| Season 2024 here in the Central Basin is well underway now and The Trophy as per usual has been on the prowl already catching our early season Walleyes here in the deeper waters of Ashtabula. And fishing has been more then excellent for this early! Water Temperatures have been running above normal for this time of year already and that is like a gift from God! Nothing gets our resident Walleyes feeding heavily and the migrating Walleyes moving our way more then a little warmth in the water. From my years of experience, 60 degrees surface temperature seems to be the magic number. And as of this Memorial Day weekend, we’re there already and more! |
| I actually had my boat in the water back towards the end of April and though I had no paid trips that early, I did get out in April just to scout things out a bit and see if anything was going on. And to my pleasant surprise, the rods were bending immediately! With the first couple of rods that I set on my very first day on the water, they immediately doubled over before I could even get more rods set! Just a fantastic surprise where some springs the Walleye fishing starts out kind of slow in our colder water out east here. And by mid May when I started running my first charters for real for the season 2024, it was on big time and has been going strong ever since. |
| There has been two bands of fish from what I have been seeing. Some good fish in the extremely shallow “skinny” water tight to the shoreline and again a secondary heavier band of fish a bit further out in 40 to 50 foot of water. This is where we have been doing the best although I’ve been bouncing back and fourth between both areas. When in the shallower water of 10 to 20 foot aboard The Trophy we've been pulling Smithwick Perfect 10’s with good results off the big planer boards. And in the deeper water it’s been a full assault with everything that we have. True Trip Jet Divers on the big boards, Dipsy Divers and we've even caught down rigger fish already! Perhaps that’s why I’m doing better in the deeper water. We’re running double the amount of rods out there with the Dipsys and downrigger rods added to our already big spread. |
| So another season begins. My 38th year of full time chartering. Rather unbelievable to me but that’s where we are at. Perhaps I will make the big 4-0 after all! Ha! But before I worry about any of that we have a lot of trips that need to be run this summer. Hopefully things will just continue to get better and better from our already good start to the season that we are experiencing . Frankly that’s one of the reasons it’s so darn hard to walk away from this business after so many years. The fishing these last half dozen of years or so has been just so good and downright easy many of the days that it makes me want to stick around for some more. We shall see! Lol! I hope everyone has a successful and safe fishing season this year & Happy Memorial Day to everyone! Fish on! Capt. Walt Trophy Charters |
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