Lake Erie fishing report for the week of 4/13/14.: , ,
Fishing Report Posted: April 13, 2014

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Posted by Capt. Walt Ermansons on April 13, 2014 at 15:03:49:

Zero to Ninety. Just like the expression from a dead stop to ninety miles per hour, so our fishing season of 2014 begins. We went from being froze in with everything at least two weeks behind normal and from catching nothing to as good as it gets! The last few days here have been simply amazing in the western basin. Great weather and silly easy jig fishing for the Walleyes along the entire south shore of the lake and all of the traditional favorite reefs. I just have to shake my head at what a difference a day can make around here. It certainly doesn’t seem fair when I have to schedule everybody so far in advance and then have fate play out how their day or week is going to be and how the trips are going to go. Till we actually go, I don’t even know myself. Around here things change so quickly from day to day and many times from hour to hour.

“The Trophy” slipped into the Portage River on March 30th this spring, a full week later then any other year that I have trailered her up here in the past. And in reality, it was still a week too early this year! Although I was able to launch and fire the motors up, there was just no going anywhere. The lake itself was still froze as far as you could see. Although the river where the marina that launched me was open, there was no going back to even my own dock for another full week as the lagoon off the main river where I dock was still frozen as well! I spent the first week upriver, babysitting the boat and going nowhere. Pushing away icebergs from the boat as they flowed down the river and cancelling trips. Not the usual start to the season around here, that’s for sure. But when you have one of the worst and longest winters in decades if not ever, then I suppose that should be expected.

But we finally got some badly needed wind and rain and just about overnight the lingering ice did disappear and things settled back to a more normal early spring like condition. And in a matter of a couple few days thereafter, the fishing went quickly from bad, to so-so, to about as good as it gets! All the normal presentations that have worked in past seasons did the job for us after the fish started to cooperate. Aboard “The Trophy” we have been jigging our purple and John Deere green hair jigs with their accompanying trailering stinger treble hooks. Either 5/8 ounce or 3/4 ounce. No bait. And although casting the jig out and letting it settle to the bottom and hopping it back to the boat usually works very well, we have actually done better just vertical jigging off the boat with the windward side having the edge as to being the best spot on the boat.

So, I have been in the water for two weeks now, fishing one week and already looking at this coming weeks dismal forecast. Not too good for a few days from what it looks like. Winter or at least a strong cold front is supposed to re-visit us by Tuesday. They are even talking some S-N-O-W-! Yikes! Is it this winters final gasp? Will this be the last of it? Will it screw up the fishing? I don’t know, I don’t know, and I don’t know. What I do know is that if the weather permits, I will be back out there every day possible trying my very hardest for all the guys as I always do and then sadly let fate once again determine who is going to have a so-so day, a good day, and who is going to have a great day. I just have to SMH (shake my head) and wait and see myself how it all plays out. Stay tuned and welcome back to my little fishing blog!



Capt. Walt





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