Late report from last Friday.

Perfect weather to start the morning. Sunny, upper 60's low 70's. Waves 1 foot or less, winds from Northeast shifting to Southeast. Lots of boats outside Fairport Harbor, but scattered unlike when the fish are schooling and the boats are tighter over them.

Launched out of the Fairport Harbor Port Authority around 8:30am. Ramps were slightly flooded but accessible and clean. Water quality was nice, not muddy or full of debris. Launch fees are now $12 for the port authority ramps for those who use them.

We headed East to 25-30 FoW and trolled Chrome/Black and Chrome/Orange bandits with inline weights off the back and left side and a Stinger Spoon (orange and reflective - can't recall the name) on a #0 Dispey at a 3 setting off the right side. Lines about 60-80 feet back. Speed was around 1.5-2.0. Marked a lot, but only picked up one 22" in the first hour on the spoon.

We pulled the lines and headed deeper and to the North with plans to troll Southwest in a zigzag pattern to shallower water. Changed from Bandits to all spoons, warhead and chicken wing colors. Left rod was rigged with a jet diver 40 and spoon running anywhere from 80-120 back, back rod had #1 Dipsey and spoon running 60-80 back. Kept right side rod as is. Picked up 1 more in the next hour but marked several fish, though they were scattered and not in large schools.

Interesting thing was that the fish we hooked up with didn't fight and we didn't know they were on the line until checking the rods due to the more than usual bend in the poles. Must be the cold water.

We got to about 50-55 FoW directly out front from the harbor and slowed our program to 1.0-1.5mph and picked up 3 between 18-20" within the next hour. My son was getting tired so we called it quits around 1pm and headed in. I think if we slowed the program down earlier we would have had a better chance of getting limits. All fish caught were over 18". All in all a good day on the water with my son.

We tried lots of different colors of spoons, 1 worm harness, and bandits, but the spoons seemed to produce the most. One interesting note is that we stayed on channel 69 on the radio and heard absolutely no chatter the whole day.

Can't wait for a couple more weeks to pass so we can get into the larger schools of fish and start the Summer fun on the lake.

Hopefully more people start posting on the Central Basin forum so we can help guide and inform each other of what's working and where. A lot of us only get out from time to time with our kids. Having a few tips ahead of time makes the trips more enjoyable and memorable.

Cheers.