GREAT fishing! It didn’t take very long for our Walleye fishing off of Ashtabula to go from good to GREAT! Aboard “The Trophy” we picked up right where we left off last summer in the height of our season with relatively easy limits again this past week. It was refreshing to be back to a few earlier quits as well! Man I’m really getting to love this early central basin fishing in this area. It just goes to show that the last few years upon my immediate return from Port Clinton where we got right into the Walleyes very good that it was no accident or fluke. There's just a lot of fish each year in this area well before June 1st and certainly well before most even think about trying this area. And if it weren't for this past May being the coolest May in 11 years according to Cleveland's Fox 8 meteorologists, I really believe it would have been hot and heavy weeks before this. There were plenty of marks on the graph right along but the fish were sluggish in the cooler then normal water. Now that we have gotten some hot weather and warmed the water some, it’s been game on!
And it’s not just Walleye swimming around out there either! Aboard “The Trophy” this past week I think we caught just about every specie that swims around out there. Monday particularly was very interesting. We caught plenty of Walleye of coarse but we also caught a big Channel Catfish, Sheephead, White Bass, White Perch, Yellow Perch, a COHO SALMON! And a BROWN TROUT! I’m like, WHAT! And though we got none that day, we went out the very next day and caught a nice Steelhead. We could have used one of those the day before that to have had a real Grand Slam to go along with our Brown Trout and Salmon that we had! Lol! Lots of fun!
The fish are creeping outward already though. We’re no longer lurking just around the corner and hugging the break walls. Actually, I’m not sure that you still couldn’t pull some from so close but now with more traffic all of a sudden it isn't practical to drop boards right in the pathway of people coming out of the harbor. We’ve been meandering in water depths ranging from 45 ft. to 65 ft. And honestly, its not pocket fishing. There seems to be a nice spread of fish in any direction that we’ve gone. A very, very good thing! Same program to catch these fish as we’ve been using. Tru Trip jet divers and spoons. The fish are up and down too although I personally have had better luck with the slightly deeper fish. With that in mind we’ve even dabbled with the wire fishing line and crank baits already with mixed results but I don’t want to go to that well till we really have too! Nice to know that you have a variety of weapons to fall back on though if need be!
So up to now we’ve had pretty decent weather for all of my trips to date except for a day or so which we still managed to stumble through. This weeks coming forecast for the beginning of the week however looks somewhat troublesome. Some kind of cold front or something coming in for Monday & Tuesday at least knocking temps back into the 60’s. That alone I could care less about. It does however if you can believe the different sources that I check daily to be accompanied with strong westerly winds for a couple of days. We’ll have to see how it plays out but Monday and Tuesday may be no-go’s. A real shame too with the fishing setting up as good as it is right now. More fearful then that is the fear that it might change things out there for the worst from where its at right now. That is always possible! I still have Thursday the 9th available. Perhaps I can bump one or the other of my first part of the weeks trips back a couple days. I’m about ready for a day off anyway. We’ve had a pretty good run at them already! Stay tuned...
Capt. Walt
Celebrating Our 30th Season!
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