7/6 report

[Fishing Tiger]

Went out in the afternoon to look for fish for upcoming guests. We moved them to Monday and Tuesday due to the erratic winds this weekend (they are new to boats and fishing).

There are good numbers of fish north of Kelley's but the nets are still out there and nets and downriggers don't mix. So I started looking/watching the Solix as I headed South East toward Cedar Point. Marks here and there until I found a nice pod over some contour changes, not significant so it could be a coincidence. It was a large school over 40 ft of water.

We set up 3 Bandits on boards 115, 105, and 95. And Scorpion spoons on the riggers 25 to 35 down. The verry first board going out did not get half way out before it stopped and headed back with a solid 22 incher. We fished this pod for 2 hours and I don't think we had 6 rods working at any time. Sizes ranged from 27 to 6 inches, but mostly solid keepers. We released the little guys of course but also 3 fish over 25. We kept 12, 20 inchers for a fish fry. We had 2 other heavy hook ups that pulled coming in. No trash, yooo hooo.

Best Bandit color was Catacomb by far, it caught non stop. We ended up running two of them. No other color produced much but we didn't have time to try many. Notably Sunspot which has been good, did not take a fish. We only ran Nascar and Chicken Wing Scorpion spoons on the Riggers, both caught non stop. As expected the Bandits caught the bigger fish but the spoons consistently caught keepers also. Speed was 2.2 to 2.8 and didn't seem to matter. Water temps were in the low 70s.

We did have to dodge a thunderstorm, thanks to radar we could work around it.

[DW72]

Great report Mike, thank you. Very good to hear that many big fish are still there in the western basin . I fished Ashtabula over the holiday. It was a learning process for me as fish are very scattered and/or very deep in most cases. MANY 11-14 inch fish there which does mean a healthy lake. I'm better and like the PC area better but Ashtabula is twice as close to me and less than half price per trip. So....I'll do both🙂. Fish were in 40-70 fow and 20-55 feet deep. I need to improve my jet diver and 3 ounce inline weights game. They liked spoons and especially the crawler harness I ran. Bandits were working too just not as well as out west.

[Baha299]

Great report as aways Tiger. That area should have fish this time of year.

[[email protected]]

Can someone explain what is up with the nets north of Kelly’s? I always thought those were generally illegal in US waters.
Can’t remember ever seeing them like this around the islands… and so poorly marked.

[Swartztastic]

Can someone explain what is up with the nets north of Kelly’s? I always thought those were generally illegal in US waters.
Can’t remember ever seeing them like this around the islands… and so poorly marked.

Commercial fishing is still legal in Ohio but for the few legacy licenses that have been held for years. No new license issued for decades. No take of walleye is legal. They typically fish for perch until quotas are filled. Will also keep other fish like white bass.

Btw l like the name as my son and I enjoy the sprints too.

Tiger- great report. I also like releasing big fish as they don't eat as well. Tough if it's a newcomer who caught it.