Need a little help for a rookie

[beerman]

My son and I have just started fishing Lake Erie. We load out of the MetroPark south of Trenton MI. Can anyone give me some pointers on areas near this point for decent Walleye fishing? We've been out several times this year and have nothing to show.

Also looking for a good reference book or mag for Walleye rigging. I have the precision trolling book, but I need something that desribes the actual rigging (bottom bouncers, other weights, jigs..etc and how they go together). Any help would be appreciated.

[team mac 67]

I know how you feel, last week my family and I were trying to cast worm harnesses in 6 ft. waves, we had no idea what we were doing. so here is my advice it worked for us. Find a good bait shop in the area and just talk to poeple. believe it or not most poeple are very helpful and very friendly in giving advice about rigging and what harnesses may be producing and even where they are catching the fish. after we got skunked our first morning we went to the bait shop and got some advice. we used 4 and 6 oz. bottom bouncers with 4 ft worm harnesses with #4 and #5 gold colorado blades with gold beeds. that was in really rough water, I imagine you would have to lighten up bit the calmer it gets. hope this helps at all. Oh by the way the next 3 days we limited out in 4 to 5 hours each day.

[Little Dandy]

Probably one of the best ways to learn is to book a good charter for a day. If budget won't allow that, hooking up and fishing with other guys on their boats is also a good way to shorten the learning curve. Offer to kick in on gas and bring some refreshments. I've never launched at the Metropark, so I can't help you fishing that area. What type boat do you have and how far are you comfortable running it? If you were to launch out of Bolles Harbor, I can be more help.

My preference for Erie walleyes is trolling hardware, usually mini-disks and spoons.

[Manxfishing]

I only fish the Trenton Channel in early spring

For the last month now
I've been in and around Brest Bay (Sterling State park)
And I troll Reef Runners

It's not a hard program to start on
You'll need the deep divers (800's)
Best colors would be Wild thing, Grey ghost and Erie and Perch was hot this spring.
Start out trolling one in the middle of the water colum and the other 4 to 5'
off the bottom. Speeds this time of the year should be 1.5 to 2.0 mph
Look for the pack of boats if you don't know were to fish
And troll around there


Fished there today
And took my 5 fish in one pass
One fish was 29" and eight pounds and the others were 21-22"
3 were on wild thing 60' back
2 were on the grey ghost 35' back

[beerman]

Thanks guys, I'm going to make a trip to Andy's and get some of the gear mentioned. I have a 17.5 Lowe. It could make it from the Metropark to Breast Bay, but I would hate to have a storm come up and need to get back fast. I'm going to put in down near the bay or Bolles Harbor....any suggestions on good launches??

[dgrumm]

New to the area. I've been reading and taking notes... thanks to everyone for the posts.
Quick question... when people say they are using night crawlers on a harness, are you using live bait or plastic?

I have a sea trial this week for the new-to-us boat, so hopefully it will be mine by next weekend! Maybe a week or so to get used to the boat, then we'll try to figure out the fishing scene. We will be docking a Cedar Point Marina.

Thanks!

[Manxfishing]

Sterling State park has a very nice launch (Brest Bay)
Parking is great and it's large
Even when it's busy, easy on and off the water
The rest rooms are clean with hot water and there's even a fish cleaning sta.
It's exit 15 (Dixie Hwy) on I-75
And there's 2 bait shops before the park
Jeff's has better info and prices
The state park party store has more food

Bolles is a little farther down (next exit or 2 from Sterling) on I-75
The ramp is smaller but still nice
You do get to the water faster thou
The bait shop there is Mattews, It's just past the launch on the left hand side
Lot's of info and the store has every thing

You can't go wrong either place

[Little Dandy]

The exit for the Bolles Harbor DNR launch is #11. The guys at Matthew's bait about 1/4 mile from the freeway on the south side of the road can help with whats working and where to fish.

Pickup a chart or hotspots type map to help learn the nicknames of various areas of the water.

[cantgetenough]

The Metropark is a good launch. The fishing just to the south at the banana dike is good right now. There is a shack on the south side of the dike. Trust me - Fish in front of it. Just need to find the depth that is good for that day. Crankbaits work in 8 - 14 foot and bottom bouncers work good there also. The best launch is Sterling St park with Bolles a close second. I have fished Lk Erie for over 30 years. So has Little Dandy! We fish together often. All of the launches have channels and you need to stay in them or you will bust your prop. Lake Erie Metropark - same. Sterling is in the middle and you can go North or South easiest. Bolles is to the south and if the better fishing is north, going north can be a hike. By the same reasoning Lake Erie metro is to the north and if the fish are biting better in the south - it's a long way to the south! Best bet is Sterling. Right in the middle! I agree with Little Dandy - dipsys and spoons are best followed by crankbaits like wiggle warts, hot n tots, Thundersticks, shad raps, these are best off planar boards. Planar boards increase the number of lines in the water and the trolling spread. You can cover 200 ft of spread. Speed is 2 - 2.5 mph. Then bottom bouncers with crawlers. If you want to spread lines with bottom bouncers you pretty much have to use inline planar boards and removing these to reel in fish can be a pain and result in a lot of missed fish. Speed here is .9 - 1.5 mph. You want a good bounce! Crawlers can be messy especially if spilled in the boat and they tend to catch all of the junk fish. They do work. I've fished them all! They all catch fish! Another great site: WWW.Educatedangler.com

[beerman]

Thanks all,

I'm going to go out of Sterling on Sunday. Hope we all do well!