unsuccessful pass west of the Huron River.  We ended up going through 5 dozen worms on the harnesses.  Bottom bouncers didn't catch a fish all day, and the only reef runner fish that we caught was a trophy drum.

It felt really good to get a win in the tournament along with taking big fish.  Most teams weighed in 5 fish between 20 and 25 pounds with our one big fish being the only real difference.  Some teams fished up around us at Kelleys and others headed as far east as Lorain.  Here is the only other report that has come in:

Travis

June 11, 2009 (Thursday) Travis 

One perch report came in today.  I'm going to be out muskie fishing on the Detroit River on Friday and then I'll be fishing a walleye tournament on Saturday (Huron Lagoons Marina customer appreciation tourney).

Here's the report:

Travis

June 10, 2009 (Wednesday) Travis 

Two reports have come in:

"2 of us fished last saturday from 9-4.  spent most of our time in 30 fow about 2 miles ne of niagra reef.  ended up with 11 eyes 17 to 24 inches.  caught 3 right away and then was slow going the rest of the day.  first 4 were caught trolling worm harnesses at about 1.5 mph close to bottom behind dipsies.  was hard to keep bait on harnesses.  switched to stinger spoons around noon and did better.  raspberry dolphin worked the best.  spent about an hour trying to get no. 12, but didn't happen."

"We finally got up to P.I.B. on May 30 for a week at Saunders Camp. Started fishing around green isl. and west. Also green to rattlesnake. I got a 30" on Sun. Also had a 27" and a 29". The biggest I caught N of green, 25ft back with a 2 oz sinker and a fire tiger hatchet blade."

Travis

June 8, 2009 (Monday) Travis 

I realized that I didn't mention that our best inline weight was 2 ounces 35' back when we caught our fish in 35 to 38' of water just south of the Canadian line east of the NE tip of Gull Island Shoal during the tournament.  I also didn't mention that on Thursday our best blades were gold or fluorescent green (Travis green) size 6 and 7 colorados.  On Saturday and then again on Sunday our best blade was a big Indiana (I think size 7 or 8, I'm not as familiar with the sizes of Indiana blades) that had a gold back and was painted Barbie on the front (white base with a purple head and pink and purple dots).  Sorry for those omissions from yesterday's report.

Here are two that came in today:

"We also fished the LEWT tournament on Sat. Fri we started out on American Eagle with no fish. Moved up to the North West of Kelleys and picked 2 in about an hour.  We decided to check an area that last year in the FLW tournament in April I picked up a 40 lb bag. We made a run and started picking fish. Between 11:30 and 1 we had our limit of eaters. When bringing in the inside board the outside went and had a 7lbr. (tournament fish).
Sat. we went back and picked through over 25 fish between 3 and 4.5lbs. with one 8. Our biggest 5 went just a little over 26lbs. All fish came out of 35 FOW . All came on harnesses from 15 down to the bottom (30 to 50 back on 1 oz and 40-60 back on 2 oz.). Most came on purple, orange. and chart. orange blades. Speed between 1.1 and 1.3 any slower or faster and nothing. We were 2-3 miles south of the border between Middle and North Bass (closer to North). We was all alone, not a single boat within 3 miles both days."

Travis

June 7, 2009 (Sunday) Travis 

Dad and I had a strange weekend of fishing for yesterday's LEWT tournament.  I never really felt like we figured the big fish out.  Thursday started out great, although it was a breezy, rough morning.  The east side of Gull Island Shoal was on fire early.  We didn't catch huge fish, but by early afternoon we had 5 fish around 30 pounds without fishing really hard.  Fish were as shallow as 13 feet and we caught them on the drop off out to 25'.  Most of the fish came on harnesses with inline weights.  We did get some on deep husky jerks and one of our 3 biggest came on a Blue Hawaiian reef runner 20' back in 13' of water.  All together is was a good day even though we didn't get a bite over 7 pounds.  I felt like Gull would be a good bet on Saturday since structure fish usually don't move far within a few days.

Friday was brutal for us.  We went down to Vermilion and struck out.  We tried shallow structure fishing in less than 20' of water between Vermilion and Ruggles, and didn't catch anything.  Then we moved offshore in 43' of water between Beaver Creek and Lorain, and trolled back towards Vermilion.  We had good, even great, marks between 42 and 38' of water and couldn't buy a fish on harnesses or crankbaits.  Then we tried inside just east of the condos east of Vermilion and had decent marks in 25', but they wouldn't bite either.  We avoided the pack of boats NW of the Vermilion breakwall, but in hindsight probably should have given that area a look.

Yesterday we went back to Gull Island Shoal hoping to get 25 to 30 pounds in the morning and then go looking for big fish if they weren't on the reef.  At 12:00 we had two fish in the livewell.  Gull was dead.  That's the first time it's really let me down after catching fish there in pre-fishing.  We finally got on a pretty hot bite between 12 and 1 in open water east of the shoal up along the Canadian line.  It was a fire drill for about 45 minutes, but unfortunately every fish was between 3.5 and 4.5 pounds.  It was fun fishing, but didn't do us much good for the tourney.  We ended up weighing 5 fish at 22 pounds and fell way short of the 39 that it took to win it.

Today I got to take my 2.5 year old son out on the lake for the first time.  The weather was perfect.  It was a south breeze on a warm partly cloudy day.  We went out of Huron and fished near the river.  We actually caught 3 walleye real quick in a short 30 or 45 minute troll.  My son got to reel in his first fish, or at least help reel it in.  He played with the worms, played with the fish in the livewell, and killed bugs that landed on the dash.  When he got bored he said that he wanted to "go fast", so we ran down to the castle and back for a joy ride.  The 3 fish all came on harnesses with 1 ounce inline weights back 15' in 20 to 24' of water.  The biggest was around 5 pounds and the other two were a little smaller.  I think two of them would have upgraded yesterday's tournament fish.  It was really a special morning to get him out on Erie for the first time and have such a good time.  We were only out a little over and hour or so, but I didn't want him to get bored.  We did what he wanted to do and kept him interested.  At one point we put the landing net in the water because he wanted to, and he asked me "what are we going to catch?".  It was great to see the lake through someones eyes that had never been out there, and once again I was reminded what fishing is really about.  I'm very lucky to share my fishing with my dad, and I look forward to fishing with Max if he ends up liking it.

Two reports have come in.  Here they are:

Two of us caught five eyes and lost two at the boat from 11am to 3pm saturday, west of green,Drifting. All fish were on variations of gold harnesses on the bottom. 

Fished 4th, 5th and 6th and it is on!!!!  Casters, draggers, and trollers are whacking them.  Hope the weather and the conditions stay good.  I caught them on stingers until it flattened out then switched to planers and inline weights with harnesses.  Get up there now.  I fished off Marblehead.

Travis

June 2, 2009 (Tuesday) Travis 

We had some rough thunderstorms last night.  It looks like we are going to have mild, cool weather with 5 to 15 knot NE wind the next 4 or 5 days.  This weekend is the Sandusky LEWT tournament so I'll be getting out at the end of this week.

Here are the reports that have come in since Sunday:

"We fished Sat. 6 guys started trolling northeast of Niagra in the muddy water- pulling 40 jets- 65 back.  Pulled 12 fish in four hours.  Decided to move north of North Bass in the cleaner water and pulled 10 more in the second half of day.   Had 5 throw backs.  For the most part all nice fish 20” to 22”.

Went back to North Bass Sunday and fished 5 hours and caught a total of 10.  Same program but were getting them 45 back and 75 back.  High and low side slow pick.  Had several throw backs and one fish “O”- 28.5”.  All in all it was a great day despite the rough ride up the hill.  The muddy water this weekend definitely mess things up.  Sounded like everyone was around the same numbers as we were, slow picking but nothing crazy."

"Five of us ventured out this morning (Monday) to catch our limit. We stopped in 28 FOW, in the South Passage at 42d 33.8' N, 82d 44.3' W.  After 5 hours of wind, drizzle and running out of bait, we managed to bring home 34 perch. (7 1/4 to 10").  The sheephead were really hungry today. We figure that we caught about 95.  Throw into that mix, another dozen or so white perch, white bass, and about 25 perch throwbacks, we had a lot of action.  The good thing was, we didn't get too wet, we got back home safely, and hopefully the sheephead's stomach's are full."

Travis