May 2009 Western Lake Erie Fishing Reports

[waterdog]

This weekends wind and waves made lake erie cloudy!
I went out Saturday and fished near Niagara, but the wind kicked up and we moved to put-in bay to fish on the east side. No eyes on Saturday, just sheephead and white bass.
On Sunday I fished from my boat dock and caught; catfish, bullhead, sheephead, yellow perch, bulegill, crapie, rock bass,& largemouth bass. I was listening to the cb channel and I heard that you had to go out to the shipping channel to get clear water.
Anyways, my set up for the dock fishing was a spreader in 4 fow with no "bling" and just two crapie hooks with minows.

[Eyezcrazy]

Fished Saturday just Norhteast of Niagra. 3 men threw everything but the kitchen sink at the eyes from 8:00 am till 2:00 and didn't catch any eyes. My buddy lost one at the boat. Moved closer to Catawba tried a couple more hours and called it a day. Tossed weapons, harnesses, weight forwards and even trolled for a while with jets and stingers. Second trip this year and skunked both times. Can't figure it out, another buddy said they caught 20 between 6 guys casting and drifting fishing closer to Besse in 20 FOW but worked 10 hours to get them. Is the population getting that low or am I just off to a slow start? Been fishing Western basin since 1988 and am concerned about the walleye future.

[spoontang]

The water is way too dirty in that area. It will clear up in a couple of days.

[Gettin Jiggy]

I went out sat due east of west sister. Had lines set up at 7:30 had 9 eyes by 8:30. The last three took another hour after the wind and waves picked up. Sunday we were about one mile south of middle sister we picked up one with the program we used saturday and then switched to jets and spoons. We ended up with 12 total in 5 hours, sunday was a slow day.

[spoontang]

Thanks for that tip on the scorpion size spoons Gettin Jiggy. They were the hot ticket. I wouldn't have done near as well running just the larger spoons. I did well but it was never really red hot. We had plenty of dry spells. I think the fish are wary from all of the strong multi directional winds and dirty water. A couple of calm days should fix things up. I will get back out there in a day or 2.

[BigWalleyeFan]

Fished NW of Kelley's and Gull Shoals on Saturday and caught a 29 incher. I didn't have an accurate scale but the little handheld on the boat was somewhere between 5 and 8 lbs. We were in 50 ft of water drifting deep with gold eries and purple harnesses. The Lake was rough and the wind was strong so it was a fast drift. Five Walleye totaled 130 inches of fish. There were some other big catchs in the same area. Today the area surrender a 27 3/4 incher. The big ones are out there and deep.

Fished North of West Sister on Sunday and caught 5 walleye that averaged 20-22 inches. All are nice fish. 4 of the 5 were caught on gold eries.

[eerie drifter]

Started drifting a little south of Stoney Point Sat morning had to use troller get 1mph caught biggest Sheep of my life, so big it bent nice St Croix rod 180, thought I was gonna break it. Later in afternoon took a 22 incher on scorpion Shrimp and another 22 incher on brass blade/beads drifting at 1.5 mph on the way back to Sterling St Park it was like the Deadliest Catch, thought we might go for a swim. Sun was dead, only caught 1 a 14 1/2 incher, tried all the hardware. The nice cleaning station at the park didn't have any business. Saw tree trunks in the water as I was coming in, Spoontang is right, should clear up quick as long as weather is good.