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Fast and Furious! And I don’t mean the movie! Wow what a summer of Walleye fishing everybody is having here offshore of Ashtabula Ohio. I am left speechless at the end of each day the longer this goes on. What used to take us 8 or 9 hours daily to do in past years we’re now doing in half the time or less daily and with super ease. Man if you're fishing out there now and you’re still struggling to catch fish perhaps golf would be a more suited sport for you! Lol! I have found no where you can go anymore or anything that you can do that is not on fire. You like using downriggers? They're working great! (*we’ve been playing with them a bit) Wire line? Guys are killing them with it. (personally I could care less if I ever see another wire line rod as long as everything else is working well) Planer boards with Jet divers? Smoking hot! Dipsy Divers & spoons? Really smoking hot! Many people are even drifting and casting worms with some sort of spinners and harnesses . Heck their limiting out some days even faster then us lowly trollers. It’s just unreal. Everything is working. In tight and shallow. Out just a little ways like 5 or 6 miles, all fantastic. Way out is getting really good too! It all depends on how much gas you’re willing to burn needlessly. Run your lures deep. It works. Run your lures high. It works. I shudder to think how many Walleyes must be out there right now for all of that to happen. Where the heck did all these Walleyes come from this year! |
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And the weather has been just spectacular for fishing up here on the big lake. Although now that I have said that it will probably be the kiss of death for all of us in these coming weeks! Lol! But the last two weeks again albeit a bit toasty has been picture perfect for Erie. Nearly flat seas of 1 to 2 foot waves or less for many weeks on now which is almost unheard of for Lake Erie. And as for that heat? If you get out early in the morning as we like to do aboard The Trophy you get to enjoy the cool of the morning before the sun gets up too high and starts to become a problem. We’ve had a few afternoon showers and thunderstorms that have passed by but if you’re still out there fishing from starting early in the morning again perhaps you should be out chasing that silly little white ball somewhere on some golf course instead of fishing! Ha! And the beautiful part about it as I write this little blog here practically in the middle of the month of July already is that I don’t see anything changing any time soon for us. At least for the coming week we will be locked in this same stationary weather pattern from what I’m seeing. Hot with very little wind with the slight chance of an afternoon stray shower here or there along with maybe a brief passing thunderstorm. I hope it doesn’t wake me up if it does while I’m taking my daily mid day nippy nap after working “so” very hard! Lol! One more thing that’s weather related before I move on. The water temperatures in Erie are SOARING! Official lake temps are being reported in the upper 70’s now and I am seeing that as well on all of my equipment. There is strong talk of possible all time record high water temps here on Lake Erie this summer. We’ll see! |
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So fishing is excellent and I hear a lot of my groups talk each day on how they are going to fix a few fillets as soon as they get home for dinner. One way that I’ve heard an awful lot of lately is fish Tacos! Man I bet I had three groups three days straight all say the same thing that they were were going to fix fresh Walleye Tacos for dinner and it really got my mouth watering because that’s one of our very favorite ways of having them. So I thought I would share on how we fix ours for those that may have never had them that way. We personally really like a soft Taco wrap. Everything that I’m going to list here can be bought at Wal-Mart. For the wrap we LOVE their La Banderita Carb Counter soft Tortilla Wrap. Then you chunk up some smaller pieces of fish and pan fry it in Zatarains New Orleans Style breading mix. Also known as their “Crispy Southern” flavor. After putting a few pieces in the soft wrap once you’ve fried up your fish, you cover it with finely shredded cabbage. Then the key to making this all work is to top it all off with some Hidden Valley Spicy & Zesty Secret Taco Sauce! Optional is to chunk up some ripe peeled Avocado and add that on top of everything. We ourselves love love love these soft Tacos fixed exactly like this including the Avocados on them! This is another recipe that is not up on our websites recipe page but like the Catalina Walleye recipe that I shared a few weeks ago here, try this one as well and you can all thank me later! (AGAIN!) This also helps stretch the Walleyes if you have more mouths to feed. Man, I should have been a Chef instead of a Captain! Lol! |
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As I mentioned, it’s mid July already! The 4th of July has now come and gone. Fishing pressure has really picked up out there finally and it seems like more and more fish are pouring into the area by the day if that’s even possible. This year’s fishing will go down in the record books as epic right along with quite possibly incredibly record warm water temps. Are the two related? Quite possibly! Will the fish move? I hope not. After replacing a relatively new engine towards the end of last season because of excessive wear and tear on machinery the last few years I’m not anxious to go through all of that again. And with fuel prices at the marina where I’m docked at stuck at $5.25 a gallon I’m also not eager in having to put three or four hundred bucks back into the fuel tank each day as we do when we have to start running out towards the border each day as in past years. Been there, done that and I have the broken engine piston parts to prove it. We’ll see what these next couple of weeks brings us. For now life is good and for a change I’m REALLY enjoying my job. Do I dare say I see year 40 (at least) in my future? That’s as long as Mother Nature and Mother Erie keeps playing nice with me! Capt. Walt Trophy Charters |
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