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I made the trip out of Cawtaba on Friday 3/14 before the winds came into town. First trip of the year for me…. we started out trolling around Rattlesnake in the morning. Saw a few chunks of ice floating around off of Green where we made sure to keep an eye out for. We marked plenty of fish but no bites in that area. We even tried to vertical jig for a little bit to no avail. Around noon we made a move to the area I would say is roughly West of F and South of D can where we found some fish. Nothing too fast but we ended up with 9 of our 12 fish we were looking for. We slow trolled bandits 65′ back where we caught a majority of the fish. Ended the day at 4:00… with hope of coming back soon.

So who has a date in mind that we will be able to get the boats in the water this year based on the current ice conditions?

With the ice gone in front of the mouth of the river and all the rain, it shouldn’t be long until we will be out fishing. I’m hoping for next weekend. I just need it to open up within 100 yards of the ramp to make it out. That and it not to be blowing 100 mph. Lol. It won’t be long now.

I was watching the noon Weather on Toledo’s WTOL 11 and they showed the ice at Catawba and the weatherman made notice that there are shanties out on the ice there today.

The Lake wide 2024 hatch trawl survey indexes have been released. Both walleye and yellow perch hatches were down from recent years. The Walleye hatch was down over 50% while yellow perch were only slightly down.

A few surprises caught in the trawls included Burbot, sturgeon, trout perch, and silver chub.

Details in the following three online articles.

ODW:
Lake Erie Walleye, Yellow Perch 2024 Hatch Results.

Great Lakes Now:
Walleye Numbers are Down in Lake Erie | Great Lakes Now

PDF with last 14 years of hatches:
https://dam.assets.ohio.gov/image/up…WAL_and_YP.pdf

Checked my pond (1/4 acer) and have about one good inch so far, anyone checking the big lake ?

January forecast, if it holds up, should produce more than enough consistent cold for the nearshore Western Basin shoreline areas and the Islands to form ice for ice fishing. I was up at Port Clinton on Christmas eve, and Sandusky Bay / west harbor were all open water. Buddy was up yesterday / this morning and said west harbor and Sandusky Bay now had ice. We all know (or should) that “safe” ice conditions depend on a lot of factors. But we do have a long consistent cold spell that is here, and that’s the factor that all the others depend on. The open water (“soft water”) fisher folks will wait until spring. Those of us who enjoy the “hard water” fishing (ice fishing) should be getting excited with the current forecast.

Ok I’ve tried about everything. Crackers,panko,shore lunch, bass pro, flour/corn starch etc.
i’m looking for a light crispy batter like what you would get at a restaurant where you buy into it and it’s really crunchy Fish n chips style….
Can anyone help me out? I assume it’s a wet batter what I’m looking for but haven’t got a good recipe.

Thanks.

FF