It’s finally a wrap. The fishing season of 2014 is all but in the books for “The Trophy”! What started out seven months ago way back in March at Port Clinton, OH chasing early spring Walleyes came to a successful end today in Ashtabula, OH with our final Perch trip and trip of any sorts for this season. “The Trophy” comes out of the water tomorrow morning, Monday Oct. the 13th for a well earned long winters nap! The Captain and the old girl are both ready quite frankly. Its been a long and sometimes bumpy road!
It has been a couple of weeks now since my last fishing report. That doesn't happen too often. I had a lot of different things going on last weekend though so I let one slide there. And this one will now be the final one for this year. In the very last report that I did write, I was looking forward to a nice stretch of good weather and a nice run of Perch trips that I had on the books. And it all played out nicely. For the most part. Monday through Friday we had great weather and even greater Perch fishing. Man, we just slaughtered the Perch with many, many true Jumbos being caught everyday. But starting with last weekend we entered a very ugly stretch of wet, cool and nonstop windy days. There was a six day stretch there where nobody could get out no matter what. Other then loosing the weekend trips a week ago, I didn't have much scheduled this past week though so it wasn't a real crushing blow to me.
We resumed our fishing and my final few Perch trips this weekend and it all went about as well as can be expected after a really big blow. Even at that he lake was supposed to be 2 foot or less each day which of coarse it wasn't and was rather chilly to boot. Considering it blew hard for a solid week, it was a wonder that we caught anything at all. But we did manage to put together some nice boxes of fish in our last few outings regardless. Definitely not as good as it had been but decent enough. We even managed to catch a couple of bonus Walleyes while Perching this weekend! And quite a few others have as well this whole fall season. More so while Perching this year then I remember ever before really. It makes me think there must still be a good gang of them out there quite apparently!
So it’s over for another year. Year number 28 of full time chartering for me! I find that alone very mind boggling! Where did all these years go? Anyway this year will go down in my ever getting thicker book as a very good year. Not a great year, but pretty darn close to it. All in all, it was a rather coolish spring and summer this year with more then our share of rain. The Walleyes didn't seem to mind it however and averaging everything out, our catch rates were very good with many limit catches. The size of the Walleyes was ridiculously good as it has been for many years now as we continue to catch many big fish still from the monster hatch that we had way back in 2003. Very mature, big Walleyes. On a side note, reports are starting to come in from the Dept. of Natural Resources and other sources indicating that this years hatch was very strong also! A interesting story well worth following! OK, as I bring this final report to a close, as I do every year I want to thank all of my new friends and old friends that fished with me this season! I am humbled at how loyal most of my cliental has been over these many years. I thank each and everyone that fished with me this year from the bottom of my heart. Without your interest and continuing support, “The Trophy’ would have surely been dead in the water a long time ago. I’m not going to go ramble on and on about this but I do want everyone to know that I am very sincere in my appreciation for all of you guys! And finally, I want to thank everyone that has been following along here with my weekly little fishing blogs both on my website and on the Fish Lake Erie.com website. I hope you all enjoyed reading about my journey through this fishing season as much as I enjoyed sharing it all with you! So, till we meet again either right here on these fishing reports or on-board “The Trophy” itself, I bid everyone a final farewell for now and a very safe and healthy winter season. Stay warm and we’ll catch everyone again NEXT YEAR!!! Capt. Walt
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