Labor Day trolling east of Kellies

We fished Monday east of Kellies.Were a lot more boats out walleye fishing,than I would have expected.Must be due to the poor perch fishing so far this season.Took us 5hrs to get our 3 man limit.Caught all eaters.Nothing over 23'.Trolling speed was between 2.3 and 2.7mph.Almost all our fish came on purple stinger spoons off dipsies.Setting 3@75,90&105:Setting 1@ 70&80 all caught fish.Two weeks ago we did really well with bandits off our boards 150 and 2oz.Yesterday,they only caught 2 fish.Tried a few colors and changed depth,but could not figure out a program.After 3.5hrs changed them to a spoon and a harness and they caught nothing.Got one white bass,6 sheep and about 10 shorts.Also had 3 fish that were barely over the 15" mark.The water clarity may be affecting the bite east of Kellies,as the satellite shows a algae cloud in a good part of that area.Water clarity was probably 3-4ft.

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Originally Posted by itsbob

We fished Monday east of Kellies.Were a lot more boats out walleye fishing,than I would have expected.Must be due to the poor perch fishing so far this season.Took us 5hrs to get our 3 man limit.Caught all eaters.Nothing over 23'.Trolling speed was between 2.3 and 2.7mph.Almost all our fish came on purple stinger spoons off dipsies.Setting 3@75,90&105:Setting 1@ 70&80 all caught fish.Two weeks ago we did really well with bandits off our boards 150 and 2oz.Yesterday,they only caught 2 fish.Tried a few colors and changed depth,but could not figure out a program.After 3.5hrs changed them to a spoon and a harness and they caught nothing.Got one white bass,6 sheep and about 10 shorts.Also had 3 fish that were barely over the 15" mark.The water clarity may be affecting the bite east of Kellies,as the satellite shows a algae cloud in a good part of that area.Water clarity was probably 3-4ft.

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Monday we ran back to the East Side of the island where we last left them 2 weekends ago about 5-6 miles East. After about an hour we ran back to the west, same thing a lot of marks... too deep/no biters.Then we moved ESE of the island the marks got better and we started picking up fish. The best combination ended up being larger stinger spoons in purples or watermelon 50-60bk at 2.6.

fished saturday and sunday same area as gps picture slow grind for them 40tt 75 t0 90 back with spoons sat all nice fish sun fish were smaller with alot of throw backs

Seams the walleye bite east of Kellies has slowed down from the few reports I was able to find.This time of year traditionanally slows down due to the warmer water temps.It does seam that the water temps have started to drop during that cold spell and East wind the last week of August.With another cold spell and north to east winds for next 4 days,water should cool even more.When looking at the satellite pictures,noticed that algae cloud covers a lot of that water east of Kellies.My purple spoons on the dipsies caught ok,but did not try a purple bandit on my boards.Caught one on blue chrome and another on perch color.With those 150 -85 leads and only two boards made me work more on lead change than color with the cranks.Will see how the bite improves as the water cools.I feel for all the perch fishermen .From the reports all over lake,this year is looking like the worst perch catching season most have ever experienced.No perch to catch or to filet at the cleaners.Have read many theories on why the perch fishing is poor.The most frequent suspects are commercial netters,water fleas and lack of emeral shiners/forage fish.Will see if the ODNR does anything this winter to a dress the lack of perch success.

How true the information is, but I heard nets east of kellies are not bringing in many fish either............so to me that makes it appear more than they are just not biting as much as as a large lacking of numbers.

Several years ago large size and good numbers of perch could be had out east or by the weather bouy. Have personal had 150 perch go almost 90 pounds. These areas are now not producing

It's no doubt with large number of walleyes, bait fish and small other fish like perch are taking a beating in the population column I'm sure our great hatches over the last 5 years of walleyes has put a dent in the number of little perch filling in or even making it.

I'm sure its affecting them schooling up how we used to know them.

How long does it take a perch to go from hatch to 9"

I read somewhere that it takes 4-5 yrs for a yellow perch to reach 8".Not sure if true or not but sounds about right.