Needing advice

I would think Vermillion will get you fish right now. I'd troll some bandits and some harnesses and see what they like best. Find the fish first before setting up. I can't mark at speed so I just stop now and then and look. Go North till you mark a good amount of suspended fish. I got them recently at Ashtabula and yesterday at Barcelona in NY. 2.25 to 2.5 mph. Sometimes harnesses out fish bandits by quite a bit when the fish are picky. I'm a bandit guy but know that I sometimes have to try something different to get more bites. All areas have their own nuances. Yesterday I fished 100 FOW and the fish that were hammering were only 20-35 feet down. Nothing was on the graph down low all day.

Good luck!

This time of year "It's pick your poison" as they say. Make the drive to the East or stay West but head out to deep water. I understand that from Sandusky to Geneva it's a poke... about 2hours and 10 minutes or so. However, if you decide to fish Vermillion, Huron,etc I'm thinking you will want to target water thats a bit deeper than 40'. Like I said in an earlier post, my buddy fished Lorain a week or so ago and fished the better part of the day to scratch 6 small keepers. He was in 40 to 50 feet of water. Not trying to sway you one way or the other, just giving you some options. Tight Lines!!

I'll second what DW said about worm harnesses... they are hot right now. Double willow blades at 2.25 to 2.5 mph have been on fire for us.

Go EAST.

Killed them out of Avon today, no sheep. Went straight out 17 miles, 2 man limit + 8 throw backs in 10:30 - 3:00. 18-24". 3.75" spoons on dipsey/tt40/downriggers targeting 30-50 ft down in 72-68 fow 3mph. Anything orange or pink was what they wanted today.
Tt40 75-125 back
Mag dipsey 3 setting no ring 50-85 back
Riggers 35-60 ft down (8lb ball)

50/50 tangerine bandit caught several

Perch Worm burner did well too. Spoon/worm harness combo, runs at spoon speeds.

Harness got 1 today, traded out for a spoon.

Problem with Harnesses is the pick up shorts and junk fish too...

Was wanting to pull some chrome, but no luck.

Another boat came in at the same time and was catching shallow. 17-25 fow

Awesome thank you

Be sure no one takes any bananas on the boat.

What....fish don't like bannas?

Vermilion is better that's for sure not quite a limit but we are catching some fish so we are happy thanks fellas

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Originally Posted by Ole fisherman

What....fish don't like bananas?

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I have been told over and over bananas are bad luck. But we were taking them out and didn't really have any bad luck, and never noticed any less fish. We have been fishing out of Geneva for at least 15 years, anytime between mid-July and mid-August, and had to run out past 70' or deeper to catch fish in mid-summer. I had a good friend who chartered west until mid-July, then moved his boat to Geneva. Even fishing in Geneva earlier in the year is a good place to fish, but the fish are shallower and not schooled up like they are when they move to deeper water. We stopped using harnesses a few years ago and started using spoons with lite bite divers fished deep, then we ran our 2 riggers set 50 or 55 feet down. With harnesses, we were running 1'6 to 2'2 depending on the waves, but the spoons were better when they ran 2.7 to 3.2.

I agree with Sherm. We haven’t slowed the boat down til we got to 70FOW. At this time of year, we’ve been starting at 72 and running north. The deeper we go the bigger the fish. Some days they’re suspended shallower and sometimes ten feet off the bottom or both. Cover the water column when you start and let the active fish tell you what depth is hot. So west of Geneva, you definitely need to fish deeper than 40FOW