Two army/air force veterans need your advice

A fellow Vet friend and I are planning kind of a "Bucket List" fishing trip to the western basin of Lake Erie next week. (May24-26) The last time my friend Bill fished Erie was 70 years ago with his dad. The last time for me was before the coming of the Zebra Mussel and Gobie. Bill will be driving to Erie from Arlington, VA, I am driving up from Cincinnati. For the distance Bill is driving, I'm hoping to make sure we catch some fish. While I have a lot of lures collected through the years, we'll need advice on which "Bandits" might work best and where abouts we might start our search for walleye, smallmouth and perch. I understand that channel 79 works best for marine band communication, my boat's call sign is "The Last Hurrah" it is a Tracker Targa 17. If you see us say hello.

We will enter Lake Erie via the Portage River next door to Port Clinton

Herb;
Would be good to know where you are planning to put in. You will get better advice knowing that as the water depths vary from extreme western basin to Kelly's and the Bass Islands
Depth of water changes how far back you run your Bandits.

Thank you for responding - I believe it is the Portage River where we will enter Lake Erie just next door to Port Clinton. Hope this helps

the best 2 bandits I've found are sunspot and chrome bottom with a blue back. back before and after the zebra, we caught lots of fish on hot n tots and wiggle warts in the standard sizes. if the bandits don't work try something that runs a little shallower. but don't hesitate to try anything in your tackle box that works on bass. at times we caught fish on things like wee warts to baits like the deep-diving mudbugs. we used spinning reels and just let out what we thought was 100' to 200 feet. good luck to you 2 old geezers. I'm 71 now and have fished Erie since the late '70s. I fished the western basin drift fishing for years until the water cleared and the walleye numbers went down then switched to trolling for a few more yrs then moved to the central basin. I went a lot from mid-May through early July but now I only go 1 time a year for a week in late July.

Well, compared to Bill (age 78) and me at 82, I guess according to our math you're still a young buck! You fished Erie since the '70s and I just wished I was fishing Erie during that time. But the one thing I did in common with you during those years was to buy many of the lures you have mentioned. The greater majority have never seen water. Is there any chance you might be fishing May 24-26? We'd like to thank you in person for getting back to us. If not, thank you for these "pearls of wisdom". We are changing where we launch our boat and that will be at the Catawba launch ramp.

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Originally Posted by Herb S

Well, compared to Bill (age 78) and me at 82, I guess according to our math you're still a young buck! You fished Erie since the '70s and I just wished I was fishing Erie during that time. But the one thing I did in common with you during those years was to buy many of the lures you have mentioned. The greater majority have never seen water. Is there any chance you might be fishing May 24-26? We'd like to thank you in person for getting back to us. If not, thank you for these "pearls of wisdom". We are changing where we launch our boat and that will be at the Catawba launch ramp.

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I won't be up until mid-july to fish out of geneva with divers to get my lures down. back when I fished the western basin we did most of our fishing around west sister island. early in the year, we fished south and sometimes a little west of the island but as temps rise we would fish north and northwest of the island. but things may have changed by now. and I'm sure there are other great places to fish.

Got back from the Western Basin yesterday. For our three-day trip we mainly used crawler harnesses, it was too windy to do much else. For day one and two we caught sheepshead, small perch, a smallmouth and pee wee perch. The final day (Thursday the 25th) we got into walleyes just off of Kelleye's Island. We caught 5 keepers then when the wind picked up, we thought it best to head back to the ramp. It was getting too rough for a 17' boat. Oh, when at the ramp a boat comes in with a 13 pounder and another about 6-7 lbs. Now, why wasn't that us?