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left dock around 5pm out of turtle creek was pretty ruff .water was muddy but started clearing up a little 18-19 ft .fished more less out front wild wings managed 9 was back at dock before dark fish were definitely there but tuff fishing in 3ft plus waves and drifting at 1.5

I here a lot of people talking about dodging nets. I have a map of the western basin and it shows indicators for net stakes. Do I need to avoid these areas? Do I need to avoid them all the time or only certain times of the year? Is there an indicator out on the water that I will see if I come across some?

I noticed that a lot of the reefs are in the military target zone. I’m not a local and in June I’m coming to Erie for only my second time. How do you know when they are doing targeting? Do they have coast guard out there to let you know? Is there a site I can go to to find out? I have a ship to shore hand held radio, is there a channel I should listen to? Any help is appreciated.

Sorry for the belated report. Still getting caught up. I had my cousins, my uncle and one of my cousin’s buddies in town from SD last week. We fished Erie for 5 days and the Detroit River for 2 days. Got our limits and then some every day but one.

We launched from the MI side and fished the shallows over rocky flats in 12-16 fow. 25-35 back was our best leads.

Best patterns for the week were:

Blue and Chartreuse – Most consistent pattern all week
Fermi-Nuff – The regular one was good when cloudy, but the chrome one was awesome in high sun.
Purple Passion – Both of them were good, but the white one was on fire the first two days.

We had many fish over 7 lbs and most of those big ones went back. The first fish of the trip was almost 11 lbs. Not a bad way to start.

In the river on Monday, we struggled to catch any decent ones. We were out during the eclipse, which was odd. It looked like a huge storm was coming and then it got sunny again. Tuesday on the river we did much better. I caught 26 walleyes myself and between the two boats we had over 60 keepers, plus lots of dinks. The CAN side had all the good ones.

On Wednesday, we went back to Erie and the water had cleaned up a ton. That day, the best patterns were:

Dottin’ Eyes
Blue and Chartreuse Chrome
Purple Passion Chrome
Glacier Shad

Water temps were pushing 50 and the best speed was 1.5-1.6. After we caught a limit, we decided to cast blade baits and we caught a few more walleyes doing that, along with some bonus smallies and a huge sheep.

Cheers,

Mike

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Anyone have any info on the bite in Michigan Waters? Like many of you, I am just a weekend warrior trying to make the best of a day off of work. Any information would be much appreciated.
Thanks to this great fishing community.

Sorry, this one is late, due to family being in town, and my entertaining them while they are here. They are still sleeping this morning, so I thought I would catch up a little.

A quick recap of this trip, for those interested, is basically the same as the day before, that I had with Lisa and Tanya.

We started out off Catawba, where I had the ladies, but ended up NW of there, in 25 feet of water, with Steve and Jeremy. The fish had moved from the day before, but we found enough to keep the boys busy for a few hours.


We had a late start, due to them driving up from Columbus that morning, so we didn’t hit the water until 9am. By the chatter on the radio, it sounded like the early bite was over, and it slowed way down for most people. My guys heard it, too, and were like….”Meh, we’re just glad to be out on the water today”, so that made me relax a bit. That’s the plus side of fishing with the same people for over 12 years..lol


We did manage to catch their limit, and one of mine, to take home, though.


We ran Bandits behind Off Shore boards on the starboard side, and DHJ12’s on the port side. The double jointed DHJ in blue/white/orange belly, and the one I call “Eriedescent” caught several at 65 back. One that is all chartreuse with three black dots on its side, caught two, also.


Bandit colors and leads that worked for us were:


Khaki at 80 back (but this color was also a favorite of the giant white bass, too)
Carrot Top at 53 back
Painted Barbie at 43 back
Blue Chrome at 40 back (caught the most, I think)


Speed was 1.6 on the FishHawk, but we also caught fish going faster, and slower.
We did a lot of S-Turns, and bumping the speed up and down with the Terrova. They reacted to the speed changes more than if we were just going one speed the entire time.


Water temp on Wednesday was 46 degrees at 15′ down and 47 on the surface.


Yesterday, we got A LOT of rain, and it’s raining again this morning (Friday), and is expected to rain all day, again. The forecast is also calling for a big WNW wind today…gusting into the 40’s. Luckily, I was scheduled off yesterday and today, so I didn’t have to bother with rescheduling anyone. But, tomorrow’s trip has been rescheduled to a new date in May.


I’ll be back out on Sunday and Monday with husband and wife team, Casey and Heather Wheeler, who want to learn some things. Hopefully, we can find some cleaner water up between the islands, with some hungry fish in it, for them to catch.


Stay tuned….


Capt Juls

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Launched out of hot waters in Lorain around 330pm. Started out NE to 42 ft of water. Trolling bandits on one side at 110 back unassisted,50/25 w/2 oz snap,and 50/35 w/2 oz snap. On the other side, we went 130 back unassisted, 50/30 w/2 oz snap, and 50/40 w/2 oz snap. Caught 1 fish in 90 min. Pulled up lines and ventured out to 55 ft of water trusting the weather would hold up. Ran the same program out there and got 10 fish in an hour. We did not catch any fish on unassisted rods. Wound up with a two man limit. Best colors for us were electric zebra,orange crush, and sunspot. We were fortunate the weather cooperated as we could see the storms to the west. Another great afternoon of fishing on the lake.

Second fishing trip this year. Started in 16 feet of water just northwest of turtle creek. Caught 5 in an hour and the wind died. The fish seemed to be in small pods and with the wind change, it was hard to get on a consistent drift. We moved back to east of wild wings marina exit in 11 to 11 1/2 feet of water. The wind was a little more consistent there. Got the other 7 to finish our limit in 2 hours more. Fish were decent sized with three that were 16 1/2” and the rest were 19 to 23”. Lost three or four others before they got to the boat. Probably 9 or 10 of them had just the stinger hook in their mouth.

I counted about 50 boats out in front of Davis-Bessie today at 8am. Looked like everyone was jigging in 13 – 16 fow. We saw a few nearby boats netting plenty of fish, but some looked awfully small. The three of us jigged from 7am to 11:30am before we gave up. We threw back one 14 incher, lost one big one (of course), and after 4.5 hours trying hard, we had only one single walleye to take home. Might be too early? Might just be us.

After too many days off, I was back to work this morning. WoooHoooo!

I have family in town, and staying at my house for the week, so my morning routine is a little off, and I was trying to be quiet, so I wouldn’t wake my sister and brother-in-law, and got a little impatient, and left the house early.

I wasn’t meeting my crew until 6:30 at the Portage River launch, but I left the house at 5AM anyway. I figured I would take the long way through town, while it was dark and quiet, to waste some time, before meeting my crew at 6:30.


I only needed ice this morning, since I had gassed the boat and truck up the other day, when I brought the Vexus out of storage, and put it back under the carport, here at the house.
I drove to the Speedway across town, picked up some ice, and headed back across town again, to the launch.

It was still dark at 5:45, so I turned on the boat’s interior lights, and used the spotlight on my iPhone to rig some rods. Since I was going to be passing under a bridge, before I got to the mouth of the river, I didn’t put the rods in the rod holders, or put the antenna up yet. I didn’t want anything getting broken. Been there, done that before….oops!


Anyway, the boat was ready to go, it was getting a little lighter out, and they weren’t there yet, so I launched the boat, thinking that because they were both women, (one likes to fish and the other had never been on a boat, or caught a fish before), that they wouldn’t be comfortable backing up a trailer. I couldn’t have been more wrong…and, could have saved myself the trouble of launching alone. (Not my favorite thing to do).


Lisa, Tanya, and Kim rented a house in town for the Solar Eclipse, and booked a trip with me, for the day after. Lisa loves to fish, and had a bucket list of fish she wanted to catch….a walleye was one of them. Initially, Tanya was just along for the experience, but would come to know the joys of catching her own walleye, too.
And, Kim gets sick just looking at waves, so she opted out of the trip, and stayed on shore.


Both of them own horses, and have pulled horse trailers for a long time. If you can handle a horse trailer, with a live animal in it, you can easily back up a boat. I should have waited for them, because launching solo still makes me a little nervous. For some reason, I always think the boat is going to float away on me, even though I have ropes securely in place. lol It’s a mind game with myself, I guess.


When I was parking the trailer, a car drove into the lot, and no one else was there at that time, so I knew it had to be my crew. They arrived, excited to go, so we hopped in the boat, and headed down the river.


Once we passed the bridge, I had Lisa take the wheel. “Just keep the boat in the center of the channel, while I get the rods out”, I said to Lisa. She took control and I pulled the rods out of the locker. They were all set up with Bandits, in varying colors….Carrot Top (stock), Taco Salad (stock color), Potato Bread (custom), Fruit Dots (black headed wonder bread/stock), Barbie (custom), and RC Crush (custom).


Heading out of the river, I asked, “Is everyone ready to go?” They both replied, “Yes!”, so the 400 spurred and got the boat up on plane, and off we went, to the west. We set up near Camp Perry in 15′ of water. The Terrova and baby Merc quietly pushed us in a northeasterly direction, at 1.6-1.7 mph on the FishHawk…SOG was similar in that area.

Water temp on the surface was 46 degrees and 45 at 15 feet down.


I started out with only 3 Off Shore boards per side, and set the Bandits on the port side at 25, 35, and 40 back, with the shortest lead on the outside. My boards are set to trip from the front arm now, which allows a shorter lead to work on an outside board, easier than on one that doesn’t release.


The starboard side ran at 35, 45, and 55 back. Nothing for the first 1/2 hour, so we made a 5 mile move east, and set up over 27 feet of water, adding another board, per side, with leads running at 60 on the outside boards, 53 on number three, 43 on number two, and 41 on number one, (inside board), on both sides.


White bodied baits were used to start, and would catch most of our limit, but near the end, Lisa chose one of my favorite colors (Carrot Top), and it would get hit in minutes of being out, and let out again. It hit three fish pretty fast. I laughed and said, “I had that one in the beginning, but took it off…my bad!” I think I will have a few of those out again tomorrow. 🙂


Lisa was so excited to have caught her very first walleye, and could mark it off her bucket list, now. She said, “I don’t even care if we catch another one, because I caught my walleye, and can scratch it off the list”. I said, smiling, “You’re my favorite kind of customer, but I think we can catch a few more this morning”.


It was a beautiful day, and not as windy as was predicted in the forecast, so I was grateful, and pleasantly surprised. We all commented how nice it was today, and how everyone had needed a nice day like this one, to recharge the batteries.
We timed it right, because when we had our limit, and time was up, we headed in…the wind was picking up as we arrived back at the river, and whitecaps were forming, even close to shore. (It was an offshore wind today).


Lisa and Tanya both said that they had a great time. And, now Lisa is coming back in October to try some perch fishing with me, and that makes me happy!


Tomorrow, I have my long time customers, (who are more like family to me than just customers). Steve and Jeremy Chapman. Steve was my very first customer, 13 years ago, and Jeremy started coming with him 12 years ago, so I’m looking forward to tomorrow too.


The weather looks like it’s going to be really nice again, so hopefully the fish are in a good mood, and will be biting.


We are doing a little later start….at 8am, since they are driving up from the Columbus area in the morning.


Stay tuned….


Capt Juls

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