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| HOT! HOT! HOT! Both the weather and the fishing! More on the fishing in a moment. But first this summer of 2024 may go down as one of the hottest seasons that we've ever fished in. Maybe the hottest when it is all said and done. Daily high temperatures this past week alone have easily hovered in the mid 90’s each day. Yikes! And the summer solstice or the first day of summer officially didn’t even happen till June the 20th of this past week. Man if this continues on I cannot even imagine what it will do to our water temperatures. Water temps have already sailed easily well into the 70’s. It seems like just yesterday of this season that I was hoping it would reach 60 degrees which normally triggers good fishing around here in the deep waters of the central basin. If this trend continues I think it will compete with 1988, the year of our infamous heat wave and drought where water temps in the western basin reached a record of 86.2 degrees and the central basin wasn’t that far behind! |
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| I’ve been fishing Lake Erie a long time. 38 years chartering now and a good 10 years prior to that as a private fisherman. People always ask me what was the best year I ever saw on Erie. And without pause, I always answer 1988. My 2nd year of running a full time charter fishing boat out of Ashtabula Harbor. The personal records that I set for myself that year catching Walleyes will never be matched by anyone I do believe in this area. I was young and aggressive and my step son was my first mate and in total tune with the way I operated. He knew the faster we got done each day the sooner he could go home and hang out with his buddies. Back in those days we ran a true “6 pack” boat. We charged one rate for up to 6 people and guess what... that’s all we ever had! 6 people! And with me trying to launch a career doing this, there was no quit in me. I always felt we were not done till we had 48 Walleyes in the box. And 48 is what we had. Day after day after day. And we were still done early everyday! Looking back, I really don’t know how we did it. But for the non believers, put some money on it. I have album after album that I put together back in the day which I took to all of the sport shows back then. Page after page of rack fulls of 48 Walleyes caught each day along with many Steelhead and Coho Salmon which we also had back in those days. All this without starting our season early in Port Clinton or running any doubles either back then. We still caught over 5,000 keeper Walleyes that summer season (May thru September) out of just Ashtabula Harbor alone. Facts! |
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| But my point is, the heat and warm water only drives our fishing out here. Fish pour into this area to seek out the slightly cooler, bait rich waters. And with the warmer water the Walleyes metabolism is off the charts! They just become feeding machines! And we are already experiencing all of this. The fishing is just ridiculous right now. Limits are a easy thing and we are getting done at a very reasonable time of day and on most days we have been able to “beat the heat” because of it. But also unlike 1988, I no longer fish for “48” That ship has sailed a long time ago not saying that we couldn’t do it a lot of days out there now the way they are hitting. Just that at my age and exhaustion level I refuse and frankly can’t work that hard each day. Nowadays most trips are capped at 4 people maximum with the occasional 5 man trip which makes me grunt in the morning, lol! We will never again on my boat see the numbers that I put together in 1988. But the potential is there! The downside is that unlike in the 80’s and 90’s where all the Walleyes were truly huge lunkers, we now have a over abundance of juvenile and smaller keeper Walleyes that we have to deal with each day. So I guess if you're taking all of that into consideration and not just the fish that strictly make it to the brag board each day, we are handling probably even way more fish now then in any point in history. Did I mention I DIDN’T WANT TO WORK THIS HARD in my twilight years of my career! Lol! |
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| So the water is warming up super fast and the fish are already in a late summer pattern moving out further and further with each passing day now. The Walleyes are also super deep already and the Walleyes that we catch each morning have mouthfuls of Smelt and Shiners spewing from their mouths. Something a lot of years we don’t see until August. They are literal eating machines already! It’s been fun out there for everyone. Fortunately for me I have everybody trained for a super early departure time. Most days we cast off the dock at 4am or 4:30 at the very latest. We have a significant ride out to the fishing grounds now and we don’t want to miss out on the cool of the morning fishing and the crazy good bite that takes place each day at the break of dawn. We want to have our travel behind us and all the lines set at the first hint of light each day. Most productive sets for us now have been deep set Dipsy Divers and deep Downriggers. A few days we have dabbled with the wire line and crank bait program but when everything else is working that well why bother with all that cranking, right? 40 Jets and spoons run deep are still pulling some fish as well. When there is as many fish out there as is the situation right now and with them feeding as heavily as they are, it’s a very forgiving environment. Just about everything works and works well. Just get it down deep! Interesting times for sure right now with this record heat wave and with no real relief in sight either. We shall see how it all plays out. I see nothing but monstrous fuel bills in all of our futures with all of this silly warm water. Ugh! Capt. Walt Trophy Charters |
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