Fishing report for the week of April 29, 2012,: , ,
Fishing Report Posted: April 30, 2012

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[ Lake Erie & Tributaries Fishing Report ]

Posted by Capt. Walt Ermansons on April 30, 2012 at 17:54:12:

A nasty, nasty week ! Much of last week was unfishable and the aftermath of the heavy weather did not do our Walleye fishing here in the western basin any favors. Monday and Tuesday saw last weekends stiff winds worsen to full fledged gales. Gale warnings went up on Sunday night and did not come down till the wee morning hours on Wednesday morning. By far the worst 48 hour wind event that we have had all of April. And I’m pretty sure all of March as well as March this year was more summer like and tranquil then even most Mays around here. To give you an idea of how hard it blew for two days up here on Erie, here is a dramatic little YouTube video that I came across on the internet showing the monster waves incredibly busting completely over the light house in Cleveland on Monday. I’m sure this will not be a live link for you, but I urge you to go ahead and copy and paste this into your browser and check it out. Make sure you turn your speakers up and go full screen. It is simply AMAZING to watch Erie's mighty force and fury: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNGgpzjAaSY&feature=player_embedded

We managed to get a few trips in afterwards but the dirty water left in the heels of the big winds really took its toll on our productivity. Trying to get something going for the guys, I spent one day jigging way up north around the Islands. We found a few active fish in between Rattle Snake and Middle Bass Island in the deep water. The key word here however is “few”. We only laded a handful of Walleyes that day although they were all pretty nice sized spawned out females. I was really surprised at the amount of Sheephead that we caught up north also including a few real behemoth ones ! We had a few other Walleyes come off up there as well. I’m totally sure they were Walleyes because nobody in history has ever lost old rubber lips ! Man, every one of those creeps that we caught up there had every hook possible buried in that rubber like face and mouth. I could hardly get them out even with the darn pliers. How come all the Walleyes always come in just barely hooked and if you even look at them funny, the hooks fall out ! Just plain crazy.

The rest of my time was spent on my regular favorite reefs but with no great numbers of fish taken as we were doing before this blow. This was definitely the slowest week that I and most everyone else I believe have had this entire spring. One thing I have to say though. The water is cleaning up REALLY fast! I think there is a huge difference between when the river systems are pumping out the mud in to the lake because of flooding rains such as we had all of last spring and a strictly wind driven event like we had last week. I think in just a couple of more days, all of last weeks damage done to the water clarity in most areas will be completely undone. It’s literally cleaning up in front of your eyes in a lot of areas. Today, Sunday we managed about a dozen fish around Locust Reef and that area was almost too clean already ! Sadly though, there is no doubt in my mind that this springs spawning Walleye run is just about over. That coupled with the dirtier then we would like water still in a lot of areas is adding to the slower fishing for most at the moment.

So in preparation for the flipping of the page on the calendar from April to May, I’ve already loaded a fresh flat of night crawlers on to “The Trophy” and have been very busy preparing all of the trolling gear as well just in case there are days where we have to go to the plan “B”! Most of these spawning fish up until now have not really been eating at all but have been aggressively just hitting anything that comes near them out of aggravation. That’s why the irritating vertical jigging presentation draws so many strikes during the spawn. Now that this phase of this yearly ritual is just about over, these fish that have not really ate in many weeks are going to be putting on the feed big time. And I for one am here to serve up some nice fat juicy worms for them ( or plastic lures should they choose, lol ) ! If the weather stays nice, we should be right back into good numbers of fish very soon. Just with a different kind of presentation. Speaking of weather, it looks like the worst is behind us now and May is going to arrive with the 70’s back into the forecast once again. Also speaking of May, as I look at my calendar, for the next coming three weeks straight I have all of the Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays still available for a trip. Anyone interested in helping me feed these starving Walleyes on any of those dates, please call me at 216-387-2656 ! lol CYA next week !

Capt. Walt





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