Fishing Reports & News

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September 30, 2009 (Wednesday) Travis 

We just came through a big blow with west gales that were sustained over 35 knots with gusts over 40.  The water level fell to three feet below low water chart datum in the western basin and boats in marinas were sitting on mud and rocks as the water rushed out.  Waves up at the Port Stanley buoy near the Ontario shoreline in the central basin were over 13 feet high.  Needless to say I imagine that everything is pretty much a wreck right now, as far as water clarity.  The surface temp fell below 65 and I hope that the big walleye are in full migration mode towards Huron and the islands.

I'm not fishing the Huron tournament this weekend, but it looks like I might make it out Saturday.  I'll put a report up at the end of the weekend.  No new e-mail reports have come in since my last post.  If you have any trouble with the e-mail link above (some readers have gotten e-mails returned, others haven't had any trouble) please send reports to my personal address.

Travis 

September 24, 2009 (Thursday) Travis 

Today was the first day of the three day Bassmaster northern division open out of the Sandusky city ramp.  8 of the pro anglers weighed in 5 bass weighing more than 20 pounds and it took 15 pounds to make the top 24.  The whole 104 boat field will fish again on Friday and then they cut down to the top 30 for Saturday.  There was a tie for big bass today at 6 pounds even.  The interesting part was that one was a smallmouth and one was a largemouth.

Here's a new report that came in:

"Tuesday morning we caught a four-person limit of 7+ - 10.5” perch about midway between Mouse and Green in 32 FOW in four hours. Had to move only one time; a slow steady bite; about 50-60% throwbacks, a bunch a WP, a few SH, two gobies, one 8” walleye. Had 22# live weight for the cleaners."

Travis

September 23, 2009 (Wednesday) Travis 

Two new perch reports came in today:

"Slightly larger perch have moved in to the Bass Islands area, with 7 to 7 1/2 inch average fish now replaced by 7 3/4 to 9 inch fish, with a few bigger, up to 11" fish mixed in. Throwback ratio went from about 50% to 20%, but with a few more drum and white perch mixed in. Cormorant/gull activity indicates heavy concentrations of bait fish are the reason for the increase in fish numbers. Areas to try are all around Rattlesnake, north of Green, west of North Bass and east of Ballast, outside of Put-in-Bay Harbor, south or east of Middle Bass-in 32-33 FOW right now."

After 27 trips we are averaging 18.8 fish per man per trip."

Travis

September 22, 2009 (Tuesday) Travis 

Now that I've recovered from a couple of long weekends I thought that I would post some more information from my sandbar fishing.  Although the fish keep moving around (and when don't they), a few things have been consistent the last few weekends.  First of all, the most predictable fish have been on the west drop off of the sandbar.  They haven't always been the biggest fish, but they've been there every day.  The best school was near the south end of the bar a few weeks ago, but after the blow last week they seem to mostly be from the middle of the bar to the north (about the 35 N line all the way up to the 38 N line).  The best west lines have been from as far east as 17, but mostly 20 to 22.  One thing is for sure, if you are seeing good marks you should stay, and if you aren't you should leave.  It's open water fishing at its best and if you don't see them you shouldn't waste time where you are, keep looking.  In general they've seemed to move from south to north, but it's hard to know for sure.  It could just be the old fish moving out and new fish moving in.

Crankbaits and harnesses have both caught them.  Actually, both have caught numbers and both have caught big fish, it's just a matter of what's working best on the day that you're out there at the location you're fishing.  I had one day that harnesses caught around 25 fish in the first few hours and then I switched to crankbaits and caught over 30 fish the next few hours.  As far as colors, with harnesses pink and purple beads have by far been best, and for me any gold blade with white, pink and purple have worked.  I didn't play much with crankbait colors, but the best fish came on purple bare naked, skinned squirrel and chartreuse head wonderbread.  The fish have definitely been high in the water column.  Reef runners 30 and 50' back on fluorocarbon (about 12 and 16' down) have been good, and inlines from 15 to 35' back (1, 2 and 3 ounces) were best.  When the bite got tough and went deeper 3 and 4 ounce back 35 and 45' did the job, or reef runners 100 or 150 back.  My speed was generally 1.2 to 1.5 when I could control it, but on the rough days it bounced from 0.7 to 2.1 mph.  There were days that speed changes really mattered.  On Sunday of the Gator tourney nearly every fish hit on a turn.  On that Friday I was running 2 mph with reef runners, and when we would slow down below 1 mph to fight a fish one or two of the other rods would get hit as we drifted along.  I don't know if I've ever had so many second and third hits on other rods as we were fighting a fish on the first rod.  If I haven't mentioned it before I've gotten to the point that I don't run a crankbait without scent on it and if junk isn't a problem I also add a piece of a nightcrawler to one of the hooks.  I also noticed that on the best days both braided line or fluorocarbon line worked, but on some of the days fish would only hook up on fluorocarbon rods.  It seemed like they were tenative enough that they would hit and immediately spit even a harness on braided line, I guess because they felt it right away and were able to get rid of it before they committed and got hooked.  On those days the fluorocarbon still caught them.  It seems like they would hit it, the fluorocarbon loaded up, and then after they had it well in their mouth the line would get them hooked after they couldn't spit it any more.  Again, that's all conjecture, but it makes sense to me.  I still like braided line for certain applications, but I find myself fishing more and more rods spooled completely with Seaguar Abraz-X fluorocarbon, 15 pound test that is the same diameter as the 10 pound mono in the trolling book.

At this point I'm rambling, but if any of my observations helped, then I guess it was worth it.  Here is another report that came in:

"Caught limits of mostly 7-9 inch perch in 40' water E of Kelley's Fri.-Sun. (yes, even Saturday)."

Travis

September 20, 2009 (Sunday) Travis 

The weather didn't exactly cooperate for the Vermilion Hawg Fest yesterday.  There ended up being 2 to 4 feet waves all day, and the biggest waves were a little bigger than that.  In the end it took 5 fish over 37 pounds to win and 4 teams weighed in over 30 pounds.  We finished 15th in the 105 boat field with 27.3 pounds.

We ended up taking a one hour trip at around 14 mph out to the north end of the sandbar on the west side.  After a little searching around our best action was around N 41 deg 38.03 min, W 82 deg 22.4 min.  We found fish on the west drop off of the sandbar.  Throughout the day the bite changed from high on the drop off in 44' of water to deeper on the drop off in 48' of water.  We basically worked the same area all day.  The marks were good enough to stay and the rough conditions kept us from running around.  At one point we were only able to go 9 mph to move back up-wind and start new trolls.

We caught fish on both harnesses and crankbaits.  2 ounce inline weights 25 to 35' back were good, along with 3 ounce 35 back and 4 ounce 45 back.  Harnesses with pink and purple beads were best and gold or copper blades with pink and purple got hit the most.  We used size 6 and 7 colorados and big indianas.  Our two reef runner (deep divers) weigh fish came on a skinned squirrel 30' back and a purple bare naked 100' back.  Our speed was as close to 1.4 as possible, but ranged from 0.7 to 2.1 mph depending on the waves.

We landed around 12 to 15 walleye (it was hard to keep track since we released the non-weigh fish) to get our best 5 and missed a handful of hits.  Considering the conditions we were pretty good at getting hooked fish into the boat.  The ride back was a little easier at about 20 mph, but my body is feeling the effects of the whole day.  Congratulations to all the teams that did well on a tough day, and thanks to the OGF staff for a well run tourney.

Travis

September 17, 2009 (Thursday) Travis 

The Vermilion Hawg Fest tournament, run by OGF, is this weekend and walleye reports have been hard to come by.  Here's a perch report that just came in:

"Tuesday from 830 – 2 pm we managed to get a four person limit of 7+ – 10” perch fishing several locations in 32 FOW  5-600 yards south side of Rattlesnake. Had a lot of small throw back perch, quite a few WP, two gobies, and some prize winning SH. It was just slow picking all the time; never really had a fast bite. Overall average size was smaller than last few weeks – only 19# total."

Travis

September 14, 2009 (Monday) Travis 

One perch report came in today:

"My wife and I went out on Tibbel’s Harbor Queen II with Captain Jerry and First Mate Kyle on Sunday. Had a good time. Wave action was just right for perching. We first went to an area off of Kelleys somewhat south of the Water Tower. The action was slow but we caught some fish. We them moved Due East, North of Cedar Point were we stayed most of the day and the action was steady (if you were out on the water there was a big freighter parked out there waiting to go in, we were about 1 ½ miles east of it) . At about 2 the action just shut off. We them moved to area not far from where we started and took about 4 fish. We headed in about 2:45. The boat as a whole with 11 People took about 175 fish. My wife and I took 33 keepers. No real size, an occasional JUMBO but most of the fish in the 6 to 8 range. There were a few 13’s caught.  Nothing to brag about but enough for the two of us for two meals. As usual Tibbel’s treats you right and with three boats out fishing they were hunting for the best spot and are not afraid to move if they have to. They had nice shiners too and plenty of them."

Travis 

September 13, 2009 (Sunday) Travis 

I just got back from fishing the WBSA Gator Classic pro-am tourney.  I ended up weighing in 10 fish over two days that weighed 63.33 pounds and ended up 6th.  The west side of the sandbar is on fire.  Over the past three days I've conservatively landed around 120 fish combined.  Inline weights and harnesses did most the damage, but the tourney was won on reef runners with over 71 pounds.  I hope that you can all respect that the hawg fest is Saturday and I'd prefer to not spell out every detail right now.  I appreciate you all understanding and I wish that the hawg fest wasn't so close.  Here are some generalities- harnesses with gold pinks and purple blades and purple/pink beads were best.  Don't be afraid to fish high, but move your depths around when fishing slows.  Keep moving with the best marks, if you're not on good marks don't put any lines out and keep looking.

Here is one report that came in:

"Me and the missus started fishing at 8:30AM in 30 FOW about half a mile southwest of Rattlesnake. Four hours later, 38 perch and one walleye (17"). Not many throwbacks or white fish. Half were 8-9". Radio chatter from the headboats was bleak. They were fishing mostly west and south of Green Island. "

Travis

September 11, 2009 (Friday) Travis 

Two new perch reports have come in:

"I didn't have enough time before dark to move around, but got a dozen perch in a couple of hours based upon the report in 32 FOW in the middle of the south side of Rattlesnake Island last night (Sept.10) 5:15-7:00 pm. Only a few throwback perch, mostly 7 1/2 to 9 inchers. No white perch and only 2 drum"

Travis

September 9, 2009 (Wednesday) Travis 

Two new reports to pass along:

"Tuesday 4 persons spent 3.5 hours searching for keeper perch west of Rattlesnake. We had only 5 keepers by noon. Then located good fish 4-500 yards due south of midpoint of Rattlesnake, 32 FOW; limited in less than 2 hours; 25 pounds including one 17” walleye."

"Perch fished out of Eastlake on Saturday.  1.8 miles NW of the Chagrin River .  Got 2 man limit in 2 hours.  Nice size."

Travis 

September 8, 2009 (Tuesday) Travis 

One new report came in:

Travis 

September 6, 2009 (Sunday) Travis 

I hope that everyone is having a great holiday weekend.  Here are some new reports:

(All perch reports)

"Saturday AM...3 limits in 3.5 hours, 18 pounds of perch, half mile west of Rattlesnake in 32 FOW"

"Perch fished Friday also. West of Kelly’s. hammered by White Perch. Just south of the shoal, all small ones. Ended up east of airport, 41 FOW, finished 2 man limit in 2 ½ hrs., 10 lbs. Done by 2:30p. Still lots of 7’s, a few 8’s & 9’s and one 12 inch hog as last fish that gave us the 10 lbs. Waiting for water to cool some to bring in the big one’s this fall."

Travis

September 4, 2009 (Friday) Travis 

Heading into the weekend one new perch report came in:

"tuesday and wednesday limits both days lots of doubles 22 ft of water off ward's canal tuesday 3 man limit 14 pounds wednesday 5 guys 21 pounds lots of small fish keeping what the lake gives us 7-10 inchers mostly 7-8 inch fish very light bite using lots of shiners take a bucket full.  bust them in half. heard bigger fish off toledo intake and little cedar point"

Travis

September 2, 2009 (Wednesday) Travis

Two perch reports came in today:

"On Tuesday we caught a four-person limit of 7”+ perch in 4.5 hours. Started at 8:15 just north of Green, tried 3 spots and had only 3 keepers in an hour; lots of tiny perch. Then moved to 3/8 mile west of Rattlesnake and got into lots of WP and SH. Moved out more to the west (1/2 mile off RS?) and filled the limits by 12:45. Still quite a few small perch but much nicer fish overall."

September 1, 2009 (Tuesday) Travis 

One perch report came in today:

Travis