Quote Originally Posted by gregnwtf View Post
Wild Wings and Fenwick-Turtle Creek have plenty of water in the spring and early summer. When fall sets in or late summer, there can be issues of lower levels but it comes back to wind direction. September SW wind blowing 20mph will probably drop the west end level. Sept. NE 15 mph levels are decent.
Small boats need less water under the boat than I do so they would be able to go out most days. I only waited a few hours one day, cancelled about 3 days the entire fall. Never churned up mud going out of Fenwick. On a day I cancelled , some boats did go out of WWings are I saw them churn up mud in the cut. Like I said before, the marinas of Turtle Creek are talking about dredging the opening to the lake, probably this year. This was as of October 2012 on my last weekend of charters. We need snow, ice, some rain to keep the water flowing which keeps the lakes up to near normal levels. This is not just a Lake Erie western basin issue, it goes through most of the great lakes. 8 weeks till first jigging charters !!!!
Hope you are right Capt Greg! Normally true, however, it could be dicey this year. Below are three very interesting links to Great Lakes Water level and water level forecast sites. The first one, USACE projects Lake Erie level for next 6 months. The mid-line of the cone of projection for Erie shows prediction of 5 inch rise by mid April, which would put it back only close to where it was last mid September! (of course the ranges show could be up to 8 inches better than this, but also under lower range could be 8 inches worse, heaven forbid)

The second link shows current level is still essentially same as it was on Oct 20th, 2012.

So,we are not out of the woods - a lot depends on what happens in next 2-3 months. Hopefully things will turn around and exceed expectations. Ice and snow sure would have helped.

In any case, these are 3 very useful sites folks may want to bookmark:

http://www.lre.usace.army.mil/_kd/It...ation=ShowItem

http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/data/now/wlevels/dbd/

http://www.lre.usace.army.mil/greatl...eswaterlevels/