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Lots of wind, and waves. Fished north of rattlesnake to stay out of the waves. Plenty of marks…not many bites. Only ended up with 10 decent 9-11” fish. Frozen shiners on crappie rigs. No minnows at the bait shops.

I had fished with Keith a couple years ago…his wife likes to read my reports, and relay info for their own trips, because Keith isn’t online a lot. He has a Ranger 621, and doesn’t live far from the lake. The other day, when I had a cancellation for Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, Stacy told Keith about it, so he called to see if they could do a perch trip with me.

I was available. 🙂


I met them at Catawba at 5:45…they were right on time. Stacy got in the boat, and Keith and I got in truck. As I’m driving down to the launch, I see a crew of two, loading their boat in the approach…ugh.
It was still dark out, so there was no hurry at all to get going, I told Keith, “He’s lucky it’s still dark out, or I would have said something by now.” He laughed, and told of his own experiences at other boat launches.


They were taking much longer than we had expected, so I got out of the truck, and walked over to chat with them. As I approached, I said, “You’re lucky it’s still dark out”, and smiled. He nodded, knowing they were in the wrong…. then said, “Morning Captain, we’re your crew for tomorrow”, and reached out to shake my hand.
I about died…thinking of how close I could have been to becoming a Karen at 6am in the morning, but refrained, and went the nice route instead. It just goes to show you….you should always try to be nice…it always comes back to you when you least expect it. That could have been a very bad experience, otherwise. lol


Anyway….we got launched, and I even waited for Dan and Ed to launch, so they could follow us out to D Can, because they’re from Missouri, riding in an aluminum bass boat, and this was their first time to the lake. They wanted to try for some perch today, too. They followed us out, and we both got set up near the can.


We caught, but it was a very slow bite, and I wasn’t happy with the marks on the screen, so we moved. The boats were piling in, so …we left. I pointed the nose of the Vexus to the north, and went up to Niagara. No one was there, but there were good marks, so we set up again.


Stacy and Keith were using the Fishing Addiction Fly Rigs, and I was using one of my homemade crappie rigs. The bite was slow for us again, but the marks were good, and when we did catch one, it was a big fatty yellow perch.


Looking back at D Can, we couldn’t even count how many boats were there, because there were so many. I wasn’t going back there. I hate fishing in crowds.


Algae formed on the surface of the water, due to the absence of wind, and looked like pea soup. We decided to turn the Spot Lock off and just drift ever so slowly.


We didn’t catch our limits of perch, but they were very happy with the amount and size of them. Memories were made, and we all had fun, and that makes me happy!


Tomorrow, I have Dan and Ed for a walleye trip.


Stay tuned….


Capt Juls

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My original plan was to go to Huron, but with reports of floating grass in the area, I decided that launching in Vermilion would be a wiser move. We could head north to escape the floating masses.

I picked my crew up from the White Caps Motel at 5am, and headed to the gas station, to get ice for the coolers…we then headed east to Vermilion. No one was there, so the ramp was all ours. After paying the launch fee, and hitting the bathrooms, we launched at 6am. Sunrise is at 6:30 now.


The sky was lightening, so by the time we got to Lorain, it was light enough to remove the navigation lights.


The dipsies went out first, and were catching before I could start on the crankbaits behind the planer boards.


Dipsey settings that worked well for us were:
zero setting 60 back (port side) and 65 back (starboard side)
two setting at 80 back (starboard side)
three setting at 80 back (port side)


Spoons were out-fishing the cranks this morning. Yeck (D-11s) in colors I don’t know the names of..sorry. They had pink bellies though, and I think that was the key to those two. Those were on the two and three setting dipsies.


A Black/Silver/Green striped back w/silver bellied BadMo Arrow spoon fished behind the zero setting on the starboard side. A Yeck spoon with copper/red/black on the back, with a royal blue belly, worked behind the zero setting on the port side.


Speed on the FishHawk was 2.3-2.5mph. The currents over in Lorain are all over the place, and flowing like ribbons in a gentle breeze, through the water. We would be scooting along at 2.3mph and then all of the sudden, the FishHawk shows the speed at 2.7-3.3mph, or 1.7-1.9mph….then, it would go back to 2.3mph after a short period. So, we were weaving through these opposing currents, continually.


The baby Spro (85s) ran behind the Off Shores on the port side, and the Bill Lewis Lites ran on the starboard side.
2oz Guppie weights ran 50/70, and 50/60 on the starboard side, and at 50/57 and 50/55 on the port side. All of these caught a fish or two.


Color were:
Spros: Chrome Perch and Blue/Chrome
Lites: Blue/Chrome and Purple Tiger


Water temp was 75 degrees on the surface…and, the same, on the FHawk, 20 feet down.


Dan and Ed did a great job getting their fish to the boat and netted…we only lost two that came unbuttoned from the spoons.


They each caught their limit, and I caught mine too. They were happy campers, to say the least, and so was I.


I told them on the way back to Port Clinton, that they should take a nap, and then go back out to try for some perch, because we have wind coming tomorrow through the weekend, and their boat isn’t really made of this lake. They were planning on going up to the Detroit River to fish, if it got too windy here.
I was happy to hear that.


We had a great time today, and that makes me happy! 🙂


I’m off tomorrow, but have Saturday and Sunday trips scheduled for a one day perch trip, and a one day walleye trip. I’ll be watching the wind forecast, because where I have been fishing, is not where I would go in any SW wind, gusting to 20-25mph. I’ll discuss it with my crew. We may reschedule, if it doesn’t improve.


Stay tuned…


Capt Juls

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I’m pretty new to fishing and fishing up in this western lake erie region, and have been reading a lot from this forum, especially the fishing reports? Sometimes I feel like I’m reading a foreign language with the locations and descriptions of bait and lures and was wondering if anyone has a quick reference of locations people talk about on here (B can? C can? some of the reefs)? I think with the baits I can usually figure out what someone is talking about after I research it a bit, but would be curious if anyone has some general references for that as well. I appreciate all the great information on here and look forward to the reports every day while I’m at work wishing I was out fishing!

Thanks.

I got a question for you guys. I just bought a different boat that has a Lowrance HDS 12 at my captains chair and apparently, I need to put one of these 2 micro chips in my electronics to be able to see detailed contour lines per customer support from Lowrance. Wish I would of known this BEFORE I left on a 2 day fishing trip!

I fish in the midwest (Iowa, South Dakota) on lakes the majority of the time but do an annual trip to Erie every Spring.

Give me the pros and cons to each…

Thanks in advance.

FF

When I try to view details of new ads I get “You are not allowed to view this content”. Eventually, I will be able to see the details, but wonder why I cannot see them today?

We never casted for walleyes before so thought we would see how that works. Bought 2 dozen crawlers and set up on the east side of Crib Reef before sunrise. We used various colors of crawler harnesses with 1 oz weights.
It was a feeding frenzy! I couldn’t sit down for 90 minutes because we were landing so many fish. None of them were walleyes but my wife had a blast fighting catfish and freshwater drum.
I also tried the Acme hyper rattle and Kalin search baits there. Had one hit on the search bait but nothing at all on the hyper rattle.
We could see a pack of 40 boats over at D can so when our crawlers were gone, we moved over there and started perching with spreaders and shiners. It was hot by then though, so the bite was slow. We caught a few perch there but decided to head back west.
We would motor for a bit to cool off in the breeze and then stop and pick up a couple perch and then motor some more and repeat. After several hours were at A can. My wife did land an 18″ walleye there on a perch rig. Ended the day keeping 21 perch, 1 walleye, 8 tasty drum and 8 catfish.

Brian and Mandy were driving in from near Dayton, this morning, so I told them to meet me at the Huron ramp at 5:30. (Note…It’s not getting light until 5:45 now, so I’ll be changing my meeting time to 5:45 instead of 5:30, so we can be launched by 6am.)


Sunrise this morning was at 6:28.

I left the house at 4am, so I could hit the gas station, before heading to Huron. I wanted to get there early, so I could clean the boat, before they got there. I was going to clean it yesterday, but it just go too darn hot out, and I figured the morning dew would come in handy for wiping it down.


I was in the get ready lanes by 5am, and they showed up at 5:05. It was still very dark out, so I told them we were waiting for it to get light enough, to see the Off Shore boards out there. We were headed out of the mouth of the river at 6am.

As the sky lightened, a partly cloudy sky revealed itself. The air temp was in the 70s, and the wind was light out of the SSW, and below 5mph.


The lake had residual NNW rollers from last night’s wind, so we just took our time going out. We didn’t have to go far, before we were marking good fish out in 36 feet of water. It’s right where I left off 3 days ago, so I was happy to see them still in the area.


Brian had set up this trip as a learning trip, so he and Mandy could get more proficient using both the dipsies and the Off Shore boards, on their own boat.


Their board’s releases were set up differently than mine, so I explained why I run them with the orange OR-19 on the front arm, and the Snapper (OR-18), on the back. I showed them the loop trick, so the line will release from the front arm, and turn the board around, so it comes in backwards, attached to the Snapper. Brian saw the advantages of that, right away.


We ran Bill Lewis Lites on the port side, with 2oz snap-weights, at 50/70 and 50/43 back. Colors were Purple Tiger and Chrome Perch.
(For those that are new to reading my “fish speak” language…this means the snap-weight is attached at the 50 mark, and then another 70 or 43 feet of line is let out, before the board is attached… I run the longer leads on the outside, and the shorter leads on the inside).


The starboard side ran the baby Spros (85s), with 2oz…colors were Blue/Chrome, and Pink Lemonade. The outside bait was set at 50/67 back, and the inside bait was set at 50/27 back.


The early morning bite was the best for us. It slowed way down, from what it was earlier, at around 9am. We had our 18 by 10am(ish), I’m not sure…I didn’t look at the clock.


Mandy managed to catch her personal best, with a “Fish Ohio”, that went a little over 28 1/2 inches. I couldn’t weigh it, because I had stolen my 9V battery out of the scale, to use in the voltage meter the other week, and I never put it back. My bad….but, I’m guessing she was in the high 8 pound range.


Both said they had a good time, and they learned a lot. I feel confident, from watching them work the dipsies and boards, that they will be able to easily do this on their boat, too. Mission accomplished…:)


Tomorrow, I have a perch trip with a father and his two grown sons. The weather is looking good for a perch trip, so I’m really looking forward to it. I hope the bait shops have some Emerald Shiners in the morning, but if they only have Goldies… I have some frozen Emeralds in the freezer, I can take.


Stay tuned….


Capt Juls

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Quick limit of 60 this morning west of b can

Haven’t seen perch reports recently, is the bite still on?