Fishing report for the week of May 6, 2012.: , ,
Fishing Report Posted: May 06, 2012

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Posted by Capt. Walt Ermansons on May 06, 2012 at 16:28:54:

Happy May ! Wow and we are a week deep into the month already to boot as well ! The weeks here are just flying by now. It’s hard to believe that I am down to just three weeks left here in the western basin before moving my entire operation to my home port of Ashtabula OH for the rest of the year. All of the Ashtabula Walleye trips are strictly trolling trips all summer. Here in the western basin in May we usually mix it up with still some drifting fishing trips here and there but start doing more and more trolling trips as the water warms even further and the fish start moving out. We do this for one reason. It just plain works ! This past Friday after drifting and jigging all of the month of April, I ran my very first trolling trip of the year. I kidded with the guys “gee, I hope I remember how to do all of this” ! And boy did I ever !

It was like old home days as we set the planer boards out for the first time this year and ran the Jet Diver rods and the Dipsy rods out to precision settings that had worked for me in past years here in the basin. For my first troll of the year I chose to fish the deeper water to the east of the big range markers east of all the reefs. It wasn’t long before the first rod went off. A NICE Walleye ! And then another one. And another one... One by one we picked off the 24 needed Walleyes for a 4 man limit for my party of four that day and the first trolling limit of this season. No real fire drills. Just a slow steady pick. And no wall hangers but just a very nice grade of fish. I liked it and the guys LOVED it. Everyone gets super involved on my trolling trips. I run no first mate. Everybody gets plenty of hands on experience aboard “The Trophy” as we work together as a team to fill the box. So, one trolling trip down now and about a hundred or so more to go this year! lol

I didn’t have too many other trips this past week. On Mondays outing we still jigged and after what seemed like forever and actually did turn out to be a very full day, we did manage to capture a 4 man limit of Walleyes for my four guests that day. Everyone worked very hard at it all day and I was very impressed the way everyone hung in there. Friday as I mentioned we trolled and on Saturday with a howling northeaster blowing (again) we tried bottom bouncing with some crawler harness up around the islands to try and get out of the big wind somewhat. It did not go very well. We caught a couple few fish and with lake conditions deteriorating very fast and a 4 to 6 footers forecast it was an early quit and back to the safety of port. That makes it three Saturdays in a row that it’s been a wash out up here. What is it with the weekends? Sunday started out half way decent but by mid morning it was blowing pretty good once again. We sucked it up and I cranked it out the furthest that I’ve run from Port Clinton harbor this year, about 18 miles to the west to fish west of A can where I heard they were still were having a jig bite in the deep water out that way. We did not limit but we pulled 17 super nice fish on one oz. purple jigs in that area. The first fish to the boat was about 28 inches and most of the others were no slouches. A very, very nice box full !

So as I mentioned in my last report, once again this coming week as well as the following week I still have all of my Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays still open for a mid week trip. I don’t know how much longer we can milk the jigging bite from here on out but we can always still cast and drag crawler harnesses for you die hard drift fisherman and we can certainly do my favorite thing now that things are heating up, troll up a big box of Walleyes. No matter what you choose, it’s all super fun and they all taste incredibly GREAT at the end of the day! Give me a call as always any time of day or night if you would like to secure one of these last few open dates. Even if you find out your not working the next day till the very last second and would like to go fishing. I am like a doctor on call. I am willing to go on even a moments notice if I am not already booked. It is what I do... Till next week, TIGHT LINES !

Capt. Walt





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