I've been fishing erie since the late 70's and its been a trophy lake all those yrs with some ups and downs. but with the 03 hatch swimming around this is some of the up yrs for taking some great trophies. but there is still a few fish out there that's grown even larger than the 03 hatch. and there is a lot of fish out there that's going to be trophies over the yrs to come. erie was named the walleye capital of the world many yrs before the 03 hatch.

I know when I first started fishing I fished the western basin. and most of the fish we caught was eaters with a few larger fish thrown in. but it was nothing for us to catch our limits within a few hrs. and we always heard stories about the larger fish being caught in the central basin. then a guy I worked with bought a boat from a charter caption that fished the central basin. and he set up a charter with him and he asked if I wanted to go. this was probably around the early 90's and I said I would go. we caught a lot of 26" to 30" fish at that time. then I bought a bigger boat and line counter reels dipsy divers and worm harnesses and started fishing the central basin. I'm still learning to fish the central basin. we usually do good but could do better on a lot of days. but I've been catching plenty of those 26" to 30" with some 32" and 33" fish ever since I started fishing the central basin. we caught more small fish last yr than I've ever caught on the central basin. I don't know why we were catching the smaller fish but its a good sign for the yrs to come.