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Got a 26? boat. Is there a public ramp in Lorain open or even a fee launch? Looks like Hot Waters is closed

Nothing is better than that first hot cup of coffee… sitting out on the back deck in the wee hours of the morning when all is quiet, and the dogs are just sniffing for whoever walked on their grass overnight. There is the occasional animal drama beyond the fence that sends my dogs into a running frenzy, but they don’t bark at that hour for some reason…thankfully!

The weather forecast for the morning was calling for light winds out of the SSW early, then building as mid-morning approached. I was hoping to get our three-person limit before 9am and off the lake before she started blowing.

I picked up Josh and his daughter Kinley from the Whitecaps Motel at 5:30, hit the gas station for ice, and headed over to Mazurik’s to launch. We were in the water by 6am and headed to the area around Starve Island to start. With the wind direction as it was, I figured if it started blowing earlier than predicted, it would be behind us and pushing us to the NE. That would give me a lot of productive water to cover without having to pick up and run back up to a starting point.
That was just a plan, though, and it turned out to be one of those perfect mornings where plan B wasn’t needed.

The wind was less than 10mph, the lake was 1′ or less, and the fish were active.
Kinley loves to fish, and her Dad brought her to Lake Erie to do just that. They are originally from MN, but now live down near Dayton, so fishing is in the blood.
Josh had only used planer boards once before. I gave him a tutorial on how to attach the Off Shore boards, how to release the line from the front clip if a fish didn’t hit it hard enough to do it itself, and let it swing to the center before reeling it in.

Kinley caught on real quick with the dipsies, but was fine with just me and Josh setting the boards lines.

The dipsies caught the most fish this morning. I ran the usual zero and three settings on each side. The zero on the port side was at 30 back, and the three setting was sometimes at 47 and sometimes at 57 back.
The starboard side zero setting was at 40 back, and the three setting was at 61.

Each side ran a “worm-burner” spoon and a Yeck spoon. If you don’t know what a worm-burner is…is a spoon that has a 3-4 inch crawler harness attached to it, so you can run a crawler really fast without it blowing out.

The Yeck spoon is one that I have “DJ Custom Eye Lures” paint a special blue on the belly. The back has copper/red/black/and green on it. They sell it over at Hi-Way Bait…I haven’t seen it anywhere else. However, the ones hanging don’t have the blue on them,
; that’s a custom order you would need to ask them for.
That spoon has been working great for a few weeks now, so I haven’t taken it off yet.

The “Ghost Purple Perch” Spro Madeye120 caught a couple, as did “Buck Fever” (Domka custom) at 97 back. The “Fruit Dots” Bandit caught one at 75 back.
The “WalleyeX Bralwer” didn’t want to attract anyone today, so that was switched out for another “Bandit”, two different ones actually, but neither color would catch a fish, either. I tried “Khaki”, and one that Kinley picked out, which I don’t know the name of.

Speed was 2.3-2.5mph on the FishHawk. The water temp at 18′ down was 57 degrees.

We had our limits by 8:45 and headed in before the wind kicked up. It was kicking up on our ride in, so the timing was perfect.

Both of them said they had a great time and want to come back in the fall to try for some perch, and that makes me happy! They were a lot of fun to fish with, so I’m looking forward to that. Did I ever tell you that I LOVE perch fishing? lol 🙂

Tomorrow looks like I’ll be hiding on the west side of the islands, due to a NE wind forecast. Danny Harris and his friend will be meeting me at Catawba’s ramp in the morning.

I’ve already rescheduled Thursday’s trip due to the big NE blow that’s forecast. They rescheduled for June 1st.

Stay tuned….

Capt Juls

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Out of Harbor’s Edge about 8:30 with my son and our friend John. Ran straight up the middle to just north of east end of American Eagle Shoal. Better looking water but not such good marks. Putted a little more north and got some good marks. Hooks from 15 to 25 feet. Set up with worm harnesses on port and spoons on starboard at 45 to 55 back with 40 jets. Trolled west toward Monument at 1.9 mph and got a quick taker on a Pooh Bear chartreus. Soon got more on Trout and Monkey Puke. Took a real nice one on a Wonder Bread double willow harness, but spoons were out producing. Changed all over spoons and were done by 11:30. As sun came up higher went to 2.5 mph and to 75 back as fish moved down.

My wife and I headed to Venetian marina bout 9:15 with plans to troll in the bay. We always see several boats doing it on our way out to the lake. Thought I had my pier fishing shallow Bandits on the boat but no-go, so out to the lake we went. Didn’t feel like going too far away so we headed towards the dumping grounds that is SE of Kellys. Got out not too far past the Fog horn and checked the sonar. I’m no expert and my equipment doesn’t work on the fast fly so I slow down to idle and check. We were marking some fish so we thought we’d start trolling out to the dump. Got three nice ones on the way there so we turned around once we got there and headed back on the same path. Another 3 back towards cedar point. Did that routine once more and have our (12) limit in almost three hours. Three were in the nice eater category and the other nine were all 24-30″ class. Couldn’t believe it. No throw backs. One sheephead that was at least 10#. No other junk. We couldn’t believe the size we were getting. Best lures were Bandit Buckfever and Blue chrome, nothing else. 28′ to start to 38′ of water by the dump, generally 2.2-2.4mph. Got to thank Juls for teaching my wife and I how to use the Offshore boards a while back.

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I started early this morning. From the channel marker north of south bass with a heading to east of sugar. Crawler harness all day. First line in at 6:00. First fish on at 6:05. Little 16? eater. Then super busy all the way up. Lots of junk. White bass, big farm, cat. Hit a nice 22? in the mix. Tons of marks east of sugar. A lot of boats in the area. Picked up a couple more keepers in that area. Bite was slow after 10:00. Headed to the can off east point of middle bass. Fished north northeast. Best was 40 foot up off the can. Caught a fish about every 5 minutes. Ended up with 16 eyes. Just fished for fun after my limit. They were down deep. Running 2oz snaps back 60-75? at about 2mph. They wouldn?t leave a green, and purple blade alone. I couldn?t get the board set, and one would be on. Nothing huge, just good eaters 17-22?. One of the most fun fishing days I?ve had!

Thank you dansdad for the info!
Your previous post put me on them again! Thank You!
6 more eyes NW of G can.
4 on the spreader with no bling and just a crawler!
spreader is fished straight down from the boat.
2 on the worm harness.
3 shorts ~ returned, lost one at the boat.
no eyes on the erie dearie , but the sheep head liked it.
5 sheep heads , returned.
6 white perch , returned.
no yellow gold ?

Back soon,
Be safe,

Water Dog

Hey all, looking to fish out of Lorain tomorrow 5/17 and wanted to see if anyone knows whether Hot Waters ramp has reopened? Thanks

Just a update, all the head boats have moved out, do not know know where.
The last 3 days I did not see any head boats working it from shore.
Back at it and let you know any info I can provide.

Be Safe, (life jacket included)

Water Dog

Hello all forgive me for asking a question in this thread but not a lot of online traffic in the general discussion.. I run 12 or 14 pound mono for trolling bandits..is it necessary to run a 8 pound 6 foot leader to the bait or can I connect right to the lure? Thanks ahead of time

I got up at 1:30, and did the usual routine of dogs, coffee, back deck, and checked the weather apps. The air temp was 46 degrees. The sky was clear and full of stars. The wind was pretty much nonexistent.
There was a package on my front porch that the nightly critters visiting the “Critter Buffet” luckily didn’t take an interest in, and I brought it in. It was the new Minn-Kota remote for the Ulterra that they sent me.

At 3am, I went out to the boat and turned the Ulterra and the remote on… paired the new remote to the motor, then paired it to the One Boat Network app, so I could do the software update on the new remote. That all went smoothly, and it did end up working perfectly this morning…so, all is well again.

This morning was a second trip, this week, for Dick Lehto. This past Tuesday, he fished with his friend Brad. This morning, he brought his friend, Jonathan, with him. Jonathan is an avid fisherman, so this was going to be easy.

They were meeting me at Mazurik’s at 6am, so I was there by 5:15. I wanted to get everything ready, so when they showed up, we could hit the water right away. They showed up around 5:50, which was perfect timing, because many more boats were entering the park at a steady rate. We were able to launch and get out of there before it got too busy.

Initially, I was going to head north of Kelly’s, because it was going to be a light south wind, but I decided to head over to Huron, because of that same light south wind. It would be an easy ride over there, and wouldn’t use up too much gas. Normally, the fish are abundant over in that area this time of year, so I thought it was a good idea.

Womp….womp…:( lol

We started in 40′ of water, north of the white condos, east of Cedar Point. We marked some fish when we set up, but they would come and go off the screen…but, mostly “go”….there was a lot of blank screen in the pass we made.
We were set up west of the Huron Dump, and headed towards it, so in my mind, I thought the marks would get better as we got closer, or on the east side of it. It’s usually pretty good right now. However, that wasn’t the case for us.

Like I said, we started in 40′ of water….went in to 37′ of water, and then back out to 44′ of water. So, we covered a lot of water and never found a school of fish. Just a fish here and a fish there…it was a grind to say the least. (I was kicking myself, because I probably should have gone north out of Mazurik’s instead of east. But that’s how it goes sometimes. You make a decision and stick with it.)

My crew was not complaining in the least and kept saying how much they were enjoying themselves. Jonathan said, “This has been a shitty week, but this definitely makes up for it.” I smiled and said, “It’s a beautiful morning to be out here…you guys didn’t want to be done by 8am anyway, right?” Dick was quick to agree.

Bandits let me down today….not one fish was caught on a Bandit, or PWC Lite. Three baits caught their limits. The WalleyeX Brawler, Spro Madeye Minnow 120, and the Yeck spoons.

The WalleyeX Brawler colors that caught were the “Chrome Tiger” at 80 back and “Craw” at 120 back, unassisted. The “Ghost Purple Perch” Spro 120 at 100 back caught several, too.

The dipsies caught a few fish, but not like they did the other day. The biggest fish came on a Yeck spoon on a 3-setting dipsey at 57 back.

Speed was kept between 1.9-2.5mph…again, most bites were during the 2.2-2.3 speeds.

The water temp was 55 degrees on the surface and 56 degrees 18′ down.

We only managed to catch their limits, but none of mine. They were happy campers, and we headed back in. The ride was smooth as the lake was only producing a 6″ chop, but the south passage was its usual self with wakes coming from all directions, so that was the only bumpy part of the ride.

Both said they had a great time, and that makes me happy!

My trip for tomorrow is moving to Sunday, since I had it open and they were driving in from their hometowns here in Ohio, so they could move it to the next day. Tomorrow is fishable, but it’s going to be rougher than Sunday.

Stay tuned….

Capt Juls

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