Lake Erie, Part 2

Steve First Fish, an nice walleye

The last post left off with my friend Kevin and his family leaving early Tuesday morning back to Wisconsin for his father-in-law's funeral.  In the meantime Steve, Mark, and I stayed to fish the rest of the time as we knew Ben was coming back Wednesday evening as he had left his boat behind the house.  Waking up on Tuesday the Aiona's were gone and the weather forecast  stated there predicting 25 mph by the afternoon, creating a difficult fishing situation.  We decided to head out and fish until the wind became uncomfortable.  After heading to the Muzurik Landing on Marblehead, we launched the boat and while Steve and Mark parked the car, I proceeded to input the waypoint Ben sent me via his phone, about 5 miles away through the channel between Marblehead and Kelley's Island.  We had fished a few miles north of that point on Monday so we were familiar with the location.  The wind had picked up a little but blowing from the Southeast so we positioned ourselves upwind from that waypoint and started setting up our trolling pattern.  As before we fished 3 planer boards on each side of the boat, using line counter reels to set the depths of the Bandits, we followed the advice, 70 feet back on the outside boards, 60 on the middle boards, 50 on the inside boards.  The strategy was to troll with the wind making the fishing experience easier.  Once a fish is hooked up, the real work begins, of course there is the guy fighting the fish, the second guy is responsible for the net and removing the planer board from the line.  In the meantime one guy has to stay on the steering wheel to make certain the boat stays on track so the remaining lines do not become tangled.  This was made much more difficult by two issues, first was the battery in the remote control for the kicker motor was dead.  This was checked out before we left but apparently it was just enough to work.  Secondly an attempt to engage the front electric trolling motor did not work either as the motor did not respond when deployed.  Therefore on Tuesday the only real source of steering was using the main outboard used as a rudder, steering by turning the steering wheel.. Mark had caught the first fish on Monday so it was Steve's turn and it wasn't long before one of the boards started dancing.  He reeled in our first fish of the day, a nice 24 inch walleye, into the livewell.  Resetting the boards it wasn't long before it was my turn to reel a fish in.  Steve on the motor, Mark successfully got the fish in the boat, 2 in the livewell. As the morning went on the wind shifted and as predicted started to increase.  After successfully landing 6 walleyes in the boat the waves continued to grow, enough to decide to call it quits.  It was a good move.  Although not that far from the landing the wind limited our speed to about 8 mph as we carefully negotiated the now 5 to 6 foot waves.  Finally getting back to the landing which is protected by a breaker wall, I dropped off Steve and Mark to get the truck and trailer.  There was a Coast Guard team that had just loaded their boat and once the Ranger was on the trailer they came over to do a boat inspection.  I welcomed the oportunity however the first question was to see my registration, something I never have!  Luckily Mark had come over before the trip and found it on a shelf and had me put it in the boat.  The inspection went well so we headed home to clean fish.  Admittedly it takes time to clean these big fish and Ben had brought his vacuum packer so we packaged the fish and sat down to reflect on the day.

Wednesday's catch, 14 walleyes at over 63 pounds

Wednesday proved to be a calmer day on the water.  Talking to Ben, he suggested I reset the trolling motor by disconnecting the power for 30 seconds.  I did that Tuesday afternoon and voila, the motor now responded.  As well we stopped at the Walmart to get a battery for the kicker remote steering, that now worked.  Third was a stop at Fisherman's Central, a wonderful sports shop on our way to the landing, and picked up some Bandits in blue/chrome, another Rotten Fruit pattern, an interesting blue green chrome Bandit called The Generator (later figured out you could add lighted glow stick in the bait), and an interesting color called Humble Bee ( a golden, perch type bait).  Once on the water and back to the spot the wind had changed 90 degrees from Tuesday so we did the same thing, went upwind from our previous point and started trolling downwind.  Tuesday gave us a chance to dial in our presentations and with some Bandits in new colors, we were determined to do better.  The wind was calmer, the kicker motor remote was working, the Motorguide was operating perfect, we were set up.  While Steve and Mark set up the lines, it was my job to get our navigation methodology set up.  Setting the kicker speed at 1.5 mph, I put the Motorguide down and engaged the heading lock to keep the boat on a specific track, then engaged the cruise control at 1.6 mph and amazingly the boat was now being completely controlled by the devices that should do their job.  No longer was it required to have someone always trying to steer the boat.   Looking at our tracks on the GPS, it was amazing how straight they were.  With the navigation system set we could now concentrate on fishing much more effectively.  With assuming we had 12 in the livewell, and 4 each (it was really 6 walleyes each), we  had lost 4 other fish in tangles or line failures, we finally caught one more deciding to let it go as the livewell was already ridiculously full.  Upon returning to the house, it was discovered we had 14 walleyes, still legal, but figuring the hookups and the one we released, we had 19 fish for the day.  Steve weighed the fish and it was over 63 pounds, and if you see the picture, not one was smaller than the 5 gallon pail was deep.  It took 3 trips with the pail to transfer these walleyes from the livewell to the cleaning shed.  Admittedly I've caught more walleye but never the average size as these.

From Wednesday's catch

After going to the Irish Pub downtown Port Clinton for supper, we headed back.  Ben, Heather, and Jared arrived earlier than we anticipated, about 11:30.  Thursday was supposed to be very windy with small craft warnings, so we decided to stay off the water.  Ben, on the other hand was anxious to get out after missing 2 days, they headed to the landing, noticed the waves coming over the breakwater but decided to try it anyway.  They got out about a mile before coming to their senses and headed back.  Sitting in the house drinking coffee, Ben came in admitting it was pretty rough.  After settling down, we decided to drive to the Bass Pro Shops in Toledo, 40 minutes away.  Once there Jared was looking for lure making stuff and the clerk commented that Jan's Netcraft was only 15 minutes away and they carry all sorts of these types of items.  Jan's Netcraft was around when we were kids and loved getting their catalog and buying lure making items to make our own lures.  It was interesting to find they were still in business so Jared loaded up on plastic worm and paddle tail molds along with molding plastic and an injector.  He was in business!  He really reminds me of my younger years with his grandpa.  On the way back there was a Costco so with my membership we stopped and bought some steaks for Thursday night's meal.  Friday was our last day, it actually was pretty nice but as we discussed that evening, lack of waves did not allow the baits the action that riding up and down creates.  It was pretty easy fishing as we mastered the trolling motor, lure setting functions well.  We  found an area were a number of fish that were fooled by our presentation.  We were marking fish however after reviewing the day we decided that the fish had moved.  Coming back to the landing, it was the first time in the week we were able to travel in the boat at a reasonable speed.  With 8 in the livewell we ended out trip with 29 kept walleyes, about 4.5 pounds average.  Things learned, these fish usually are staging to spawn as these fish were post spawn, and often they are in large schools of a mile or larger in diameter.  Slow down, 1.4 - 1.6 mph is a perfect speed as the water temp was never over 44 degrees.  Don't assume anything as 70 feet back with a Bandit is about 17 feet down in 40 feet of water.  These fish suspend and I believe will come up a long way to hit the slower moving, noisy and flashy bait.  I think it's also  important to have a wide spread on your planer boards to cover more area.  The charters use larger planer board tactics that put 18 lures over a 200 foot spread, that's alot of coverage.  Pay attention to where the charters are fishing as they are good at helping each other.  These fish can be fickle however once they turn on it's amazing.

Jared's 30 incher

As far as Ben and his family, they stayed through the weekend leaving Monday.  We left Saturday morning retracing our route that we followed on the way there.  Ben went fishing that day and throughout the day would phone us with updates.  They fished more east of where we fished on Friday and did well catching their limit of 18 walleyes.  I wanted to get a picture of Jared with his 30 inch fish.  I have had Jared fish with me in my wheel house earlier this year and he is definitely fishing crazy.  On Friday he caught this 30+ inch spawned out walleye, he was bound and determined to have it mounted.  I swore he was going to cry when his dad put a knife to it!  As well we got a nice spawned out female on Friday, signaling that the spawn was on.  It was a great trip, one that taught us a lot about trolling for walleyes, and one that we can only hope Ben will invite us again next spring.  Like stated earlier, unlike Canada where a good day is 80 walleyes in the boat for 3 guys, here 18 walleyes encompasses quite a bit of work and the average size is significantly larger, as we never caught a fish under 22 inches.  One definitely needs a boat to handle the water as the wind can come up pretty fast.  Also it is amazing how long it took to clean these large walleyes.  Definitely a trip of a lifetime and even if you take a charter, it was well worth it!!