Fishing report for the week of May 5, 2013.: , ,
Fishing Report Posted: May 05, 2013

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[ Lake Erie & Tributaries Fishing Report ]

Posted by Capt. Walt Ermansons on May 05, 2013 at 20:56:46:

A few really good days and a few slower days. But incredibly great weather the entire week ! That about sums up how our first week of May went down for us. It's been a long time since we had such pleasant weather to fish in. Certainly not since last year even though we’ve been fishing already for six entire weeks here in the western basin. We couldn’t put together a string of two good weather days back to back in the first five weeks I’ve been here and then this whole past week it was just a joy to be out there, even on the slower days.

And that’s the way it goes around here this time of year. It seems like its awful hard to get everything just perfect. You either have great fishing in less than desirable conditions or you get a knock out gorgeous day and then the fish decide to go on a hiatus! But we still caught fish on all of our outings so I guess we can be thankful for that. I believe the spike in the water temperature coupled with the extremely bright warm sunny days this past week is what has put the nail in the coffin for this final part of our jigging season. It was going pretty strong while the weather was lousy and many times unfishable. Now with the spawn all but over with, the easy and fun jigging part of our season that so many look forward to is just about all over with for this year in my opinion finished off by this really nice weather.

That prompted me to blow the dust and cob webs off the old trolling gear and give it a shot on Friday to get back to our winning ways. And we were not disappointed. After a long run from downtown Port Clinton, we went to work and set up North of Kelly's Island in the 30 foot plus foot of water. It seemed really strange after fishing in 10-12 foot of water for the spawning fish for so long. Although the marks on the sonar were scarce, we started to pick away at them and when it was all said and done, we ended up with a incredible box full of mostly spawned out female Walleyes. Tru Trip Divers 60 foot back off the big planer boards with Scorpion Spoons did most of the damage for us. We did a few on the big Dipsys but not very many. All and all a very enjoyable and productive day.

Saturday was kind of a strange day for us. We started out jigging and caught a handful but it was very slow for us and then with the memories of the day before fresh in my head we decided to run out and try trolling. Well again we caught a handful of good sized ones trolling but then that died for us. Such is fishing. Sunday with my ace jigging crew on board we elected to strictly drift one final day and somehow, someway we managed to capture 24 very nice Walleyes and a couple of Yellow Perch. I think most all others still struggled jigging. We either got very lucky or these guys are just that good. Personally I think it was a little bit of both and still believe it was the final gasp of our dying jigging bite out here. I am leaning towards just the trolling program from here on out and getting that figured out in earnest as these post spawn fish all start moving out to the deeper water. I’ll have more to report about all of that next week. By the way, I have this Thursday, May the 9th open for anybody that might want to sneak away and go troll up some monsters with me this week. I think that’s what its going to take from here on out. Call me if you would like to give it a try on this open date with me. Tight lines.

Capt. Walt





[ Lake Erie & Tributaries Fishing Report ]

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