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| Going Good! Well we are nearly two months in now with our Ashtabula Ohio Walleye summer fishing season. And yes, it is officially now summer with the Summer Solstice ringing in this past Wednesday, June the 21st. And lately we’ve been getting some nice warm summer like temperatures. It wasn’t pretty but I finally also got brave enough to wear a pair of shorts out there on my charters this past week. Coincidentally, starting on the first day of summer! You want to talk about a white pair of legs! Lol! But till now, leaving in the dark in the early morning with air temps hovering around the upper 40’s and low 50’s with a cool wind blowing most days, wearing a pair of shorts just to be styling out there was the last thing on my mind! Water temperatures have also finally leap frogged to 67 degrees after struggling to reach 60 degrees for over a month. The warmer water temps also make it a lot more comfortable out there in a pair of shorts and a tee shirt even in the early morning. |
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| And as I started out saying, fishing is consistently very good now. There seems to be many different bands of Walleyes filling in from wherever they may be coming from out there. I pulled a couple trips off in 30 foot of water, spent a solid week back in the 50 to 60 foot range and the rest of my days well offshore 10 to 14 miles out. Every where I fished we caught good Walleyes. Unfortunately with the influx of new Walleyes spilling into the area, a onslaught of undersized smaller fish have followed them down the lake. Some days, almost unbearable. Going about as fast as we can go most mornings cycling thru keepers and throwbacks becomes exhausting! One for one isn’t too bad but when you start having to deal with 3 or 4 or even worst for every keeper that you get, well it’s time to just get out of Dodge and go looking for greener pastures! |
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| And that’s what I did. We left the ferocious fast and furious inside waters bite and returned back out there to the offshore fishery where bites are fewer and further apart but the quality of fish is better and there is less babies out there. The same place I found the fish two weeks ago but suddenly left them! Why I even left out there and came back to the inside waters and baby Hell, I’m not quite sure. Maybe it’s something to do with the marina fuel price hovering at $6.00 a gallon! And the fact that after much weeding threw, we were still able to pull limits of nice Walleyes a bit closer. But a man can only take so much punishment. When you literally can’t keep the little guys off your lines, it’s time to go back offshore no matter how ugly the fuel bills have already become this early in the summer! But even out there with each passing day we are starting to handle more and more of the dreaded throwbacks. Ugh! ENOUGH WITH THE RECORD WALLEYE HATCHES EACH YEAR MOTHER NATURE! I mean, SERIOUSLY! |
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| So we’ve had a perfect string of limit Walleye catches now since about Memorial Day. Some incredible rack fulls at that. This final picture featured here in my fishing report is from my annual visit of Iowa boys that come for two days and request a second boat each year to keep the party size down on each boat. I really appreciate that! Thank you Matt and Chris Hoopes for being my second boat! You guys did great! We did this same rack full both days with the boys taking home right around 120 Walleyes for the two days that they fished with us! Wow is all I can say! You guys will be eating a lot of tasty Walleye dinners! I rarely give out any names in my fishing reports like others do all the time on social media but I want to give Ron from Wisconsin and his group and Chad from Iowa and all of his guys that came out a special shout out. You guys were a ton of fun to run! I really, really do appreciate all of your friendship, laughs and generosity this year and all of the many, many past years that we’ve fished together. It’s been a heck of a run that we’ve all had! The only thing that I don’t appreciate is all of the threats that no way, no how can I retire till you guys grant me permission to do so! Just too funny and I guess I’ll be seeing you guys next year! Lol! Capt. Walt Trophy Charters |
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