Heading out to lake erie saturday from IL

Heading out to lake erie next week for walleye but wondered what the smallmouth are doing, does anyone know? Are they spawning yet or are they in deeper water? I have a small boat so may have to fish out of the wind for bass when its windy. Also, what is the clarity like? I don't need to worry about dirty water do I? And what is the water temp?

Taking a ferry out to the bass islands. The wife and I used to go every year but after she got sick we haven't made a trip together, the last one was in 2004. I went last year with my brother and did well on walleye, but the bass weren't biting for me because they were spawning and it was windy 4 days out 7.

The bass were biting on the reefs so they are probably moving in to shallower water. Water temp was around 59 to 60 degrees yesterday. You can check this link for current pictures of the lake for water clarity. Good luck!
Remember bass are catch and release until the end of June.

http://coastwatch.glerl.noaa.gov/mod...egion=e&page=1

Thanks Eyescrazy. The pictures seem to make the water look dingy colored. I figured I would miss the bass bite but I wanted it to be warm for the wife. She's stuck on the island for a week, and it can be miserable with bad weather.

Check the satellite link for water clarity before you go out, the clarity can change really fast depending on wind speed and direction. I always check to find the clear water before I go walleye fishing. You are not missing the bass bite, it is just getting started.

That's good to hear about the bass, it looks like we will have dirty water for a few days around the bass islands so walleye might be tough. Supposed to be cloudy there on saturday my first day to fish, with SE winds.

All packed and will be leaving early in the morning (friday). Looks like I will be driving into the wind and rain the whole way, but hopefully it will be nice and sunny on saturday when I start fishing. It looks like the water is cleaning up some around the islands. You guys must have got 4" of rain like we did and turned the rivers to mud, and lake erie too.

Bringing about 8 dozen crawlers but hope to troll some cranks if the wind dies down.

I packed one small suitcase and the wife has three large ones that weigh about 200 pounds. After seeing someone in here with a broken axle I decided to keep the boat light and load the truck up heavy.

I'll be out all week in a small chamo painted boat so you won't see me, lol, so don't run me over.

Bigfish,

Please share your smallmouth report when you get a chance. I am itching to get on a good smallie bite but have not fished the US side of erie much. Let us know how you did, where and what baits. Thanks and good luck!

the aesthetic juicy couture outlet, I think juicy couture tracksuit are like modern jewelry of the time of purchase in order to considered as the first juicy couture bags feature for juicy couture watches a long time it will juicy couture sunglasses then.

Remember that the Bass season is currently closed. I just did not see that mentioned on this thread and did not want anyone getting the heavy fines.

I did fair on the Walleye. I did best the first day, had twelve nice ones but then it was slow after that with just a few a day. I caught a few smallmouth and largemouth in the marina but only did that a few minutes each day.

I had a lot of boat problems, just bad luck. My slow oil leak seemed to rot my power trim cable insulation and it had to fall off second day of trip when I tried to tighten steering tension. This caused major wire shorting out and had to use duck take and insulation off other wires to be able to keep fishing. Then for some reason my bilge pump kept burning fuses, rewired that when I got home, along with rewiring the other. I don't know what was wrong, a switch maybe but just coincidence they both went out. Then I had a valve stem go out starting home on toll road and I just knew I was going to have tire trouble. Anyway made it home safe and sound.

I caught fish trolling cranks. It got very hot and humid and no wind. The last day my kicker motor wouldn't start, from weather I think. The heat was hard to take and the bite was slow. I found fish on the west side of north bass. Coming back I saw a lot of boats by ballast but I like to get away from everyone. that's the story of this trip, couldn't get away, had boats behind me everywhere I went.

I got some video but not much, and it's still on tapes, haven't even looked at it yet. I did get a lot of photos if anyone wants to see. I threw back all my walleye as I usually do anymore.

Photos on my website

<object width="640" height="505"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/afJQ3UiUm84&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0 x54abd6"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/afJQ3UiUm84&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0 x54abd6" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="505"></embed></object>

Slideshow video

Bigfishhead...........sorry to hear about your bad luck with the boat. It sounds like you still managed to catch some fish and enjoy the lake. It might have been hot and humid but that sure beats rain and storms.

I can't believe you throw back all of your walleye, that would be hard for me to do, we just love them in golden dip batter.....emmm emmm.

Enjoyed your photos, thanks for posting!

Well the first day it was cloudy and some drizzle and that was my best day. I should have taken my umbrellas for shade, but I didn't think it would be so calm.

We have a lot of walleye here in the mississippi river if I want to eat any. I do throw most of those back too, but sometimes I will keep a few small ones to eat. There is so much fishing pressure these days that it helps to throw some back. I keep a video camera running a lot of times so that makes it easy to release the big ones. I keep a digital camera too of course.

BTW I was born in ohio and have a lot of relatives that live there that I never see. I bet guys hate fisherman coming from other states so thought I'd throw that in. lol.

Here's what I do with the video, this was last year's spring trip:

<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/azHjzz_qRZc&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0 x54abd6"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/azHjzz_qRZc&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0 x54abd6" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>

I don't hate fisherman who come here from out of state, they still bring money to our area. I did hate the commercial netters in our waters. I never understood how they could limit sport fisherman to a 4 fish limit in the spring while the netters took millions of pounds. Sport fisherman and charter boats are the life of the Western basin.

The netters always bugged me too. I didn't see them out this year, do they still do that?

I guide out some here on the mississippi river and I always ask they they want to release all the fish. But we have a slot limit that makes it hard to catch a keeper anyway. We have to throw back all fish between 20-27" and we are allowed to keep one fish over 27". So we can only keep fish between 15-20". The river really gets a lot of pressure anymore and they even close the dam areas in the winter now because of it. Having said that I caught more big fish yesterday than I did at lake erie on any given day this year, one 28" and two 27".