Sturgeon Point 7/19/08

Went straight West from Sturgeon, until 70 to 73 feet of water.
A couple of miles from the Canadian Line, in front of the Catt.
Got 9 eyes in 3 hours, kept 6, released 3.
Largest fish 9+ pounds, big Dipsey, no ring, set at 3, 62 feet of 17 pound mono. Black+purple dipsey. Black worm harness with purple tape. 4 fish on lead core, one with 6 colors, one with 5 colors on big planer boards.
Got 2 fish on 25 foot jets with 200 feet of 17lb mono, set on the other big board. Black and purple caught almost all the fish. Got a sea sick land lubber and had to quit at noon, but I know we could have limited easy. At one point we had 3 fish hit at the same time. School was tightly packed, so you had to keep circling with the GPS to stay on the active fish.
Pukin Dog

Thanks for all the info... sounds like you had a great day! Tight lines...:D

Thanks for the update.I'm going to try and fanagle a few hour of fishing in Tuesday morning.Heading out of the Niagara river to the deep stuff,so I'm hoping for calm seas.The forcast looks good.I'll be in a 22 ft.Trophy with outboard Mercs.I'm only fishing 2 rods so it'll be easy to stay out of your way.Best of luck to you.

Thanks for the info. I hope to get out Sat. or Sun ,weather depending. I will be going out of Sturgeon Pt. I launch from there all the time. This sounds like the area that I fished a few years ago and found it to be very productive. I've tried it a few times after that but didn't do much. I use to see some fishing nets / small bouys set up that's when you know you're very close to Canada.

Good Luck!

Yes, Ive seen the nets in the past.
They are Canadian comericial guys.
They just don't get it. A few guys making big money at the expense of thousands of sport fishermen. Maybe someday the Canadian sportsmen will by them out, like all the US guys did. I haven't seen any yet this year, they are usually down close to the Canadian weather bouy. I've been closer to Buffalo, as I can't see the bouy even on clear days.

Good luck

I was able to get out Sat. morning. Went 6 miles west out of Sturgeon Pt. I was in 66 ft. of water. There were white caps with 3 to 4 ft waves. I decided to troll from there. Trolled east with the waves. Had 4 hits - landed 3 of them. We were using planer boards - 2 rods on the port side had 2 oz. and 1 1/2 oz. weights. We had worm harnesses on them with watermellon and purple / black combination. The starboard side had 2 poles with a 20 and 30 jet. I had the Coast Guard all around me. It was very dark over Canada so I put on the weather radio. They said that most of the activity was north of us so we decided to keep fishing. When I switched back to the standard stations I went to ch 16. There was a report saying that there was a unmanned boat located 4 mi. off Sturgeon Pt. The coast Guard was looking for a missing person. I thought OH BOY I don't want to catch what they're looking for. When I got back to the Pt. to put the boat back on the trailer the D E C was there measuring fish. I asked them if they heard anything if they located anybody? The D E C said that they believed the unmanned boat was off a lake freighter that went through earlier in the day. It makes for a complete day when you have a good story to tell.















s

I know what you mean about the white caps.
I didn't fish this week end because of the wind.
Sounds like you had a fair day. Good luck next outing. Give me a shout on channel 68 when you are on the lake. If I'm out, I'll let you know how I'm doing and where I am.

Puking Dog

Hopefully I will be able to get out next Saturday. I'm always on ch 68.

The Sunday BNews was showing all the gas wells in Canada right in the middle of L Erie. Probably 10 mi west of Sturgeon Pt. There are 100's of them. Are you guys who saw the buoys sure they are net fishermen or could they be gas wells ?

I'm going west 10 miles out of SP and try my luck. So far, nothing in the freezer ! Gotta get some yellows.

Gas wells are under water. You can't see them from a boat and to my knowledge are not marked with bouys. There is a weather bouy out there that you can access from the internet for wind speed/direction and wave height. below is the address, save it, it updates hourly and can tell you a lot about how the lake conditions are and what the trend is.

http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=45142

If you need to catch fish, go to Brocton Schoals area, between Dunkirk and Barcelona, 65 feet of water, in front of a blue water tower,
slightly SW of schoals. Last week you could limit out there in 2 hours.
Brocton schoals is marked on any good lake chart of the area. It has some rare structure for this end of the lake. Fish are being caught off the structure by a couple miles.

Puking Dog

I just found this sight and the information is great. I'm ready to make my first trip to Erie . Planning on putting in at Catt. creek. No downriggers but I'm fully stocked on dipsys and lead core. Flying blind is tough so alittle advice on where to start would help a ton! What are the size/limit on the eyes? Just one would be worth the trip! I need ya Pukin Dog, Throw me a bone............J!

15 inches or better 5 a day on the walleyes.If you have never been out on Erie you might want to get the fishing hotspots maps(theres 2 for NY parts of Erie) They are a great point of reference for ideas of were you are and were to go.Have fun and good luck:)

go straight out until you 70 feet of water minimum.

Black and purple or watermelon(pink and green) are my go to colors.

Dipseys ; I used big one last trip out, set on 3, used only 65 feet of line.
When I set it deeper, got no fish. But that was that day.

Bigger fish tend to hold closer to the bottom on sunny days, but a got a 9 pounder last time out with 65 feet of line on the dipsey plus 3 eyes between 3 and 4 pounds.

Lead core: had one line with 5 colors one with 4. Both caught fish but they were smaller. Stick baits on lead work well. Put half a nightcrawler on back hook. If you use a whole worm, it kills the bait action and no strikage.

You can run sticks on dipseys too.

Don't troll too fast 1.6 to 2 mph.


Good luck, hope the fish are active. If you don't see fish on your graph don't panic. If they are high in the water column, they will spook sideways way before your transducer sees them, but they will still hit especially if you have boards.

Puking dog

how far is sturgeon point from the pa line

Thanks guys! I'll let ya know how I make out.......J!

Sturgeon Pt Marina is 46 miles as the crow flies to Pa state border with NY. (according to google earth).

Cattaraugus Creek is 10 miles.

Anybody launch from the Pt Breeze Marina ? Do they sell night crawlers ?

can anyone tell me how deep to fish for the eyes in pa in the easttern end

Fished Friday. Light until 2pm. Lost a huge eye at the boat. It was the only fish of the day. Caught a bunch of white perch. 72 fow 6 miles out of catt. creek. Big dipsys set at 0 with 100 ft of line out. purple/black and watermelon! What was I doing wrong? Did anyone do any good the last couple of days? It's alittle discouraging for my first trip but still planning on going back one day this week. Gotta put my time in! Couldn't find the perch either............J!

went out friday same area took limit and lost three my buddy they took 14 went out today and picked up 2 was in by 9:30 was only fishing in 67 ft today on friday fished 78-90ft once you locate fish on bottom use a magnum dipsey with a ring and set on 3 use the chart it runs accurate today fish were at 61-63 ft set dipsey 142 back friday fish were 77-81 ft set disey 165-175 ft was using black purple , rainbow trout and fire tiger perch launch right out of catt hang a left and start fishing

Walleye are now in 90 feet of water, off the Catt, and hitting.
Limit catches Saturday and Sunday

Pukin Dog

Point Breeze Marina has a small ramp. Put a $5 bill in the gate machine and go straight to the ramp. Park near the Gate house. Use your power tilt till to you get 4 feet of water as swells will cost you a prop. It is shallow and a few rocks travel around there.

Don't set your dipsey at zero.
You want to get get it as far away from the boat as possible, to get a wider troll pattern. This allows you to cover more water and troll more lines.

You should be setting at 2 and a half or 3 with the weight on the bottom of the dipsey, on the inside (closest to the boat). So the port side dipsey will be set opposite of the starboard dipsey.

The only way you should be running dipsey's set at zero is if your running 3 dipsey's on each side of the boat.

If you are running 3 per side, set one at .5 or zero, the middle one at 1.5 and the outside one at 2.5 or 3.


The closer to the boat, the deeper they run. Try to get all 3 running at different depths until you hone in on where the fish are hitting then adjust the others by controlling how much line you let out.

You can also run mini-dipseys on planer boards.


When it comes to Lake Erie, the farther away from the boat you can get, the better you are. The fish can see your boat coming and will fan away from the boat.

Good luck next trip


Puking dog

Thanks for the info pukin dpg! Gonna try and make it up one day this week if the weather cooperates. Not ready to hang it up just yet.....J!

Hi Guys!
I went out Sat. morning out of Dunkirk. Got there at 5:00am just in time to watch the light show - Thunder, lightning & horizontal rain. After the front went through we went out to 85 ft. of water N W out of the harbor. I was in my neighbors boat - he keeps it there. We got 15 eyes - three of us. Ran jets on one side, and jensen deep divers on the other. Also 2 downriggers - one had a Renowski the other had a worm harnes. The jets and divers all had worm harnesses. The renosky had the best hit, it took drag. All the rest were very light hits. To tell you the truth I really couldn't tell when a fish was on but I think my neighbor smells them when they are on the line.
We went back to the same location Sun. morning 5:30 am. The wind was coming out of the North East pretty hard but we managed to get out. It was rough. We went to the same location that we were at Sat. but didn't have the same screen that we had the day before. Don't know where the fish went. We ended up with 4. It was 10:00 am and had a hard time trolling so decided to call it quits.
When I got home I noticed the wind had eased up a little. I got the urge to go out again. Went to Sturgeon Pt. launched myself and was fishing by 2:30 pm. Went 7 miles west to 70 ft. of water. Trolled renoskys, one on a jet and one on a small dipsy # 3 setting but had no hits.
When is the wind going to stop????

Everyone mentions Renosky lures; if you guys dont mind what kinds are you running off of downriggers and divers? I visited their website and of course there are quite a few. I see that Cabelas doesn't carry them either. Any recommendations on where to get them? thanks.

I buy mine at Dicks or Gander mountain.
They are also refered to as polish pirates.
They are shallow divers, small lip, 1 piece stick baits.
Most people remove the front treble hook to get better swim action.
I do too, but I don't know if it really does any thing except make it easy to get them out of the net. You will rarely see a walleye with the front hook in it's mouth.
My best colors black back, blue center and pink bottom
or black back, purple center, pink bottom.

The guys at Brocton have been using rainbow color

Pukin Dog

I hear alot about the Clown Renosky. Any luck with them? I think it looks like smelt.

I don't own one, but I agree it probably does look like a smelt and I know walleye love smelt.
I mostly stick to worm harness's and only play with stick baits when fish are hard to come by and I get desperate or forget my crawlers or run out.

Sticks also work good when the silver bass or perch are pecking your night crawlers off faster than you can get em in the lake.

Were you able to get out over the weekend? Wind, Rain, Large waves and Whitecaps what a good weekend? Summer is dwindling down. This is one of the worst summers that I can remember.